It was something of a gold day in the small cap market on Friday.
Issuing new shares at a premium price put Hummingbird Resources Ltd (LON:HUM) very much in focus through early deals.
It is raising US$3.8mln which will allow it to unlock value at the Yanfolila mine project, which hosts 2.2mln ounces of gold and is due to see the start of production next year.
Elsewhere IronRidge Resources Ltd (LON:IRR) announced it is taking a stake in Tekton Mineral, giving it exclusive rights to a major new gold discovery in Chad.
For US$3.5mln it takes control of Tekton, via a 58% shareholding, which gives it thefirst crack at several highly prospective, province-scale, gold mineralised belt where little or no modern exploration work has taken place thus far.
Meanwhile, Ortac Resources Ltd (LON:OTC) highlighted a resource upgrade at the Akyanga project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which is being explored by its 13% owned associate CASA Mining.
CASA now sees some 2.3mln ounces of gold resource potential at the deposit in the DRC.
Carrying on the theme, Thursday saw Caledonia Mining Corporation PLC (LON:CMCL TSX:CAL) post significantly better second quarter results as a major upgrade to its Blanket gold mine in Zimbabwe began to take effect.
Underlying earnings rose 300% to 6.1c and more than doubled over the half year, with a higher gold price, greater production and lower costs also boosting the numbers.
And on Wednesday Kibo Mining PLC (LON:KIBO) has completed the merger of its Imweru gold project with Lake Victoria Gold’s adjacent Imwelo property and intends to float it on AIM as separate entity within months.
Katoro Gold Mining Limited will be the name of the new venture, with Louis Coetzee, Kibo’s chief executive (CEO), to be executive chairman and Seth Dickinson CEO.
Meanwhile, Rare Earth Minerals plc (LON:REM OTCMKTS:REMMY) has hired Société Générale (SocGen) as financial advisor to assist the company as it evaluate funding options for its assets.
Earlier this week REM told investors it was poised to bring in US$15mln after striking a convertible loan deal with a specialist Mexico-focused resource investor.
Andrew Suckling, REM chairman, described the advisor appointment and the recently announced funding arrangement as “an important step forward”.
Earlier in the week, Diamondcorp Plc (LON:DCP) told investor it had raised production at its Lace mine in South Africa to the planned rate of 30,000 tonnes per month.
Production at the mine was temporarily suspended in July after an explosives incident, but work on the 310 metres underground level in the Upper K4 Block at Lace restarted last month.
So far, the ore is averaging 31 carats per hundred tonnes (cpht), which is in line with forecasts, though Diamondcorp expects grades to improve as mining of the current block progresses.
Approximately 7,000 carats of diamonds recovered while tunnelling in UK4 will be sold in Antwerp at the end of August.