Welcome to our roundup of the most popular mining investment, exploration, and development stories on Theassay.com from the last seven days.
We kick off with news that Ionic Rare Earths Limited (ASX: IXR) has received firm commitments to raise A$30 million by way of a share placement at A$0.074 in a significantly oversubscribed issue.
The placement was strongly supported by both key existing shareholders and new global institutional investors from Europe, North America, Asia and Australia.
Canaccord Genuity (Australia) Limited acted as Global Bookrunner and Lead Manager to the Placement. Sprott Capital Partners LP acted as Co-Manager to the Placement.
“This is a very positive milestone for IonicRE and our plans to develop the Makuutu Rare Earths Project and to take Seren Technology forward,” said Tim Harrison, IonicRE’s managing director.
On to development stories, and American West Metals Limited (ASX: AW1) has obtained “exceptional results” from conventional ore sorting in recent ore sorting test work completed on mineralization from the high-grade Storm Copper Project on Somerset Island, Nunavut.
This work is the first of its type to be completed on the Storm mineralization and has successfully produced a commercial grade direct shipping ore (DSO) product. The DSO material has no impurities and has the potential to form the basis for a low footprint and low capital development option at the Storm Copper Project.
Ascendant Resources Inc. (TSX: ASND | OTCQB: ASDRF) has updated the market on a range of activities coming together for a feasibility study on the Venda Nova deposit at its Lagoa Salgada Project in Portugal. The company expects to complete the study by the end of 2022.
Mark Brennan, Ascendant’s executive chairman, stated, “Our team in Portugal continues to work on several fronts to deliver our planned bankable feasibility study for the Venda Nova deposit by the end of 2022. We remain confident these programmes will deliver a robust development plan for an initial mine at the Venda Nova property. Over time, we expect ongoing exploration efforts to continue to expand the overall resources at Lagoa Salgada to expand the operations well beyond this initial development plan”
There was also news that Red 5 Limited (ASX: RED) remains on track for first gold production in the current quarter at its 100%-owned 2.4Moz, 16-year life-of-mine King of the Hills (KOTH) Gold Project, after achieving further key construction and operational readiness milestones during March 2022.
“With first gold production expected in the current quarter at King of the Hills, our open pit mining teams are operating 24/7 and underground mining is now ramping up on schedule,” Red 5’s managing director, Mark Williams, said.
On to drilling news, and Antilles Gold Limited (ASX: AAU, OTCQB: ANTMF) has received further high-grade gold and silver assays from an additional 30 cored drill holes at the La Demajagua gold/silver deposit in Cuba.
Since February 2021, 26,500m of drilling has been undertaken on the La Demajagua gold-silver deposit, with the Initial JORC Resources advised in January 2022 being based on assays from 12,384m of core from 114 drill holes, and selected data from 50,000m of historic drilling. The final 1,500m of drilling will be completed this month.
Westhaven Gold Corp. (TSXV:WHN) has received additional positive drill results from its ongoing drill campaign at its 100% owned 17,623-hectare Shovelnose gold property in British Columbia.
“We are pleased to report the highest gold-silver intercept (857.64 gram-metres) ever drilled on the Shovelnose gold property, at the FMN Zone,” president and CEO, Gareth Thomas, said.
“Hole SN22-212 (23.03m of 37.24 g/t gold and 214.70 g/t silver) is over 2km from the heart of the South Zone resource.
“We now have multiple gold mineralized drill intercepts at the FMN zone over 500m of strike length that begin at bedrock surface in areas with minimal overburden.”
Finally, Lahontan Gold Corp. (formerly 1246765 B.C. Ltd.) has announced that it will commence trading on Canada’s TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol “LG”, from Wednesday 13 April 2022.
Lahontan has granted an aggregate of 3,950,000 options to purchase common shares of the company exercisable at a price of $0.45 per common share for a period of five years to directors, officers and consultants of the company.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to subscribe to The Assay Weekly newsletter.
