Flagship bags A$2.75M for multi-million-ounce Chilean gold project
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Murray Region
Flagship Minerals has secured firm commitments of A$2.75 million in a strategic placement to accelerate its newly upgraded flagship Isidora gold project in Chile. The significant capital raise will directly fund upcoming technical workflows and engineering feasibility studies.
The company’s new shares were priced at 25 cents each; This represents a tight two percent discount to the company’s closing price of 25.5 cents on May 19.
Underlining the significant corporate weight behind the financing, global mining engineering giant Shandong Xinhai Mining Technology & Equipment has committed A$500,000, subject to shareholder approval. This is on top of the $2.5 million Xinhai had already paid in the company’s December settlement.
‘Xinhai’s continued support further strengthens our strategic relationship.’
Flagship Minerals managing director Paul Lock
A mysterious European investor has thrown his weight behind the explorer with a massive pledge of A$2 million, alongside other sophisticated investors who invested A$200,000.
Flagship Minerals managing director Paul Lock said: “We are pleased to receive support from three strategic long-term investors aligned with the company’s development strategy; this is a further confirmation of the 2.1Moz Isidora Gold Project.”
Flagship said the new funds were raised following a recent transformational resource upgrade at its cornerstone Isidora gold project, formerly known as Pantanillo, which officially moves the company into the multi-million ounce gold club. The resource has now been increased to 115.2 million tonnes at 0.56 grams gold per tonne for 2.1 million ounces of gold.
In a fantastic feat of value creation, Flagship was able to double the size of its gold resource without the usual multimillion-dollar drilling bill.
Rather than embarking directly on an expensive exploration campaign, the company took a much smarter approach by repurposing a massive historical dataset inherited from mining giant Anglo American, which had previously provided it.
The trove of legacy data, which the company estimates would cost more than A$30 million to replicate, included almost 33,000 meters of drilling from 183 boreholes, including nearly 19,000 analyses, 13,939 meters of diamond core and more than 2,100 surface geochemical samples.
However, by forensically reprocessing historical information, Flagship was able to unlock a massive 100 percent increase in JORC-compliant welds without returning a single new drill bit.
Flagship says more than 90 percent of its total gold ounces fall within measured and demonstrated resource categories of high geological confidence, giving the company a much easier path to future mine planning.
Isidora is located in a premier mining postcode in Chile’s prolific Maricunga gold belt; This region is a globally recognized jurisdiction that hosts many world-class operations.
The project sits right next to recent regional development success stories, most notably Rio2’s nearby 4.8 million-ounce Fenix gold mine. The new large-scale heap leach operation achieved its first gold production earlier this year and appears to serve as a highly encouraging commercial benchmark for Flagship’s path to production.
While its primary focus is gold production, Flagship also operates the prospective Rosario copper and silver project in Chile’s central copper belt.
Flagship said it would distribute the new cash across four areas, with AU$750,000 allocated for targeted drilling and metallurgical work, which is estimated to cost US$500,000. Another AU$750,000 will fund broader, project-related work, while the final AU$750,000 will be targeted for general working capital.
Armed with new corporate support, a high-confidence resource base in the bag, and a clear flow of information on upcoming processing results, Flagship looks perfectly positioned to keep things going at Isidora.
For a junior explorer, this is a rare combination of scale, funding and momentum. With Chile’s Maricunga belt fast becoming one of the world’s hottest gold development regions, punters will no doubt be keeping a close eye on heap leach exploration from the heart of Chile’s gold country.
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