Guildford will issue 52.1 million shares to investment funds managed by Och-Ziff Capital Management Group.

The additional funds are expected to give Guildford cash reserves of around $51 million once the placement is completed within a week.

Guildford plans to use some of the proceeds to advance its negotiations to secure rail and port capacity.

Out of its six-project portfolio, Guildford is focusing its efforts on the Hughenden and Maryborough projects.

Drilling at the Maryborough hard coking coal project started last month.

The project is northwest of Northern Energy’s planned Colton open cut mine, which is targeting 500,000 tonnes per annum of hard coking coal in 2012.

A second rig was scheduled to start drilling at the Hughenden project in the northern Galilee Basin this month.

Guildford has already submitted expressions of interest for second-stage capacity at Wiggins Island to cater for its Maryborough project, along with its Sierra project in the Bowen Basin.

Shares in the company were down half a cent to 56.5c this morning.