It was a busy week for, among others, zinc recycling specialist ZincOx (LON:ZOX).
On Thursday, it revealed it was to raise funds to invest in equipment upgrades at its flagship plant that should dramatically enhance the economics of its production process.
The company conditionally raised in the region of £2.1mln through a placing of 16.1mln shares at 13p.
The shares have been placed with institutional and other investors, but ZincOx shareholders will get the chance to buy new shares at the same price through an open offer, raising an additional £1.1mln, ZincOx said.
The company, which produces zinc concentrate from EAFD (electric arc furnace dust), is planning to replace the often troublesome heat exchangers at its KRP facility.
Meanwhile, earlier in the week, it unveiled what it called a "dramatic turnaround" in the performance of its Korean recycling plant and said it expects further improvements soon.
The flagship plant has only been running at about 80% capacity for much of the first half due to a reduced amount of EAFD (electric arc furnace dust) being produced in Korea, which can be fed into the company's plant.
But, as Andrew Woollett, chief executive, explained, all that is about to change with EAFD imports, which will improve the group's profitability.
KRP treated 77,485 tonnes of EAFD in the first half compared to 58,569 in the second half of 2014. Meanwhile, zinc concentrate sold was 18,291 tonnes against 14,103 tonnes in the previous period.
Revenues came in at US$22.2mln compared to US$20mln as the zinc price fell to US$ 2.136 per tonne compared to US$2.278 per tonne. ZincOx noted that this zinc price fall of 7% meant zinc revenue increased by only 11%.
Here are some other news highlights from the week. Shares in Jubilee Platinum (LON:JLP) surged this week as it announced the sale of its Middelburg smelter and power operations in South Africa for around £5.8mln to fund investment into its platinum surface operations.
Last year, Jubilee secured a contract to process material at a tailings dam at ASA Metal’s Dilokong chrome mine and also has a deal with the fourth largest ferrochrome producer in the world - Hernic.
The proceeds could fully fund the capital required for the construction and commissioning of the Dilokong project, it told investors.
The buyer is a special purpose vehicle from Siyanda Resources Proprietary Ltd, a South African mining and beneficiation specialist company.
Also this week Noricum Gold (LON:NMG) shares rose as it announced a 'game-changing' acquisition of a 50% stake in a project in The Republic of Georgia, which contains large copper and gold resources.
The £2.61mln all share purchase of the stake in the 861 sq km Bolnisi project, in which Noricum also takes operational control, provides excellent potential for production, the firm said.
Using existing cash, Noricum plans initially to kick off work to increase the resource base while at the same time converting the historical non-JORC resources into JORC compliant ones as well as consider short term production opportunities.
Noricum is buying 100% of GMC for £2.6mln. GMC owns 50% of GCGL, which holds the Bolnisi licence. The other 50% is owned by CMG.
The project's current resources consist of 980,000 tonnes of contained copper, 6.6 million ounces of gold and 22 million ounces of silver.
W Resources (LON:WRES) said the government of Extremadura in Southern Spain has granted an environmental permit to develop a mine at the La Parrilla tungsten project.
Chief executive Michael Masterman, a veteran of the resources sector, said the move was a "major milestone" in plans to get the pit fully into production in 2018.
It had originally been expected that the environmental permit would come through in the fourth quarter.
Masterman said: "Environmental approval gives us certainty on the timeline to production. Getting it ahead of schedule makes a very big difference to the company."
Anglo Asian (LON:AAZ) shares soared as the miner posted record gold output from its Gedabek mine in Azerbaijan for the first half.
Output for the six months to end June came in at 35,938 ounces, with 23,436 ounces from the agitation leach plant, 12,488 ounces from heap leach operations and 14 ounces from SART, the miner said.
Gold production for the second quarter was 19% up on the same period of the previous year, at 18,745 ounces (Q2, 2014: 15,736 ounces), while sales in the quarter were 16,088 ounces at an average of US$1,193 per ounce.
Copper production for the first half was 418 tonnes compared to 369 tonnes in the first six months of 2014.
Sula Iron & Gold (LON:SULA) has defined an 2km long exploration target at its Ferensola project in Sierra Leone and is assessing its options for a drilling programme.
Based on historical JORC compliant data and recent samples, consultant SRK estimated a tonnage range of between 5 and 7 mln tonnes (Mt) at a grades between 4 and 8 g/t, the equivalent of 0.8 and 1.5 mln ounces of gold.
The Exploration Target was restricted to 2km strike length, though the regional fold belt has a potential overall strike length in excess of 10 km, which may add additional ounces, Sula said.