Welcome to our roundup of some of our must-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
There was positive news for Candente Copper (TSX: DNT), which has entered into an agreement to complete a private placement with Nascent Exploration Pty. Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Fortescue Metals Group Ltd, to raise C$4M.
“We are very pleased to announce a premium to market equity financing which will provide working capital to further advance the Cañariaco project inclusive of community engagement and permits that will allow drilling of several high priority targets in 2023,” said Giulio T. Bonifacio, executive chair of Candente Copper.
“The Private Placement is a further strategic endorsement by Fortescue for the Cañariaco copper project, one of the top ten undeveloped copper resources in the world of which most is classified as measured and indicated.”
We also heard that Revival Gold (TSXV: RVG) intends to raise C$3M through a non-brokered private placement.
“With this financing, Revival Gold is taking the opportunity to top up the Company’s yearend cash balance ahead of what is expected to be a very busy 2023”, said Hugh Agro, president & CEO.
Exploration and development
In development news, Ascendant Resources (TSX: ASND) has satisfied all financial conditions required to increase its effective ownership interest from 50% to 80% in its Lagoa Salgada VMS project in Portugal.
Mark Brennan, Ascendant’s executive chairman, commented, “With this payment we are now just one step away from increasing our ownership to 80% in this highly prospective and economically robust project. The feasibility study is progressing extremely well, and we remain on-track for completion by the end of Q1 2023, well ahead of the deadline to execute our remaining option to achieve an 80% interest in the Lagoa Salgada Project.”
Over in Brazil, London-headquartered Horizonte Minerals (AIM: HZM) is continuing to make progress on the construction of its 100%-owned Araguaia Nickel Project, which the company has said remains on-budget and on-schedule to commence production in Q1 2024.
Jeremy Martin, the company’s CEO, said, “We are very pleased with the construction progress achieved to date which places us in a strong position to deliver the project on-budget and on-schedule, and most importantly with a strong safety track record. We are also very pleased to have drawn from the Senior Debt facility, a core part of the overall funding package of Araguaia.”
Drilling results
Assay results have been coming in thick and fast over the past week, with Barton Gold (ASX: BGD) receiving promising initial results from ongoing 223 Deposit drilling at the Tunkillia Project in South Australia.
Highlights include 5m @ 2.69 g/t Au from 243m 3m @ 5.15 g/t Au from 253m; 5m @ 9.00 g/t Au from 339m 1m @ 23.5 g/t Au from 146m; 20m @ 0.88 g/t Au from 257m; 18m @ 0.61 g/t Au from 370m; and 3m @ 4.48 g/t Au from 144m 10m @ 2.52 g/t Au from 275m.
“We are very excited to see indications of not only depth extensions, but entirely new gold zones hiding in the ‘shadow’ of the mafic footwall dyke,” said Barton’s managing director, Alex Scanlon.
Another Australian explorer, Krakatoa Resources (ASX: KTA), has encountered multiple sulphide zones with its exploration RC drilling programme targeting strong electromagnetic (EM) conductors at its wholly owned Mt Clere Project in Western Australia.
The Project lies within the Narryer Gneiss Terrane at the northern edge of the Yilgarn Craton in WA and predominantly contains highly metamorphosed and deformed granites and felsic gneisses along with mafic intrusive bodies and rafts of remnant sedimentary units.
Drill hole MMRC01 at the high conductance (10,000S) Milly Milly electromagnetic anomaly intersected sulphide mineralization zone from 183m downhole. This zone was over 60m thick with the top 30m section reported to have up to 30% sulphides with the lower section having 2%. This coincides well with the modelled EM plate. These intervals were dominated by iron sulphides such as pyrite and pyrrhotite, with minor chalcopyrite.
There was some very positive news for Canadian outfit Renforth Resources (CSE: RFR), which has successfully intersected nickel across a wide area in its Surimeau drill programme in Quebec.
The drill programme is now completed with 3,076m drilled in 11 drill holes, all of which intersected the targeted mineralization, resulting in the visual identification of nickel, copper, and zinc sulphides during logging.
“This programme delivered more of the same as the last drill programme. Victoria consistently demonstrates the presence of critical minerals, supporting our geophysical tools and reflecting what we have seen on surface,” said president and CEO, Nicole Brewster.
Also in the news
We round things off with news that Grid Metals (TSXV: GRDM) has appointed the experienced Patrick Murphy to its board.
At a special meeting, shareholders, in addition to setting the size of the board of directors to four and the appointment of Mr Murphy, reappointed Robin Dunbar President and CEO, Thomas W. Meredith and Edward J Munden to the board.
By vote of disinterested shareholders, the New Equity Incentive Plan of the company was also approved. Shareholders also re-appointed UHY McGovern Hurley Cunningham LLP as auditors for the current fiscal year.
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