The explorer has secured firm commitments for A$46.9 million at 73c, a 14% discount.
It means the company has $59 million on the balance sheet.
Managing director Darren Gordon said the funds would be used to de-risk and grow Jaguar as the company advanced front-end engineering design, pre-development work and financing discussions ahead of delivery of the definitive feasibility study and a final investment decision over the next 12 months.
Funds will also be expended on the recently ramped up Jaguar Deeps program.
Gordon said there was strong interest in the upscaled placement, and in Centaurus’ new strategic partnering process, which indicated it may be able to get Jaguar into production with minimal equity dilution for shareholders.
The DFS is expected for delivery later this year, with partner selection and FID to follow later in 2024.
With the recent acquisition of the offtake rights from Vale, Gordon said Centaurus had “full control and optionality” over finance and offtake discussions.
Centaurus acquired Jaguar from Vale in 2019 for US$220,000 up-front, deferred consideration payments of $6.75 million, a production royalty of 0.75% and offtake rights.
Those offtake rights will be extinguished in return for an increase in the net operating revenue royalty to 1.75% for nickel sulphate and 2% for nickel concentrate.
Jaguar already has a globally significant 948,900 tonnes of contained nickel in resources.
Cobalt and zinc are also present and have been successfully extracted.
At Jaguar Deeps, new rigs and survey equipment have been mobilised to assess targets below the existing resource to depths of 1500m.
The deepest drilling to date at Jaguar South returned results such as 20.4m at 3.94% from 612m, while work at Onca Preta delivered 36m at 1.27% from 484m, including 6m at 2.02%.
The new drilling is designed to step-out over 400m below the previous deepest drill holes.
The company hopes the results will lead to a significant increase in Jaguar’s nickel sulphide endowment.
Argonaut Securities and SCP Resource Finance acted as joint lead managers to the placement, supported by Euroz Hartleys and Canaccord Genuity as co-managers.
Argonaut has a speculative buy rating and $1.95 price target.
