At the time I wrote that article, there were only three companies set to list that month.

Now in December, revisiting the question, I’m seeing a repeat pattern – as of December 19, there are only three companies set to list in January of 2024.

The Australian Securities Exchange’s David Park confirmed to The Market Herald the following figures for 2023:

What’s more, the pool of companies set to list in early 2024 is already smaller than it was looking only weeks ago.

One company that was intending to list early next year, XLR8 Metals, has withdrawn its application for now.

Bear with me on a tangent here, because it’s relevant – particularly so for the Australian stock market.

XLR8 was going to be a nickel miner, but with nickel prices down nearly 40 per cent over the last year, it’s not hard to see why they might wait for a better environment.

The reason XLR8 might be scared off by low nickel prices is the same reason ASX-listed uranium miners have only just started kicking back up again.

When commodity prices for any metal are low, many junior explorers can’t justify the economics of spending on exploration.

Uranium’s return to pre-Fukushima prices earlier this year, for example, explains the sudden uptick in activity from uranium miners in late 2023. Suddenly, the economics make a lot more sense.

But while uranium could very well have a solid 2024, a lot of other commodities are suffering.

Our national bourse, of course, is chock full of miners. You can probably see where I’m going with this. But first, more numbers.

As of the afternoon of December 19, take a look at year-on-year (YoY) price movements for the below commodities, according to TradingEconomics:

While these declines need to be situated in the context of easing post-COVID supply chain pressures, there’s also the issue of China’s economic slowdown.

And that’s a potential problem heading into 2024 for ASX IPOs.

Thanks for sticking with me, because I’m about to make my point.

It’s no secret that, like Canada’s TSX, the ASX is heavily exposed to mining. We are, after all, a resource-rich export country.

So if commodity prices are too low for many juniors to take on the massive risk of listing an exploration company – then one can predict this will impact how many explorers decide to go public in 2024.

To not get too doomsaying, let’s ask: what commodities are doing well?

The only two commodities that have really seen decent gains this year are uranium, as mentioned above, and iron ore.

Luckily, Australia has lots of both.

It’s also lucky our national budgets depend on iron ore, oil, and gas prices. Never forget Australia is basically Texas Of The South.

The thing about iron ore is – with Rio Tinto, BHP, Fortescue, Mineral Resources and South32 all in the mix, the space is pretty crowded.

And so what about lithium? Even if lithium prices recover on some shock supply disruption, you can probably bet we won’t see activity equivalent to 2021 and 2022 – sometimes it feels like there’s one lithium explorer on the bourse for every Australian alive today.

The Australian market collectively continues to reward any company that finds a rock visually similar to lithium on-site, but I wager investors aren’t quite yet acknowledging just how much lithium prices have fallen this year.

I imagine in 2024 we’ll see that realisation start to take shape, but, you know what they say – markets can stay irrational longer than you think.

Anyway. Does all of this mean we’ll see a wave of uranium miners list on the ASX in 2024? It’s possible – but impossible to know for sure.

The good news is that commodity prices tend to be receptive to unexpected changes in supply, so, it’s entirely plausible that we could indeed see shock supply shortages changing things up.

It’s not like mining companies are the only companies on the bourse. While banks are suffering as a sector right now, Commonwealth Bank remains among the ASX’s biggest mainstays alongside named like BHP.

We’ve also got a fairly robust healthcare sector, despite losing popularity during the lithium era. Just look at LTR Pharma, a new ASX constituent selling nasal Viagra.

But while six stocks were listed on the Aussie bourse in December of 2023, it appears this is the biggest flurry of activity in one month we’re going to see for at least another few.

In a research note released in August of 2023, Morgan Stanley analysts predicted that the ASX IPO market will start to recover towards the end of 2024.

I know what you’re thinking. That’s incredibly boring. Are there any prospects of a revival coming sooner?

Any at all?

That depends, and as with all things markets, it depends mostly on who you ask.

Of course: interest rate cuts will help everything. All eyes are to remain on the Fed through 1H CY2024 – that much is obvious.

Unfortunately, it’s probably worth noting that Canva has decided it won’t list on the ASX until 2025.

This harmonises with the caution from Morgan Stanley analysts, and given Canva’s popularity among Sydney fund managers eager for a new Australian tech darling, it’s probable Canva’s Board have read that same research.

Canva, for the uninitiated, is a company owned by Perth-based Melanie Perkins. The company’s flagship product is effectively a Photoshop competitor.

Canva attracts extremely high valuations for a company ultimately reliant on people buying a type of product that other providers offer online for free.

Regardless, Canva is by far one of the hottest-watched potential IPOs in Australia, matched in status only by other big names like Virgin Australia.

Virgin, which has been talking about a new listing for years – back in the day, it was on the bourse – has also repeatedly delayed its plans for a listing over the last few years.

Virgin Australia could list in 2024, but, I’d be surprised if it happens before July.

We were treated to the news Chemist Warehouse will join the bourse in late 2023, but Chemist Warehouse isn’t really doing an IPO – in layman’s terms, it’s just setting up shop inside a company already on the bourse.

It’s not like Morgan Stanley is the only one in Australia with predictions on the ASX IPO market in 2024, either.

But at the end of the day – the reality is, nobody can be entirely sure what the ASX 2024 IPO market will look like.

I’m willing to bet that a pick-up in activity will occur towards the end of the 2024 calendar year – per Morgan Stanley – and I expect a lot of that will have to do with the first US Fed rate cut.

BlackRock, Citigroup, and others expect that to start happening in the second half of 2024. Market punters are far more bullish on the prospect it could happen earlier, but I wouldn’t hold my breath, personally.

Ernst & Young, for instance, expects enthusiasm to pick up for IPOs in 2024, but in my view, that’s a bit of a nothing statement. Of course, it will be. Everybody is waiting for IPOs to go back to normal.

We could see some carbon-market-related stocks list on the ASX, maybe. UBS expects ESG to become a popular theme again in 2024.

At the same time, per Carbon Pulse, the ASX is set to launch a carbon credits futures trading platform later in the year.

But with Fitch Ratings expecting global economic headwinds to remain in place through 2024, it’s most probable we aren’t going to bounce back to pre-COVID levels.

Canva, regrettably, probably has the right idea. Then again, maybe not.

Just think about how good that first US Fed rate cut rally’s gonna be, though.

This could be the last spurt of IPOs we’ll see for the rest of 2023, a year marked by a lack of new listings.

Consider that Canva has rescheduled its IPO plans until as late as 2026, and there are only three so far for November.

But that hasn’t deterred everybody.

Here are the top seven ASX stocks to watch in the IPO market this month:

Owner and operator of early childhood education and care centres Nido Education listed on October 16 at $1.00 per share.

The company raised $99.2 million, 2023’s third-largest ASX IPO. Cannacord Genuity acted as underwriter.

“Nido” is Italian for “nest” and the company is run by former Think Childcare boss Mat Edwards.

Since listing, the share price has dropped 3.5 per cent to 96.5 cents. Share turnover is also low, so far.

WA exploration miner CGN Resources listed today for 20 cents a share.

Its IPO was jointly led by Oracle Capital and 708 Capital. The explorer is focusing on WA’s West Arunta region for copper, nickel, and rare earths.

Called the Webb project, its acreage is confirmed prospective by historical diamond drill cores. The venture is headed by Metso Outotec’s Darryl Harris.

Shares were slightly lower heading toward market close today, trading at 19.5 cents.

Here’s an interesting one.

Freedom Care lists on October 19. It’s raising $3.2 million and Novus Capital acted as lead manager, shares will list at 20 cents.

Freedom Care is actually a company called Resource Generation, or ResGen, which owns a coal mine in South Africa. ResGen will now rename and start providing NDIS services.

What exactly a coal miner can teach a carer remains to be seen. Worth noting is that Sydneysider finance personality Zoran Grujic wrote the opening gambit for the prospectus.

ResGen, which de-listed off the ASX in October last year, has been keeping a pretty healthy pro-coal blog ever since.

Note: on the day it was supposed to list, Freedom Care shifted its listing date to 9 November.

Far Northern lists on October 23 raising $6 million at 20 cents per share to acquire Bridge Creek Pty Ltd, giving the company full access to three tenements in the NT.

Those will join its northern Australian portfolio between NT and QLD. The company is sniffing out gold and base metals.

Headed by Roderick Paul Corps, the company owns 100 per cent of Rocks Reef and 73.6 per cent of the Empire gold project.

Empire boasts a resource estimate of under 25,000 ounces of gold and the company included “$850,000 worth of mining equipment” into its prospectus. Make of that what you will.

Can you guess what this company does?

Great Dirt lists on October 23 raising $5 million at 20 cents a share. Westar Capital act as lead manager.

The manganese explorer is betting on future market projections the metal will be swept up along with decarbonisation.

Chaired by Jeremy Whybrow, Great Dirt is going on the hunt for its target metals – and “potentially” others – at its Doherty and Basin projects respectively near Barraba in NSW.

The Doherty project has in the past churned out decent manganese production, as noted in Great Dirt’s prospectus.

Another day, another miner in the lucky country.

Chariot Corp lists on October 26 raising $15.5 million at 45 cents a share. Wilsons Corporate Finance and Jett Capital jointly manage.

The ASX-listed but US-based lithium explorer is on the hunt for Australia’s favourite battery metal across its core Black Mountain and Resurgent projects respectively.

Black Mountain is hard rock while Resurgent is a claystone lithium asset. Both suggest high-grade mineralisation at surface, the company says.

Chaired by Murray Bleach, the company also has six other projects on its radar.

Already listed in New York on the NYSE, and on Toronto’s TSX, Newmont is now coming to the land down under on October 27.

The global miner will adopt the ticker code NEM when its Chess Depositary Interests hit the bourse following its acquisition of Newcrest (ASX:NCM).

Newcrest shareholders will receive 0.4 Newmont shares for every share held plus a locked-in US$1.10 per share dividend.

The company entered the trading halt on Thursday morning citing the planned capital raise, though it has not yet revealed the details of the raise.

At this stage, shares will resume trade by market open on Monday morning, by which stage Unith plans to have announced how much it seeks to raise and how it will go about raising the funds.

The company is fresh off a major rebranding in late-2022 when it changed its name from Crowd Media to Unith to better reflect the ongoing development of its “clean, commercial and agile” conversational AI technology.

The company’s core Talking Head technology is designed to humanise chatbots and improve business-human interactions.

Through its tech, Unith hopes to provide a way for businesses to use AI to onboard and educate customers, upsell products, handle complaints, and more — all with a digital avatar and AI voice to improve the customer experience.

The company said in an investor presentation on Thursday it was integrating into the tech a deep knowledge base, AI-generated, contextualised real-time conversation, and accessibility on any platform.

Unith has not yet specified exactly where it plans to direct the funding boost once its capital raise is complete.

Shares in Unith last traded at 3.9 cents on Wednesday afternoon.

It’s a re-listing focussed on the Falcon Lake lithium project in Ontario, Canada, with secondary projects targeting copper in Morocco and zinc, lead and germanium in Austria.

As part of the relisting process, BM8 has raised $6.5 million through a capital raise at a share offer price of 40 cents with a one-for-one attaching option at 50 cents.

Battery Age has been restructured as an international explorer focussed on highly-sought future-facing minerals through the acquisition of its three assets.

The company plans to begin a maiden drilling program at Falcon Lake in the first half of this year.

It will also progress exploration at the unexplored Tidili copper-gold project in Morocco, as well as the Beliberg zinc, lead and germanium project in Austria. Germanium is a key element in the production of semiconductors, microchips and other high-value applications.

Battery Age is led by an experienced board and management team including Chairman Robert Martin and CEO Gerard O’Donovan.

Mr O’Donovan worked as a project manager at lithium producer Pilbara Minerals (PLS) during its growth phase and led the development of the world-class Pilgangoora lithium-tantalum mine and processing facility. He also managed the upgrade, recommissioning and restart of the Njungaju mine and processing facility.

Mr O’Donovan said the Falcon Lake project had been explored sporadically during the 1950s and again between 2010 and 2016.

“Previous explorers generated significant intercepts of spodumene mineralisation and defined at least three known lithium occurrences which have been very lightly explored,” he said.

“We are excited to re-launch the company on the ASX as Battery Age Minerals, giving investors exposure to a diversified portfolio underpinned by a high-quality lithium exploration asset.”

The debutants were:

Another company, Battery Age Minerals is due to start trading on the ASX on Monday under the ticker code BM8.

It’s a re-listing focussed on the Falcon Lake lithium project in Canada, with secondary projects targeting copper in Morocco and zinc, lead and germanium in Austria.

BM8 has raised $6.5 million through the listing process with 40-cent shares.

The company is working at its 100-per-cent-owned project in the US, in south-east Oregon, amid the lithium-rich McDermitt Caldera.

While Aurora listed on the market with a significant existing uranium resource, its project is also prospective for lithium, which is known to lie in sediments both around and above the uranium deposit.

Managing Director Greg Cochran said both were commodities of high investor interest given that clean energy was a global priority.

“We had this foundation of a good uranium deposit, backed by a good team, with a compelling story around significant lithium blue sky, in a country where the tailwinds have never been better for nuclear and for critical battery minerals,” Mr Cochran said.

“All that worked in our favour, and post the IPO, we’ve been able to deliver on a lot of our promises as well.”

Mr Cochran said the company was excited by its progress in converting much of the ‘indicated’ uranium resource to the ‘measured’ category and firming up the lithium potential.

“The deposit is in a high proportion measured and indicated; it’s indeed the largest, mineable, measured and indicated uranium deposit in the USA,” he said.

“This is a uranium deposit that attracts strategic interest because of its scale, and watch the blue-sky potential around lithium and how big that can grow.

“Our next-door neighbour, Jindalee Resources (JRL), has a resource of more than 1.8 billion tonnes.

“Our current focus area is maybe 80 per cent of Jindalee’s area, so even if one is only partially successful, compared to Jindalee — assuming the same grades on the exploration side — we have a significant, or we are sitting on a significant, lithium resource, and that would be a really exciting message to tell.”

Aurora has finished a drilling program and is waiting on assay results.

Aurora has a market cap around $25 million and shares were trading at 18 cents at 2:14 pm (AEDT).

The company debuted in what has proven a difficult year for new listings, but OD6’s management puts its early success down to pre-planning and being drill ready at listing for its clay-hosted rare earth elements projects, which lie within 150 kilometres of Esperance in Western Australia.

Managing Director and CEO Brett Hazelden said the company had raised $8 million through its IPO, and it was ready to begin final earthworks and drilling by the time it joined the market.

By November, rare earths results began to flow in, and the share price spiked.

“We knew from the historic drilling that there were some great rare earth results, so we planned out the drilling to confirm and extend on these areas and had it all approved before we listed on the ASX,” Mr Hazelden said.

“Being able to hit the ground running and get a drill rig spinning was a key priority for us, which then enabled us to announce some outstanding drilling results not long after listing, so the price had a good run afterwards.

“If you list too early and are waiting for drill rigs and permits to drill, your share price just lags off.”

Drilling revealed grades up to 6729 parts per million (ppm) total rare earth oxides (TREO), with almost half the holes assayed having grades greater than 750 ppm TREO.

“We had a plan which we achieved this year, and we’ve got a plan for next year, so we are looking forward to some good news flow and the share price should obviously reflect that,” Mr Hazelden said.

OD6 completed an airborne electromagnetic survey covering the company’s entire 4800 sqkm tenement area. The survey results, released this month, identified 253 sqkm of combined clay basin targets that will see the drilling program expand its current prospect areas significantly.

Mr Hazelden said the extent and consistency of the shallow, thick, high-grade clays had resulted in four “significant prospects being identified that are between four and seven kilometres in width, which are open in length”.

“These initial rare earth assay results are outstanding and represent some of the highest grades and thickest clay-hosted rare earth intersections seen in Australia,” he said.

“The scale of these clays is hard to comprehend when you start talking multiple kilometres in one direction at a thickness of between 10 to 30 metres. The potential is massive.”

The Splinter Rock and Grass Patch tenements have good access to key infrastructure such as sealed roads and Esperance port.

OD6 shares have spiked as high as 70 cents. Today they’re trading at 31 cents at 3:13 pm AEDT.

It follows an IPO record last year when 241 companies joined the exchange having raised $12.7 billion, including nine companies with market caps exceeding $1 billion on listing. 

The total amount of IPO capital raised this year was $1.032 billion across the 104 ASX debutants.

This year, the largest IPO by value was Mali lithium play Leo Lithium (LLL), which raised $100 million with 70 cent shares and debuted with a market cap of $691 million. Shares have since been trading lower than the IPO price, sitting at 49 cents at market close on December 20, when its market cap sat at $587 million.

The total figure of 104 IPOs on the ASX was well below the five-year average of 145 in a calendar year.

ASX General Manager of Listings James Posnett said the macro-economic climate in 2022 had been “extremely challenging” for IPO activity.

“We‘ve had geopolitical issues, inflationary issues this year, and the IPO market globally has just been very challenged,” he said.

“Last year was a record-breaking year, so it’s coming off the back of an exceptional 2021 calendar year.

“The last time we saw the IPO market this quiet was 2012. It really takes a larger lower-risk IPO, a profitable company typically, to re-open the market in these cycles. Investors are going to be a bit wary initially, but we see the market opening up a bit more broadly next year.

“The bottom line is inflation needs to be under control; that will give confidence back to the market.”

Mr Posnett said most of this year’s IPOs had been in the materials sector.

“There’re a lot of mining companies coming to market. They’ve typically been focussed on battery metals and the decarbonisation theme,” he said.

“In those new listings we also have spin-offs, we have dual-listings … for example, we had Block (SQ2) at the start of the year, which dual-listed on the ASX. Block didn’t necessarily have to do that, but we see that as a great endorsement of our market.”

When it comes to secondary capital raising, the ASX reported a more buoyant result over 2022.

There were more than 926 capital raisings, including placements, rights issues and share purchase plans, which hauled in about $26.85 billion. This number was about $37 billion with Dividend Reinvestment Plans, employee shares and options issues.

Yet, this was still below last year’s 1034 ASX raises that pulled in $46.4 billion.

Even so, the ASX this year again ranked number one globally for the number of secondary capital raisings, ahead of Hong Kong (HKEx) and New York (NASDAQ), which each reported less than half as many raises.

The ASX came in at number six globally in terms of the amount raised.

Mr Posnett said Australia punched well for its weight.

“Secondary offerings have held up very well this year,” he said.

“Those raisings mostly have been growth-oriented, whether that’s organic or M&A (mergers and acquisitions).

“There have been some M&A opportunities — both cross-border and in Australia — that companies have taken advantage of, but most of it has been more towards growth, which is very encouraging.”

The company will remain in the halt until the earlier of Monday, December 12, or when the announcement is released.

NWC is yet to disclose how much it intends to raise or what it will use the funds for once received.

In November, New World reported a 48 per cent increase in the mineral resource estimate (MRE) at its Antler copper deposit in Arizona.

The Arizona-based project’s MRE now stands at 11.4 million tonnes at 4.1 per cent copper equivalent, using a one per cent copper equivalent cut-off.

Importantly, 79 per cent of the updated MRE has now been classified in the higher-confidence ‘Indicated’ category, which the company said demonstrated the “robust nature” of the Antler deposit.

Following the completion of the MRE, the company is now completing a new mine design and will update a previous scoping study which it expects will be delivered in the first quarter of 2023.

NWC shares were halted at 3.4 cents on December 8.

The company will remain in the halt until Friday, November 18, or until it releases further details about the raise — whichever occurs first.

Tesoro is yet to disclose how much it intends to raise or for what it will use the money once received.

In November, the company received assay results from extensional and infill drilling completed at the Ternera gold deposit within its El Zorro gold project in Chile.

The company received assays for seven holes, which have all returned “significant” intercepts of gold mineralisation.

Based on the assays, Tesoro believed there’s potential to increase the 1.1-million-ounce MRE 200 metres south.

Shares in Tesoro last traded at 3.7 cents on November 15.

The company will remain in the halt until Wednesday, November 16, or when further details are released, whichever occurs first.

Magmatic is yet to disclose how much it intends to raise or what it will use the money for once received.

In November, the company recorded the best mineralised interval to date at the Corvette prospect within its Myall project in New South Wales.

The company kicked off high-impact diamond drilling at the project in July and has so far completed 3200 metres of drilling.

The latest results, which Magmatic said defined the best intersection at the prospect to date, included 154.6 metres at 0.47 per cent copper, 0.1 g/t gold, one g/t silver and 26 ppm molybdenum from 134.4 metres, including 117 metres at 0.55 per cent copper, 0.12 g/t gold, 1.1 g/t silver and 33 ppm molybdenum from 137 metres.

This result comes from the upper portion of the drill hole, with assay results pending for the remaining 510 metres of drill core.

Shares in Magmatic halted at 11 cents on November 14.

The company will remain in the halt until the earlier of Monday, November 14, or when the announcement is released.

Riversgold is yet to disclose how much it intends to raise or what it will use the funds for once received.

Yesterday, the company announced its footprint expansion in the Mt Holland area of Western Australia after being granted four new exploration licenses by the state government.

The Western Australian Department of Mines, Industry, Regulation and Safety (DMIRS) granted the new licences which increased RGL’s Mt Holland project area to 41.2 square kilometres.

Riversgold said the tenements were “highly prospective” for lithium in spodumene-rich pegmatites, and the company plans to begin on-ground exploration within two weeks.

The upcoming work will include geochemical soil sampling and is aimed at generating drill targets for a maiden drilling program in the first quarter of 2023.

Whether or not the capital raise will support exploration isn’t yet certain.

Shares last traded at 4.4 cents on November 9.

The company will remain in the halt until Tuesday, November 8, or when the announcement is released to the market, whichever occurs first.

Aumake is yet to disclose how much it intends to raise or what it will use the funds for once received.

In its recently released quarterly report, Aumake reported revenue of $1 million, a 33 per cent decrease from Q4 FY22.

The company said the decrease came from COVID-related impacts and the lack of Chinese tourism. In response to this, Aumake implemented cost saving initiatives to maximise its existing cash.

Net cash outflows increased from $888,000 in Q4 FY22 to $1.63 million in Q1 FY23 with the majority going towards product manufacturing and operating costs.

Aumake ended the period with $1.4 million in total available funding, representing 0.9 quarters left of use.

The company also noted it’s “winding down” all unprofitable operations, removing all debt and reducing costs as much as it can. This, and it’s available funding, suggests the company will benefit from a capital raise.

Shares in Aumake last traded at 0.4 cents on November 2. The company has a $3.08 million market cap.

The company will remain in the halt until Thursday, November 3, or when further details are released, whichever occurs first.

Elsight is yet to disclose how much it intends to raise or what it will use the money for once received.

Yesterday, the company released its quarterly report with the period highlighted by its first repeat Halo order from Spright.

Additionally, Elsight continued to expand the Halo investment program as part of the ‘Design Win’ strategy and now has 67 partners.

In the quarter, 16 partners placed repeat orders totalling up to US$255,000 (A$397,505).

Looking at its financials, Elsight revealed it had burnt through US$765,000 in operating expenditure with the majority going towards research and development.

As of September 30, the company had US$1.21 million in total available funding, representing 1.6 quarters of use – a possible reason as to why it is undertaking this capital raise.

Shares in Elsight last traded at 36 cents on October 31. The company has a $54.11 million market cap.

The Perth-owned and operated company offers a subscription-based meal kit service to WA customers. It prepares and delivers customisable boxes using locally sourced ingredients.

My Foodie Box is yet to divulge how much it plans to raise and how it will spend the funds, but the trading halt does come a day after its September quarterly report.

The consumer discretionary stock described the three-month period as a “transition quarter” in which it completed its large-scale marketing strategy focused on increasing brand awareness to onboard more customers.

Upon it listing on the ASX in January 2022, MBX had around 1650 active subscribers which increased to an average of 2781 over the September quarter. This growth has only continued with its active subscriber count now at over 3950.

Active customers also grew to 6347 which represents a 133 per cent year-on-year growth and a 115 per cent increase on the June quarter.

Due to its focus on brand awareness, the company reported an increase in operating cash outflows of $1.7 million. MBX has since reduced costs by over $200,000 per month which it said will be reflected in the coming quarters along with increasing revenues.

My Foodie Box’s strategy now is on re-targeting and re-activating its customer database via direct SMS or email promotions at low acquisition costs.

At the end of the quarter, the company had $392,000 in available cash and just 0.23 estimated quarters left of available funding.

My Foodie Box expects to come out of the halt by Thursday, November 3.

Shares last traded at six cents on October 12.

The company will remain in the halt until the earlier of Wednesday, November 2, or when the announcement is released.

Jade Gas is yet to disclose how much it intends to raise or what it will use the funds for once received.

Earlier in the month, Jade Gas announced it had completed drilling of the ETT-1 and ETT-2 wells in Mongolia.

Well ETT-1 recovered 30 metres of coal core between 220 and 361 metres while well ETT-2 recovered 36 metres of coal core between 216 and 387 metres.

Desorption data collection is underway to evaluate gas desorption, gas composition and gas saturation at both wells and once received, the results will aid in planning drill sites for the pilot production wells.

Jade Gas last tapped investors for cash in April when it raised $6.7 million through the issue of 128 million shares to sophisticated and professional investors at 5.2 cents each.

The company stated it would use the money to accelerate drilling at the TTCBM Project, Shivee Gobi Permit and Eastern Gobi Permit, and order long lead items for 2023 drill programs.

Shares in Jade Gas last traded at 5.1 cents on October 28. The company has a $68.2 million market cap.

The company will remain in the halt until Wednesday, November 2, or when the announcement is released, whichever occurs first.

Todd River is yet to disclose how much it intends to raise or what it will use the money for once received.

In its recently released September quarterly report, Todd River highlighted the intersection of broad copper and platinum group element anomalism at the Chandler prospect in Western Australia.

Further, a fixed loop electromagnetic survey at the Trix prospect confirmed a significant bedrock conductor while fieldwork at the Mt Hardy project confirmed several new areas of surface zinc and copper mineralisation.

Looking at its finances, Todd River revealed it had burnt through $794,000 for the three months with the majority going towards exploration and evaluation.

As of September 30, the company had nearly $3.8 million in total available funding, representing 4.8 quarters of use if spending levels remain the same.

Shares in Todd River last traded at 1.9 cents on October 28. The company has a $10.86 million market cap.

The cannabis-focused medicinal company hasn’t provided any details on how much it hopes to raise nor how it will spend the funds once the capital raise is complete.

Today’s capital raise comes alongside Althea’s September quarterly report which highlighted a 180 per cent increase in customer receipts to $8.12 million.

The company also prioritised cost saving initiatives following an annual review. These efforts commenced in the September quarter and a further $900,000 in cost savings will be implemented in the current December quarter.

For context, the company reported a net operating outflow of $2.7 million, and $259,000 in investing activities, which left it with $3.5 million in cash as at September 30 and an estimated 1.3 quarters of available funding.

Althea said it expects to reduce operating expenses in the current quarter as last quarter’s expenditures were partly due to increasing inventories associated with the launch of two products.

The quarterly report also confirmed the company is in advanced and confidential negotiations for a “transaction that, if successful, will improve its financial position.”

Althea expects the trading halt will be lifted on Wednesday, November 2, by which time the capital raise details will likely be released.

The company last traded at 8.3 cents per share on October 28.

The company will remain in the halt until Wednesday, November 2, or when further details are released, whichever occurs first.

ASM is yet to disclose how much it intends to raise or what it will use the funds for once received.

In September, the company’s subsidiary secured its first sale of neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) metal.

KSM Metals signed a binding agreement with Korean company NS World to sell NdPr ingot from ASM’s metals plant in Korea.

The deal will see KSM sell and deliver up to 10 tonnes of the NdPr metal from September to December 2022. NS World plans to use the metal product to make bonded magnets.

Shares in ASM last traded at $1.98 on October 28.

The money was raised through the issue of 30,821,917 CHESS Depositary Interests (CDIs) priced at $1.46 each.

Headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia, Conrad Asia Energy focuses on natural gas in the shallow waters offshore Indonesia.

It specialises in the identification and acquisition of undervalued, overlooked and technically misunderstood gas assets.

Currently, CRD has a 76.5 per cent interest in the Duyung Production Sharing Contract (PSC) and a 100 per cent interest in the Offshore Mangkalihat PSC.

The Duyung PSC contains the Mako Gas Field which is one of the largest undeveloped gas discoveries in the West Natuna Sea.

In FY21, CRD tabled revenue of US$189,488 (A$291,712.04) and a loss of US$723,177, while it FY19 it tabled revenue of US$496,069 and a loss of nearly US$1.15 million.

In its prospectus, Conrad Asia Energy stated it would use the money from the IPO to purchase Mako FEED and long lead items, and fund the growth and evaluation of new assets.

Conrad Asia Energy’s management consists of Peter Botten as Non-Executive Chair, and Miltos Xynogalas as Founder, CEO and Managing Director.

David Johnson is Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, while Paul Bernard, Jeremy Brest and Mario Traviati are Non-Executive Directors.

CRN shares have ended the day trading steady at $1.46 each.