Magnis raises $1.5m to advance its Townsville battery “gigafactory” plans

Magnis Energy Technologies, one of the companies behind plans to build a lithium-ion battery “giga-factory” in Queensland’s north, is tapping investors for $1.5 million through an ordinary share placement.

The ASX-listed company said on Tuesday that a 20,000,000 share placement, issued at $A0.075 a share and without a prospectus, had received firm commitments from professional, sophisticated and institutional investors to raise $A1.5 million.

Magnis, which has ambitions to become a leading global producer of next-generation green credentialed lithium-ion battery cells, said it had been buoyed by the show of strong investor support.

“We are encouraged by the strong interest shown in our capital raising which was done at a small discount to the previous closing price,” said Magnis chair Frank Poullas in a statement.

“Our facility with Negma still has close to $A5 million remaining and along with today’s placement, has improved the company’s financial position.”

Magnis aims to use the money to develop its Nachu graphite project in Tanzania and its proposed battery cell manufacturing facilities in New York and in Townsville, Australia.

The cost of the proposed Townsville “gigafactory” was recently put at around $A3 billion by Magnis, but is expected to deliver a handsome internal rate of return of around 21 per cent to the consortium investors.

As RenewEconomy has reported, Magnis has been looking at the battery plant for several years now, and has flagged plans to produce 18GWh of battery cells a year to meet the emerging storage needs in the shift to renewables, and the anticipated switch to electric vehicles.

In October of 2019, the Imperium3 Townsville (“iM3TSV”) consortium – which alongside Magnis includes Siemens, Boston Energy and Innovation, Eastman Kodak and US battery outfit C4V and C&D Assembly – completed a final feasibility study for the project that envisaged initial production beginning towards the end of 2022 and full production by 2027.

Staged construction, over three separate periods, was hoped to make financing more manageable ($1.2 billion for the first stage), and allow subsequent stages to be committed as the market evolved.

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