Australian exploration and development company Larvotto Resources on Thursday announced a A$30-million capital raise to continue advancing its Hillgrove antimony project.

The capital raise, which saw the placement of 57.7-million new shares at A$0.52 each, received strong support from both existing and new sophisticated and institutional investors, both domestically and offshore.

Managing director Ron Heeks described the fundraising as the culmination of a year marked by significant progress and achievements at Hillgrove.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that in a rapidly evolving geopolitical climate, the strategic value of high-grade, Western-world sourced antimony is highly significant,” said Heeks.

Along with the capital raised through the placement, Larvotto has secured additional funding through the exercise of its initial public offer options and a recently announced offtake agreement involving antimony pre-payments. These combined efforts place the company in a strong financial position to continue advancing development at the Hillgrove project.

The funding will also allow Larvotto to accelerate its exploration activities at Hillgrove, including an underground drilling programme designed to target deeper inferred mineralisation. The aim is to move this mineralisation into a higher resource category.

“The attractive economics of our prefeasibility study are underpinned by a well-understood and high-grade antimony/gold reserve that can rapidly be increased from nearby mineralisation that is under drilled. The large amount of drilling planned over the next 12 months will provide a continual flow of results to support expansion of the reserve base,” said Heeks.

He added that the company remained encouraged by the successful drilling results since taking ownership of the Hillgrove project. “We are confident that further exploration in this highly mineralised area will allow Larvotto to examine mine-life extensions and the introduction of even higher-grade material earlier into our mine sequencing.”

With drill rigs turning and project development progressing, Heeks believes the coming year will be particularly exciting for Larvotto shareholders. “The year ahead in 2025 shapes as a particularly exciting time for the shareholders of our company. We look forward to providing ongoing updates with respect to the increasingly strategic Hillgrove project.”

Larvotto aims to produce 5 400 t/y of antimony at Hillgrove, representing 7% of global production.