Premier African Minerals Limited (AIM: PREM) has raised £1.2 million before expenses through a direct subscription to support the planned restart of operations at its Zulu Lithium and Tantalum Project.
The company will issue 27,522,935,780 new ordinary shares at 0.00436p each to institutional and professional investors.
The scale of the fundraising is highly dilutive. Premier had 50.1 billion shares in issue before the subscription, meaning the new shares are equivalent to roughly 55% of the previous share capital and will represent about 35.5% of the enlarged company.
Premier African Minerals: Can Zulu Outrun the Dilution?
Following admission, Premier will have 77,597,203,602 ordinary shares in issue.
The net proceeds will principally fund operating expenditure at Zulu, including personnel, diesel, reagents, consumables, essential creditors and general working capital.
Management now intends to restart the processing plant using approximately 13,000 tonnes of ore already available on the run-of-mine pad.
Premier is targeting an initial operating campaign lasting approximately 15 days.
During that period, the company will assess plant throughput, spodumene recoveries, operational stability and product quality.
The strategy represents a change from Premier’s earlier plan to build a larger ROM stockpile before restarting processing.
Managing director Graham Hill said the board now believes the best use of available resources is to process the ore already stockpiled and demonstrate satisfactory plant performance.
Personnel, diesel, reagents and other consumables are being mobilised, while supplier engineers are expected to attend site to support operations and further optimisation of the spodumene flotation plant.
If the campaign performs satisfactorily and sufficient working capital remains available, Premier may then move additional blasted ore currently available within the EPO to the ROM pad and extend processing beyond the initial 15 days.
The company may also consider remobilising mining activities, but that decision has not yet been taken.
For investors, the immediate catalyst is therefore not simply the restart itself but whether the plant can demonstrate stable throughput, acceptable recoveries and consistent spodumene concentrate quality during the 15-day campaign.
A successful campaign could strengthen Premier’s position when seeking additional funding and provide evidence that Zulu can sustain continued operations.
However, the announcement also makes clear that operations beyond the initial campaign remain dependent on satisfactory plant performance and the availability of further working capital.
Admission of the new subscription shares to AIM is expected on or around 9 October 2026.
