Galaxy in November announced plans to raise the funds to finance the Stage 1 development of its Sal de Vida project, in Argentina.

The company on Tuesday said that the retail entitlement offer, which had been conducted on the basis of 1-for-14 at a price of A$1.70 each, had closed on December 10 raising some A$38-million.

Combined with the A$123-million raised under the institutional component of the entitlement offer and a concurrent placement, total proceeds of the capital raise now stood at A$161-million.

The Stage 1 development would consist of a brine evaporation and processing operation at Salar del Hombre Muerto, producing technical grade lithium carbonate.

The Stage 2 project would be a duplicate of Stage 1, while the third stage would introduce the refining of the primary carbonate into battery grade.

An updated feasibility study previously estimated that the project would require a capital investment of $474-million to produce some 25 000 t/y of battery grade lithium carbonate and 95 000 t of potash over a mine life of 40 years.