www.connemaramining.com
Connemara Mining Company plc was established in 2006 by veterans of the Irish zinc industry to exploit zinc opportunities in Ireland and currently holds 38 prospecting licences in central and south-west Ireland. Connemara’s licences are for some or all of the base metals (Bm), barite (b), gold (g), silver (s), and platinum group elements (PGE). The Connemara exploration philosophy is trendology and closeology - follow the mineralised trends and obtain ground as close as possible to existing or former zinc/lead mines.
Connemara Mining raises £1.06m to fund zinc drilling in Ireland
Connemara Mining (LON:CON) has conditionally raised £1.06m through a placing of 5.2 million new shares at a price of 20p each. The proceeds will finance drilling activities at the company’s zinc interests in the Republic of Ireland, at the Stonepark JV with Teck Resources (TSX, NYSE: TCK) in Limerick, and on licences adjacent to Vedanta’s (LON:VED) Lisheen zinc mine in Tipperary.
The new shares were placed by Smith & Williamson Corporate Finance Ltd and Optiva Securities Ltd, with a number of new and existing investors. The placing shares equate to 25.8% of the company’s enlarged issued share capital.
Trading of the new shares is expected to become effective on London’s AIM market on or around 26 July 2010.
In June’s full-year results for the year ended 31 December 2009, Connemara reported its operational progress made during the year at Stonepark, which continues to grow in size and importance, with recent results showing an extension of a high grade mineralisation.
Also in June, the company said it intersected high-grade zinc-lead mineralisation 400 metres to the southwest of the Stonepark North discovery, which it said suggested either an extension to the discovery or a new zone.
According to a note by an independent merchant bank, Beaufort International, the exceptional recent drilling results and much anticipated resource estimates are likely to have just scratched the surface of prospects which are still over 60% unexplored.
The research note also highlighted that Connemara Mining’s portfolio of 37 licence blocks are ideally located on identified trends that spread right across Ireland’s Midland Orefield. According to Beaufort, the region boasts the largest number of zinc discoveries per square kilometre worldwide, “an unparalleled opportunity”.
According to the merchant bank, the new JORC release from Minco will provide a resource estimate approaching that of the soon to be commercially-exhausted Lisheen mine of Vedanta Resources (LON:VED).
“Given that Ireland’s south western deposits tend to occur as a ‘string of pearls’ separated by perhaps 2 to 5km and that the larger part of both prospects remain unexplored, it is just possible that the two companies are working on the same giant mineralised system ... Which one would have the head and which one the tail of this particular ‘elephant’, however, remains to be seen,” Beaufort stated.
