Welcome to our roundup of financing, 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 and M&A
Finance news kicked off with Tudor Gold Corp. (TSXV: TUD) entering into an amended agreement to increase the size of its previously announced bought-deal, private placement offering from C$10,000,000 to approximately C$16,000,000.
Research Capital Corporation, is the lead underwriter and sole bookrunner on behalf of a syndicate of underwriters, including Red Cloud Securities Inc. and Roth Canada, ULC.
Arafura Rare Earths Limited (ASX: ARU) received a non- binding letter of in-principle support from German export credit agency Euler Hermes Aktiengesellschaft (ECA) for an untied loan guarantee of up to US$600M to support the Nolans Rare Earths Project in Australia’s Northern Territory.
In January 2023, KFW IPEX- Bank (KfW) was appointed as an additional mandated lead arranger for debt financing and as the ECA structuring bank. KfW is assisting Arafura in its engagement with Euler Hermes and ECAs located in other jurisdictions with linkages to Nolans Project offtake.
Euler Hermes has informed the company that the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action has confirmed the in- principal eligibility for an untied loan guarantee for the financing of the Nolans Project.
Volt Resources Limited (ASX: VRC) executeda binding offtake agreement for the sale of 10,000t of fine flake graphite product annually from the Bunyu Graphite Project in Tanzania.
The initial term is for five years with the option to extend the offtake agreement for a further five years.
“This is an important step forward in our global strategy to diversify the upstream supply of raw materials as we localize our mid-stream processing footprint in order to provide the flexibility, resiliency, and scale of graphite supply that the EV and Energy Storage sectors will require in the years and decades ahead. We look forward to working with Volt as we both progress our graphite development plans and the possibility of expanding our relationship.”
New exploration and development
In exploration and development news, we heard thatKEFI (AIM: KEFI) has unveiled its Q1 2023 quarterly operational update.
This update encompasses the activities of KEFI Minerals (Ethiopia) Ltd (KME) and Tulu Kapi Gold Mines Share Company (TKGM) in Ethiopia, and Gold & Minerals Ltd (GMCO) in Saudi Arabia since release of the Q4 2022 Quarterly Update on 2 February 2023 and is being announced ahead of the end of the quarter to facilitate discussions at various events in Ethiopia and the Middle East in the coming days.
The Tulu Kapi Gold Project is under TKGM (now planned to be 70-80% owned by KEFI). The Jibal Qutman Gold Project, the Hawiah Copper-Gold Project and the other Saudi projects are under GMCO (now planned to be 25-30% owned by KEFI), depending on refinements to final financing refinements.
Astra Exploration Inc. (TSXV: ASTR) has commenced trenching operations at Pampa Paciencia in Chile, and that its shares are now listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE) under the symbol “S3I”.
“Pampa Paciencia is a large district, with known high gold grades and wide veins that has hardly been explored as evidenced by the discovery of the new western veins,” CEO, Brian Miller, said.
“This trenching programme will follow-up the new 2,000m of vein subcrop that we have identified in the west of the Paciencia District in late 2022. Trenching will initially target an area with 5.33g/t AuEq and then expand to add drill targets to the company’s inventory at Pampa Paciencia.”
Drilling results
Plenty of drilling news over the last seven days, starting with Kuniko (ASX: KNI) spearing an “outstanding” intersection of visible cobalt mineralization in a new mineralized horizon at its Middagshvile drill target in Skuterud, Norway.
Highlights included drilling at the Skuterud Cobalt Project is progressing, with 6 holes completed to date for a total of 1,779m.
That the priority of the drill programme has been around the Middagshvile target where previous drilling by Kuniko delivered cobalt mineralization in eight of eight drill holes and defined a mineralized zone of 450m, open along strike and at depth.
Similarly, Centaurus Metals (ASX: CTM) obtained outstanding results, including a stand-out intersection of 20.4m at 3.94% Ni from 612.7m in drilling targeting further resource growth at its 100%-owned Jaguar Nickel Sulphide Project in the Carajás Mineral Province of northern Brazil.
Managing Director, Darren Gordon, said the outstanding high-grade results being generated by step- out drilling reinforced the world-class nature of the Jaguar Deposit, supporting the company’s expectations for further resource growth and confirming strong potential to establish future underground mining operations well beyond the currently planned open pits.
To round things up, St George Mining Limited (ASX: SGQ) hasintersected a very wide interval of pegmatite in the first drill hole to test the ‘Manta’ seismic reflector at the company’s Mt Alexander Project.
Further drilling is planned to test this large target at shallower depth, initially where the pegmatite is interpreted to intersect, or underly, the outcropping greenstone sequence. The granite/greenstone interface is considered more prospective for pegmatite hosted mineralization compared with the granite intrusion which may be the source of the pegmatite.
