Magnum Mining & Exploration (ASX:MGU) has enlisted the services of New York-based law firm Ellenoff Grossman & Schole to facilitate its capital raising activities in the United States.
Founded in 1992, Ellenoff Grossman & Schole specialises in several areas of commercial law, including corporate, securities, real estate, intellectual property, labour and employment, and taxation.
In June 2023, Magnum announced the appointment of EAS Advisers as its corporate strategist, tasked with the two-pronged remit of launching a private placement that would introduce the company to the North American market and pursuing a listing on a ‘major’ US stock exchange.
Now, Ellenoff Grossman & Schole has been retained to assist with these activities and provide legal oversight, though the firm’s appointment is subject to a monthly retainer that can be terminated by notice.
News of the appointment comes just a day after Magnum’s shares fell more than 30% following the release of a Scoping Study for its Buena Vista Iron project in Nevada.
Undertaken by MinRizon Projects, the study outlined the ‘potentially strong financial metrics’ for the project, located 35km south-east of Lovelock, which is expected to be a stand-alone open-pit mine with a conventional crush, grind, and magnetic separation process.
Based on a cut-off grade of 10% iron, the project boasts a resource estimate across 3 deposits — Section 5, West, and East — measuring 232 million tonnes at 18.6% iron. As such, Magnum anticipates the project will produce 1.6 million tonnes of direct reduction iron (DRI) magnetite concentrate per year for an initial mine life of 25 years.
But estimated capital costs for the Buena Vista Project range from US$182 million to US$378 million, while operating costs could fall anywhere between US$44 and US$90 per tonne.
The process plant itself is expected to cost US$96 million to US$200 million, with both on-site and off-site infrastructure requirements slated to cost between US$28 million and $58 million.
Nevertheless, confidence in the project is likely to improve as Magnum progresses to a Pre-Feasibility Study within the next 12 months and a Feasibility Study thereafter. Each is expected to take a year to complete, and the company is, in the meantime, seeking funding to support these studies.
“Magnum is in negotiations with a number of multinational organisations for project collaboration, models for which include product off-take agreements with prepayment arrangements, equity involvement, and debt financing,” the company said in a statement to the ASX yesterday.
Write to Oliver Gray at Mining.com.au
