In what’s probably one of the biggest equity financings in junior mining this year, Hummingbird Resources PLC (LON:HUM) has raised £45 mln (US$67 mln) for the development of its Yanfolila gold mine in Mali.
Some debt financing will still be required to get Yanfolila all the way into production, but the new money means that Hummingbird can press on with detailed engineering work and then move on right into construction in three months’ time.
Bert Monro, head of business development, has called the mine “a world class project.”
Elsewhere, shares in Kibo Mining PLC (LON:KIBO) rose by more than 7% in early trade on Friday after the company announced that feasibility work on the Mbeya coal mine in Tanzania has now advanced to the stage where it can now seek out bids for the engineering, procurement and construction contract.
The news follows on from an earlier announcement involving the merger of Kibo’s gold project with a neighbouring gold asset in the Lake Victoria region, and caps of a week of positive developments for the company.
Rambler Metals & Mining PLC (LON:RMM; CVE:RAB) has announced that it has closed the fundraise pursuant to the previously announced subscription to CE Mining, a specialist mining investment fund.
CE Mining has subscribed for around 261.4 mln shares in Rambler at a price of 4p, plus 200 mln warrants exercisable at 5p, for a total investment of £10.45 mln in Rambler.
The money raised will be used to develop the lower footwall zone at Rambler’s Ming copper-gold mine in Canada.
Shares in Eland Oil & Gas PLC (LON:ELA) dipped on Friday as it noted what it called "unsubstantiated press speculation" over security incidents in the Niger Delta, near where its main asset OML is located.
"The company confirms that it is not aware of any incidents on its properties and confirms that the company's continuing maintenance and operational activity remains unaffected," it told investors in a brief statement.
Shares of Bushveld Minerals Limited (LON:BMN) have resumed trading following news that it has secured US$5.2 mln of financing to complete the first phase of the acquisition of Strategic Minerals Corporation from Russian major Evraz Group (LON:EVR).
Strategic Minerals is the owner of the Vametco vanadium mine and plant in South Africa, and as it turns Bushveld at a stroke into a producer, the acquisition is likely to be transformative.
Amerisur Resources PLC (LON:AMER) will wait until it has acquired electrical logs before deciding whether to complete the Jaguarete-1 well on its San Pedro property in Paraguay.
The company said there were “positive indications” of oil and gas in potential reservoirs in the Lima and Santa Elena formations, which were found slightly deeper than anticipated.
“The significance of the results will not be known until all data analysis and any additional operations on the well have been completed,” the company said.
SeaEnergy PLC (LON:SEA) has gone into administration and its Return to Scene (R2S) business has been acquired by James Fisher Holdings UK Limited.
Yesterday (June 2), Blair Nimmo, Geoff Jacobs and Tony Friar of KPMG were appointed as joint administrators of the offshore energy services group.
In March this year, the group said it was facing significant cash flow problems and would need to consider a sale of its main assets to continue trading beyond May 2016.