Octava Minerals Begins Capital Raise to Advance Acquisition of Federation Project in Tasmania
Octava Minerals (ASX: OCT) has received strong investor support for its plans to purchase the Federation metals project in Tasmania through the acquisition of current owner Magnes 25.
A number of new sophisticated and professional investors have helped Octava bring in approximately $457,500 in the first tranche of a placement that is aiming to raise a total of $1.5 million.
The placement saw 15,250,007 ordinary Octava shares issued at $0.03 per share, with timing for the next stage to be voted on at an upcoming general meeting.
Multi-Element Prospect
Federation is made up of two granted tenements in close proximity to a number of mining centres with processing and infrastructure, as well as a number of Hydro Power Stations.
Historical drilling in the late 1970s at Federation’s Sweeneys prospect encountered significant intersections of copper, zinc and silver, including 23 metres at 1.19% copper, 1.70% zinc, 121 grams per tonne silver and 1.17% tin.
Chief executive officer Bevan Wakelam noted that – due to a focus on tin exploration at the time – those results were never followed up, making the option to acquire Federation a unique opportunity for Octava.
“The western region of Tasmania has a strong history of prospectivity and mineral discovery [and] the historic mineral grades, alteration assemblages and geological structures encountered at Federation point to a potentially significant discovery opportunity,” he said.
Byro Test Work
The Federation agreement was a highlight of the company’s recent June quarter, in which Octava also received positive news from Stage 1 metallurgical test work on ore from its Byro rare earths and lithium project in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region.
Conducted by the CSIRO, the studies uncovered a culture that Octava can readily adapt to the Byro samples, showing good cell growth, ferrous iron oxidation and acid generation.
Previous exploration at Byro identified large anomalous halos over 40km in strike length and 20km wide measuring up to 540 parts per million of rare earth oxides and as much as 180ppm lithium oxide.
The tenement area also contains nine historical holes that have recorded anomalous lithium over large thickness from near surface.