According to the Form 603 document (notice of an initial substantial holder), SGR acquired almost 63.5 million ordinary shares of the Australia-listed Ovoot Basin explorer through broker Quam Securities.

With shares at 5c on the acquisition day and at 4c the previous day, the amount spent by Toronto and Hong Kong-listed SGR would appear to fall within a $2.5 million to $3.2 million range.

Aspire had not commented on the move by 2.15pm AEDT yesterday – with the shares down 2.1% or 0.1c to 4.7c at that time.

Aspire is initially targeting 5 million tonnes per annum of coking coal production at Ovoot in 2018 and had been granted a mining licence for the project more than two years ago.