Welcome to our roundup of some of our most-read investment, exploration, and development stories on Theassay.com over the last seven days. To keep up to date with all the latest headlines, subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Financing news
We begin with news that Cyprium Metals (ASX: CYM) has received firm commitments for A$35M through a two-tranche placement to sophisticated and institutional investors to help support the re-start of the Nifty Copper Mine in Western Australia.
The placement was strongly supported by numerous sophisticated and professional investors, including numerous new and existing high quality domestic and offshore institutions.
“We would like to thank the existing and incoming Cyprium shareholders for their support in this well supported capital raise. The commitments received for this placement form part of the finance package for the restart of the Nifty Copper Project,” said managing director, Barry Cahill.
KEFI Gold & Copper (AIM: KEFI), the gold exploration and development company with projects in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has appointed advisers to prepare for a potential dual listing of the company’s shares on the Saudi Exchange, based in Riyadh, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi Exchange is currently the 11th largest stock exchange in the world, with 223 listed companies, with a combined market capitalization of US$2.63T as of 31 December 2022. The total value of shares traded on the Saudi Exchange in 2022 was US$455B and the ‘Materials Industry’ group was the largest sector on the market by value of trades, representing 23.8% of the overall market. There were 22 IPOs on the Saudi Exchange in 2022.
Development news
Some key updates this week included Lahontan Gold (TSXV: LG) initiating metallurgical test work at its flagship Santa Fe Mine, a past-producing open pit, heap-leach gold and silver mine located in Mineral County, Nevada.
The company’s programme is designed to verify historic gold and silver recoveries from oxide mineralization at Santa Fe, and to provide baseline metallurgical data that can be used to design process flowsheets for any future mining operations.
The first phase of testing will be a series of bottle-roll tests utilizing reverse-circulation drill cuttings which will allow the company to characterize different mineralization types within the oxidized portion of the Santa Fe mineral resource.
Australian-listed Mako Gold (ASX: MKG) has discovered a new shallow gold mineralized zone outside the current mineral resource from a structural diamond drill (DD) hole from the Tchaga Prospect, within the company’s 90% owned flagship Napié Project in Côte d’Ivoire.
Tchaga is located on a +23km soil anomaly and coincident 30km-long Napié Fault.
“The deep structural diamond drill hole accomplished several objectives for us. We needed a deep hole to cross stratigraphy and structure ahead of structural studies which are scheduled to begin in March. These studies should enhance our understanding of the controls on gold mineralization to expand the mineral resource,” said Peter Ledwidge, the company’s managing director.
In Australia, St George Mining (ASX: SGQ) has kicked off this year’s field programme for lithium exploration at its Mt Alexander Project in Western Australia’s Goldfields.
“We are pleased to have boots on the ground again at Mt Alexander as we kick off our big exploration programme for 2023,” executive chairman, John Prineas, said.
Field exploration to identify high-grade lithium bearing pegmatites resumed at Mt Alexander on 15 January 2023. The field mapping and systematic sampling programme is occurring over the numerous outcropping pegmatites across the project tenure.
The area currently being explored is focused on the north-east margins of Exploration Licences 29/962 (100% St George) and 29/638 (75% St George: 25% IGO) as well as the area of the newly acquired E29/1143 (100% St George) that hosts the contact with the Copperfield Granite.
Drilling results
The week saw numerous assays returning from the labs, with Ascendant Resources (TSX: ASND) reporting results from the latest drill holes executed in its Venda Nova South Zone as part of the metallurgical, infill, and extensional drilling campaign started in 2022.
Of note from these results is the higher tenor of copper intercepted that supports the ongoing delineation of a high-grade copper domain within the South Deposit at the Lagoa Salgada VMS project on the Iberian Pyrite Belt in Portugal.
As of 30 January 2023, Ascendant has completed 27 drill holes (11 metallurgical and 16 infill and step-out drill holes) totalling 12,804m as part of the overall drill programme to support the ongoing Feasibility Study for Venda Nova.
Aussie outfit Galileo Mining (ASX: GAL) has identified a new lower zone with high-grade assays from recent drilling at the Callisto palladium-platinum-gold-rhodium-copper-nickel discovery within the company’s 100% owned Norseman project in Western Australia.
Sulphide intersection from new lower zone with high grade assays include 10m @2.19g/t 3E1 (1.84g/t Pd, 0.31g/t Pt, 0.04g/t Au), 0.27% Cu & 0.23% Ni from 279m (NRCD292) including 3.0m @3.91 g/t3E (3.12g/t Pd, 0.68g/t Pt, 0.11g/t Au), 0.65% Cu & 0.48% Ni from 280m.
“Today’s assay results continue to expand the existing footprint of rich sulphide mineralization at Callisto and demonstrates considerable opportunity for growth as we step out our drilling programmes over the coming months,” said Brad Underwood, managing director.
In Canada, Grid Metals (TSXV: GRDM) has obtained positive results from an additional five holes at its Donner Lake Lithium Property, located in the Bird River Greenstone Belt of south-eastern Manitoba.
The holes are part of an ongoing resource delineation drilling programme at the Main Dyke. All delineation holes from the current campaign have intercepted significant, high grade lithium values in the Main Dyke and, locally, in at least three proximal sub-parallel dykes that were not previously known.
“We are pleased to see continued high-grade lithium values from our resource drilling at the Main Dyke, which is successfully tracing the Main Dyke to significant depth”, said Robin Dunbar, Grid’s president and CEO.
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