Emmerson, a potash development company, has announced a significant investment from Global Sustainable Minerals (GSM), which will result in GSM holding a 20.3% stake in the company.
This move also grants GSM the right to appoint a representative to Emmerson’s board of directors. The investment involves GSM subscribing to 90.7 million Emmerson shares, worth $2m (£1.58m), priced at 1.75p each.
In addition to GSM’s investment, Gold Quay Capital is contributing $175,000 for nearly eight million shares, which will give it a 2.64% stake in Emmerson upon completion of the subscriptions.
Both GSM and Gold Quay will receive warrants to subscribe for new shares at an exercise price of 3p by 31 December.
The funds raised from these investments, along with proceeds from another share offer on the REX platform, are earmarked for advancing studies on Emmerson’s KMP technology and the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the Khemisset project in Morocco.
The potash company has also recently updated its EIA submission to Morocco’s Commission Régionale Unifiée d’Investissement (CRUI) to address previous concerns and highlight improvements, including the integration of the KMP technology.
This technology is expected to significantly reduce water consumption and eliminate brine disposal at the mine.
The CRUI is set to review the revised EIA, which now includes a scoping study on the KMP processing route, in the coming weeks.
Emmerson is planning to progress KMP to the feasibility study stage subsequently.
The Khemisset project, with its full suite of fertilisers containing potash, phosphates, nitrogen, magnesium and iron from a single deposit, is poised to offer a unique solution to food insecurity challenges in some regions, according to Emmerson.
To allow existing shareholders to invest at the same placing price of 1.75p as the subscription investors, Emmerson will also launch a retail offer of shares on the REX platform, contingent on the subscription’s completion.
Emmerson CEO Graham Clarke said: “Following the news last month that the Ministerial Committee had upheld the referral of our environmental approval, we have been working to update the EIA to incorporate the various improvements that the KMP has enabled.
“While we maintain the previous EIA submission was adequate, we believe this, in addition to the previous optimisations, makes the revised EIA even more environmentally robust, and addresses all material concerns related to water that have been raised in the past.”
