At the time of writing, Ironbark Zinc shares are up a sizeable 23.4% to 5.8 cents apiece. This means that in the past week alone, the shares have risen by 45% in value.

Ironbark completes share placement

ASX investors are buying up Ironbark Zinc shares as the company seeks to progress the development of its Citronen Zinc-Lead Project in Greenland.

In its release, Ironbark Zinc announced it has received firm commitments for its placement to raise $4 million (before costs). The company highlighted that it has very strong support from both existing and new institutional investors.

The offer will see approximately 90.91 million new ordinary Ironbark Zinc shares issued at a price of 4.4 cents each. This represents a 2% discount to the 5-day volume-weighted average price (VWAP) up until 6 December.

Ironbark Zinc will use the proceeds to support its post-Preliminary Project Letter (PPL) phase 2 due diligence with US financier EXIM bank.

The company is aiming to advance the Citronen Project strategic equity process to bring the asset online. The ASX minerals explorer describes the high-grade project as one of the world's largest untapped zinc-lead resources.

The project is currently in the early stages of development. Ironbark estimates that the project contains more than 13 billion pounds of zinc and lead. Ironbark says the open-pit mine life should be 14 years.

The new Ironbark Zinc shares are scheduled for settlement on 16 December after quotation on the following day.

What did management say?

Ironbark Zinc managing director, Michael Jardine, commented:

Ironbark is now closing 2021 in an excellent position with an EXIM PPL in hand and funding in place to further advance our key value drivers early in 2022.

There was huge demand bid into the book yesterday, in a strong validation of the Company's now advanced financing strategy to get Citronen into production.

I am pleased to see certain…larger existing shareholders add to their position, including IBG's largest shareholder in UK based Bennelong Resource Capital, as well as welcoming several new institutional shareholders to the register.

About the Ironbark share price

The Ironbark Zinc share price has pushed 93% higher in the past 12 months. When looking at year-to-date figures, Ironbark Zinc's share price gains are hovering at about 190%.

Based on valuation grounds, Ironbark Zinc presides a market capitalisation of $70.1 million, with roughly 1.21 billion shares outstanding.

The post Why the Ironbark Zinc (ASX:IBG) share price is rocketing 23% today appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.