Hamelin Gold (ASX:HMG) plans to ramp up exploration in Western Australia after receiving firm commitments for a placement to raise $2.8 million.
This includes a promise from major gold miner and substantial shareholder Gold Fields (JSE:GFI) to inject $815,000 to raise its stake in Hamelin Gold to 17.7%.
The placement is priced at $0.07 per share, a 13.2% discount to the 10-day volume weighted average share price, with shares to be issued to sophisticated, professional and experienced investors.
Chieftain Securities (WA) and Cygnet Capital acted as joint lead managers to the placement and, subject to shareholder approval, will receive 2 million options exercisable at $0.15 each within two years.
Directors have also committed to contributing $100,000 to the raising on the same terms as unrelated investors.
Managing Director Peter Bewick says over the next few months Hamelin Gold will be drill testing a suite of large-scale gold targets in the West Tanami and across its Yilgarn gold projects.
At West Tanami, Hamelin Gold plans to undertake reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drilling at the Jazz and Fremlins prospects, aircore and RC drilling at the Camel, Far SW, Hutch’s and Ginger targets, and extend Ultrafine geochemical sampling across untested gold targets.
In mid-January, the company revealed it had discovered a new zone of granite-hosted gold mineralisation during first-pass drilling at the Jazz Prospect.
This is the first time Hamelin Gold has seen granite-hosted gold mineralisation in the West Tanami and it represents a new geological setting for gold in the region.
The West Tanami Project covers 2,277km2 and spans 100km of strike along the Trans-Tanami structural corridor that hosts Newmont’s (ASX:NEM) plus-14-million-ounce Callie Gold Deposit across the border in the Northern Territory.
Hamelin says it is one of Australia’s most unexplored gold provinces.
Meanwhile, in the Yilgarn the company will complete diamond drilling of the Anderson gold anomaly, follow-up RC drilling at Ularring, as well as advance the Venus Project to grant and complete initial aircore drill test of priority gold targets.
Previous soil sampling results suggest the potential for the presence of a “large-scale gold system” at the Anderson Project.
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
Images: Hamelin Gold
