African Pioneer has raised N$9,8 million (£420,000) from existing shareholders and new investors to advance the Ongombo copper-gold project.
The company also issues 1,207,039 ordinary shares with no par value to settle N$402,176 (£17,246) of accrued consultancy fees.
The Ongombo project is on the Matchless Belt, where the Matchless and Otjihase mines, which have been on care and maintenance since 2015, are.
Matchless and Otjihase contained a total combined resource of >16 MT at 2.2% Cu and 1.2 g/t Au.
African Pioneer raised £420,000 before expenses at 1 penny per ordinary share through the issue of 42,000,000 new ordinary shares conditional only upon admission of the fundraising shares to listing on the FCA’s Official List and to trading on the main market of the London Stock Exchange.
Shard Capital Partners LLP organised the fundraising.
The money will be used to analyse the gold distribution and its association with copper and/or magnetite quartzite, and ore body-wide assessment before drilling in test areas with only low density.
African Pioneer also wants to engage with external mining and resource advisers who have provided updated resource estimates for the open pit mineralisation to offer recommendations for infill drilling and collar locations to maximise global resource increases.
Additionally, the money will go to planning discussions with preferred mining contractors for open pit and underground mining to build a database of unit costs for key components of the mine plan to update the financial model.
The company also wants the money for production scheduling for the 930 kt open pit.
Lastly, African Pioneer wants a detailed assessment using external advisers to review a range of development options (tpa, processing methodology to be employed, expected Capex and Opex), leading to the presentation of a proposed development plan to the board.
