NEW YORK — Two Canadian nickel companies announced private share placements this past week to raise funds for projects.

Nickel North Exploration Corp.’s nonbrokered private placement for up to 13.3 million shares seeks to raise $4 million, while Royal Nickel Corp. announced a private placement of up to 4 million shares to raise as much as $2 million.

Vancouver, British Columbia-based Nickel North Exploration will invest the raised funds in its Hawk Ridge nickel-copper project in northern Quebec, the company said.

Toronto-based Royal Nickel will put the money toward investigating a region near its Dumont nickel project in Quebec, which contains nickel, palladium, platinum, copper and cobalt.

"It is prudent to follow up on this discovery at this time, to ascertain whether further high-grade mineralization exists along the footwall contacts outside the known Dumont ore body, particularly as our exploration team has now largely finished its work for the Dumont feasibility study," Royal Nickel president and chief executive officer Tyler Mitchelson said in a statement.