Welcome to a roundup of some of our financing, exploration, and development stories on Theassay.com over the last week. To keep up to date with all the latest headlines, subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
Financing and M&A
Over the last seven days, Santacruz Silver Mining Ltd. (TSXV: SCZ) has sold its shares in Santacruz Holdings Ltd., which has 100% ownership in Impulsora Minera Santacruz, S.A. de C.V., a non-core Mexican subsidiary of the company, to a private Mexican group.
The sale of this non-core asset is part of the company’s ongoing restructuring efforts as it aims to streamline its core business focus. Santacruz Silver received a nominal cash consideration in addition to the buyer agreeing to accept certain obligations and liabilities from the company as consideration for the sale of Santacruz Holdings Ltd.
“The divestment of this non-core asset is expected to reduce our current liabilities and strengthen our balance sheet. Going forward Santacruz will continue to assess opportunities to deleverage the company and improve its financial position,” Arturo Préstamo, executive chairman and interim CEO of Santacruz, commented.
New exploration and development
Ionic Rare Earths Limited (ASX: IXR) has made progress on the construction of the technical facility and demonstration plant at the Makuutu Rare Earths Project in Uganda, through a local Ugandan operating entity Rwenzori Rare Metals Limited.
At the technical facility, desorption columns have undergone water commissioning in order to pretest the ore before commencement of test work. Irrigation tests have also been undertaken to ensure the desorption processes operate as designed.
The inspection of in-country manufactured equipment is currently underway at vendor premises to ensure safety and functionality prior to taking receipt of the equipment, with the delivery to site expected this week.
Also, Denarius Metals Corp. (TSXV: DSLV | OTCQX: DNRSF) has filed the National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101) – Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects compliant technical report for its preliminary economic assessment of the company’s 100%-owned Zancudo Project in Colombia.
Denarius Metals is a Canadian junior company engaged in the acquisition, exploration, development, and eventual operation of polymetallic mining projects in high-grade districts. The company has commenced construction activities at Zancudo, which includes the historic producing Independencia mine, providing an opportunity to develop near-term production and cash flow commencing in 2024 through local contract mining and long-term growth through continued exploration of the Zancudo deposit which remains open in all directions.
The technical report, entitled “Technical Report and Preliminary Economic Assessment for the Zancudo Gold-Silver Deposit, Municipality of Titiribí, Department of Antioquia, Republic of Colombia” with an effective date of 24 October 2023, was prepared by Resource Development Associates and supports the disclosures made by the company in its 30 October news release.
Mink Ventures Corporation (TSXV: MINK) has received a C$80,000 Ontario Junior Exploration Grant (OJEP) towards exploration at its Warren nickel copper cobalt project located 35km west of Timmins, Ontario. The drill programme is expected to begin in early January 2024.
Mink will begin drilling on the A Zone which has a surface strike length of approximately 120m exposed in a series of surface trenches. Drilling will focus on testing the A zone down plunge and below the estimated 60m vertical evaluation by previous operators.
Confirmation work by company geologists on the A Zone, as well as other target zones, returned significant base metal numbers. Excellent copper values were noted in the A Zone trenches which ranged from 1.075% to 2.08% Cu. Nickel values from the A zone ranged from 0.313% to 0.348% Ni. Cobalt values ranged from 0.0389% to 0.0498% Co.
Some interesting silver values, which ranged from 10.3ppm to 23.8ppm silver, were associated with some of the better copper values on the A Zone. There are two other zones (B & C) along with several untested base metal occurrences and untested geophysical anomalies which will be tested in a Phase 2 programme.
Drilling results
Further, NuLegacy Gold Corporation (TSXV: NUG | OTC: NULGF) has reported that the geology intersected in MR23-01 is relatively close to that predicted. The Migo fault is located as projected, and it intersected 56.4m (185ft) of Devonian Wenban formation thickness starting in the hanging wall within the targeted fault corridor.
The anticipated Cretaceous diorite and metamorphic alteration was intercepted within the Wenban target zone with only anomalous gold mineralization at the approximate center of the Cretaceous diorite and metamorphic alteration.
Assay results from MR23-01 reported several intervals of anomalous gold values (cut-off at 0.10g/t gold) the most significant of which is 0.013 to 0.677g/t of gold at a depth of 1570 to 1645ft that averages 0.091g/t of gold.
