www.amurminerals.com
Amur Minerals Corporation (AMC) is a rapidly-growing mineral resource exploration and development company focused on base metal projects located in the far east of Russia. The Company has three properties in the region with its principal asset being the Kun-Manie sulphide nickel, copper project located in Amur Oblast. With a JORC compliant resource of over a quarter of a million tons of contained nickel, Kun-Manie is one of the five largest new nickel sulphide discoveries since Voisey’s Bay.
Amur Minerals raising £5.48 mln via share subscription to accelerate Kun-Manie
Russia focused Amur Minerals (LON:AMC) is raising around £5.48 million via a share subscription to accelerate development of its flagship Kun-Manie nickel sulphide asset.
The cash will be used to fund bespoke metallurgical and engineering work to be carried out as drilling continues at the area, the company told investors.
The subscription is by existing shareholders and new investors for a total of 68.51 mln shares for 8 pence each, the firm said.
Of those, Lanstead Capital L.P, an institutional investor, has subscribed for 60.7 mln for a total consideration of £4,856,000.
Also, Amur said it had entered into an equity swap agreement with Lanstead which allows Amur Minerals to retain much of the economic interest in the Lanstead subscription shares.
In December last year, the company approved the 2012 exploration budget and programme, which includes up to 7,000 metres of diamond drilling within target areas identified as containing anomalous nickel and copper values adjacent to currently defined resources and reserves.
The work will also include drilling at newly defined areas where no work has as yet been carried out.
The field season will also include standard resource and reserve studies that will augment the JORC estimates presently being updated. All the information will be used for an updated pre-feasibility study.
Chief executive of the firm Robin Young said: "This offer of additional funding from long standing supportive and new shareholders will allow the company to accelerate the development of the project.
"Not only will we be able to bring forward important metallurgical study work but it will also allow us to investigate additional targets and anomalies identified during last year's field programme sooner than previously thought possible."
Last week, research house Edison published a note on the company, saying the firm may be looking at developing a "district scale" nickel project, rather than three deposits.
"Although Amur’s licence area is not known to contain massive nickel sulphide, the extent of pervasive lower grade nickel mineralisation at surface lends itself to numerous shallow open pits being mined and, in all likelihood, a call for a new and improved revised feasibility study being completed," analyst Charles Gibson had said.
In November, Amur reported results from the first phase of its 2011 exploration programme at Kun-Manie, saying there was "substantial" potential to expand resources.
