Noricum Gold Ltd (LON:NMG) MD Greg Kuenzel talks to DirectorsTalk about the raising of £1m to enable the Company to develop early stage production opportunities potentially as early as Q3 2016.
The company announced today that it has raised £1 million by way of a placing of 1,250,000,000 new ordinary shares of no par value in the capital of the Company (‘the Placing Shares’), with new and existing shareholders and Directors in the Company, at a price of 0.08 pence per Placing Share (‘the Placing’).
The funds raised will enable the Company to develop early stage production opportunities potentially as early as Q3 2016 from two starter pits identified at the Tsitel Sopeli and Kvemo Bolnisi project areas (‘the Project Areas’) located within the broader 861 sq km Bolnisi Copper-Gold Project in the Republic of Georgia. The Project Areas have been identified due to the presence of high-grade outcropping secondary quartzite gold mineralisation and the close proximity to the operating Madneuli and Sakdrisi mines and its associated heap leach operations, which are owned by the Company’s local partner. Further announcements regarding the Company’s production plans and targets will be made in due course.
The presence of significant gold mineralisation at both Tsitel Sopeli and Kvemo Bolnisi has been confirmed through previously announced high-grade historic trench and diamond drill results. Ahead of development, Noricum Gold Ltd will complete confirmatory resource drilling at both targets. Drilling at Kvemo Bolnisi commenced in December 2015 and is ongoing. Once completed, drilling and trenching will commence at Tsitel Sopeli. As the Company is proposing to utilise existing processing facilities, feasibility studies are not required ahead of production. In tandem with Noricum Gold’s drilling activities, metallurgical and process testing is partially complete and mine planning and pit design will now commence. Notably the Project Areas have a 30 year mining licence in place.
Noricum Gold Ltd CEO Greg Kuenzel said, “We acquired Bolnisi in July 2015 in recognition of the exciting potential it presented to deliver production and cash flows within a short timeframe, and with these funds now in hand we are on track to realise this in the near term. I would like to thank both the new and existing shareholders that have supported us towards delivering on this vision. We have been busy drilling at Kvemo Bolnisi, which will provide us with near term news flow, and will soon move to Tsitel Sopeli. Considering that we do not need to build processing infrastructure, we are confident that the operating costs will be low, and look forward to providing more detail on this as we firm up our production plans in the coming months. These opportunities provide the platform for the Company to demonstrate its capabilities to our partner in Georgia whilst at the same time demonstrating proof of concept and our ability to bring targets to production in this VMS district with a long mining history. This is a very exciting time in our development, and I hope shareholders, both old and new, will share in our anticipation as we rapidly move towards our first production and revenues.”
Certain Directors of the Company have also participated in the Placing.
