Amani Gold raises cash to advance Giro gold project
ASX-listed Amani Gold plans to raise up to $3 million to fund deep core drilling, resource estimates and DRC feasibility studies at the Giro gold project located in the Democratic Republic of Congo and meet ongoing working capital requirements.
The Giro gold project comprises two exploration permits, Kebigada and Douze Match, covering a surface area of 497 km² and lies within the Kilo-Moto Belt of the DRC, a significant under-explored greenstone belt which hosts the 17 Moz Kibali group of deposits within 35 km of Giro.
Under the two-tranche placement, Amani Gold has agreed to issue up to 3 000 million fully paid ordinary shares at an issue price of $0.001 per share, raising up to $3 million (before costs). Subject to receipt of shareholder approval, each placement share will include 1 free attaching listed option, with each having an exercise price of $0.0015 and expiry date 15 January 2024.
Tranche 1 of the placement, comprises 1 400 000 000 shares, while tranche 2 will comprise up to 1 600 000 000 shares (and 3 000 000 000 options), both of which are subject to shareholder approval.
“Amani is buoyed by the support demonstrated for the Placement by existing shareholders and new investors of the company,” says Amani Gold executive director Klaus Eckhof.
“The funds will allow us to grow the Kebigada deposit beyond the current 4.1 Moz of gold (0.5 g/t gold cut-off grade) by extensional and deeper core drilling and complete the DRC feasibility study,” he adds.
During 2020 the Kebigada mineral resource was upgraded to 4.1 Moz of gold following an extraordinarily successful deeper drilling programme. A new core drilling campaign of 2 000 m is planned to commence at Kebigada in March 2021.
Previous planned drilling campaigns have been delayed due to the availability of diamond core drill rigs in DRC because of border crossing closures (i.e. COVID-19 related closures). The geological team is at Giro camp preparing for drilling activities. A mutipurpose drill rig has been serviced at camp and is operational and a new mineral resource estimate for Kebigada will also be completed.
Meanwhile, in December 2020 Beijing General Research Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (BGRIMM) commenced an update of the Kebigada deposit DRC feasibility study. The feasibility study will comply with, and in many aspects exceed current DRC regulations.
The updated DRC feasibility study will incorporate the current Kebigada mineral resource estimate of 4.1 Moz of gold (0.5g/t Au cut-off grade, which is substantially larger than the Kebigada maiden mineral resource estimate of 2.1 Moz of gold (0.9g/t of gold cut-off grade) which was utilised in previous studies.
The study is expected to be completed by the end of February 2021.
