Blackstone Minerals granted back-to-back trading halt ahead of capital raising news

Blackstone Minerals Ltd (ASX:BSX) has been granted a back-to-back trading halt by the ASX ahead of a capital raising announcement. The halt will remain in place until the start of trade on Tuesday, September 15, or when an announcement is released to the market, whichever occurs earliest. Blackstone has a market cap of approximately $127.4 million and shares have been on the march on the back of strong newsflow and improved market fundamentals for nickel. From 14 cents on June 16, shares climbed to 54 cents on September 2, a high of more than two years, and last traded at 47.5 cents. Drilling new regional nickel MSV Drilling started at Ta Cuong on September 8, the company’s second high-priority MSV prospect at the Ta Khoa Nickel-Copper-Platinum Group Elements (PGE) Project in northern Vietnam. The company is targeting electromagnetic (EM) plates at Ta Cuong, where drilling by previous owners did not target geophysical anomalies. However, Blackstone’s in-house geophysics team has been successful in defining new targets which the company is progressively drilling with its own rigs. The drilling at Ta Cuong forms part of the company’s aggressive exploration program with multiple rigs targeting MSV prospects analogous to the recently discovered Ban Chang prospect and flagship Ban Phuc ore body.