Georgian Mining Corp (LON:GEO) has today announced that it has raised US$7 million (£5,463,942) by way of a significantly oversubscribed placing and subscription of 34,149,638 new ordinary shares of no par value in the capital of the Company (‘the Placing Shares’), with new and existing shareholders in the Company, at a price of 16 pence per Placing Share (‘the Placing’).
The net proceeds of the Placing will be primarily used to expand the resource development at the Kvemo Bolnisi copper and gold project in Georgia (‘KB’ or ‘the Project’) beyond the existing JORC estimate of 2.22 Mt @ 0.8% Cu and 0.1 g/t Au as well as to advance regional exploration. The Project is located on the Tethyan Belt, which is host to multiple high grade copper-gold deposits and producing mines in Turkey, Armenia, Serbia and Georgia. The Company believes KB has the potential to host one large epithermal copper/gold deposit and a three phase resource development programme is underway to reach the Company’s 50Mt exploration target for KB, which is just one of 14 target areas identified within the Company’s 860 sq km licence area.
Having achieved and exceeded its stage 1 target of 1-2Mt of combined copper-gold sulphide and gold oxide mineralisation, GEO is currently undertaking drilling to realise its stage two resource target of 3-5 Mt in 2017. Results to date have delivered exceptional copper and gold grades, including 16m @ 15.4% Cu from 47m, including 4.95m@ 40.50% Cu. In tandem with its resource development work, the Company is also working to deliver proof of concept copper and gold production using its JV Partner’s processing infrastructure, which has excess capacity and is located in close proximity to KB. This will de-risk the project by defining the processing route for the ore, provide cash flow to contribute towards further exploration and strengthen the relationship with the Company’s partner. Discussions with the Company’s JV partner are ongoing and further updates will be made on completion.
Georgian Mining Corp Managing Director, Greg Kuenzel said, “KB continues to deliver excellent grades from drilling which validate our belief that we are developing a significant copper and gold deposit. The second half of 2017 is set to be very active with work on both an upgraded resource and proof-of-concept production on track to be delivered this year. This, we believe, will put the Company on the map as a significant Tethyan Belt play.”
Placing Shares
The Placing Shares will rank pari passu in all respects with the existing ordinary shares of no par value in the capital of the Company. Application will be made to the London Stock Exchange for the Placing Shares to be admitted to trading on AIM (‘Admission’). It is expected that Admission will become effective on or around 26 May 2017.
As a result of the issue of the Placing Shares as described above, the issued share capital of the Company now consists of 114,574,491 ordinary shares of no par value.
Warrants
The Company has agreed to issue warrants over a total of 348,602 ordinary shares in the Company exercisable at 20p per share for a period of two years from date of grant to SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP (Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker) and Shard Capital Partners LLP (Joint Broker).
