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
In the past week, Newcore Gold Ltd. (TSXV: NCAU | OTCQX: NCAUF) has closed its previously announced non-brokered private placement financing with aggregate gross proceeds of C$5.5M
Luke Alexander, president, and CEO of Newcore stated, “We are very happy to have had such strong funding support to allow Newcore to continue to advance and de-risk the development of our Enchi Gold Project in Ghana. We would like to thank new and existing shareholders for their continued support. We are thrilled to be welcoming new institutional investors who recognize the significant upside potential at our Enchi Gold Project, as we advance the project towards a pre-feasibility study and continue to explore the district scale potential.”
New exploration and development
Australian Rare Earths (ASX: AR3) has significantly expanded its Koppamurra mineral resource estimate (MRE) with a 27% increase in the MRE and a 70% boost in the higher-grade subsets.
AR3 managing director and CEO, Travis Beinke said, “We are pleased to announce another significant milestone in delineating the rare earths mineral province discovered by AR3 at Koppamurra. This substantial increase in the mineral resource estimate, coupled with the improved grade and higher-grade tonnage, reinforces our belief in the project’s potential to become a strategically important, long-life supplier of critical rare earths.
The mineral resource now includes 68Mt grading over 1000ppm TREO, representing a 70% increase on the previous mineral resource estimate, highlighting the potential for an initial higher-grade project development plan.
Also, higher grade subsets have been identified. Infill drilling has defined thicker, Northwest trending areas of continuous higher-grade mineralization within the resource.
Additionally, Asian Battery Metals PLC (ASX: AZ9) has reported that detailed geophysical studies and scout drilling conducted at the Copper Ridge prospect has confirmed a copper mineralization to depth from the surface with potential for associated gold based on anomalous surface assays.
The style of mineralization appears unrelated to the company’s exciting Oval (Cu-Ni) Project which is also in the Yambat Project area.
Gan-Ochir Zunduisuren, managing director, commented, “We are excited about an early indication of a prospective mineral system at Copper Ridge Cu-Au prospect. Our scout drilling effort was challenged by tough ground conditions and logistics, but we have completed scout drillhole CR0S1A, which intersected a great length of anomalous and mineralized copper in strongly altered metasedimentary until close to end of the drillhole. This shows the promising copper potential in the area and encourages further exploration. Extensive untested parallel magnetic and IP anomalies indicate the possibility of large amounts of mineralization in the area.”
Drilling results
Argentina Lithium & Energy Corp. (TSXV: LIT | FSE: OAY3 | OTCQX: LILIF) has reported positive results from the 13th exploration well at its Rincon West Project in Salta Province, Argentina. A total of 24 representative 3m brine samples collected over a 327m interval of RW-DDH-13 ranged from 269 to 340 mg/l of lithium.
“Our most recent drilling is located to test the highly prospective formations of sandy layers interspaced with crystalline halite, located along our eastern property boundary beside Rio Tinto’s project. To expand on these recent results, we are currently executing the 14th and final diamond hole of this exploration campaign, and we have started the rotary drilling that will allow us to begin pump testing on production-scale wells. Our initial exploration model for Rincon West has been borne out by all the results received to date.” stated Miles Rideout, VP of exploration.
Other news
Finally, Prime Mining Corp. (TSXV: PRYM | OTCQX: PRMNF | Frankfurt: O4V3) has announced the appointment of Sunny Lowe to its board of directors.
“I am very pleased to welcome Sunny to the Prime board,” stated Murray John, chair of the board of directors. “As an independent director, Sunny brings a wealth of financial, mining and executive experience to Prime. We are looking forward to working with her as the management team advances the Los Reyes Project.”’
Ms. Lowe is a CPA, CA with more than 20 years of finance, international tax and risk management experience mostly spent in the mining sector. Ms. Lowe is currently the CFO of Solaris Resources Inc. Prior to joining Solaris Resources, Ms. Lowe was with INV Metals as CFO and at Kinross Gold Corporation, first as vice president, Internal Audit & Enterprise Risk Management and then as vice president, finance, overseeing the company’s external financial reporting and corporate controllership functions. Ms. Lowe also worked at Inmet Mining Corporation where she held leadership roles across functions including enterprise risk management, global taxation and compliance, and business systems and controls.
