White Cliff Minerals (ASX:WCN) has raised a further $1.05 million in its recently closed share purchase plan, which followed the recently completed $1.5 million placement.
The $2.55 million in total funds raised will be used primarily for exploration at the Aucu gold project in central Asia and the Merolia gold project in Western Australia.
The raising exceeded the company’s $2 million capital raising target that was set via two underwriting agreements.
Todd Hibberd, managing director, commented: “The company is pleased with this level of support from existing shareholders.
“We are confident our planned exploration program will provide further positive exploration results to advance our suite of projects both in Western Australia and in Kyrgyz.”
Background
White Cliff is advancing its 89% owned Aucu gold deposit located in the Kyrgyz Republic and its 100% owned Merolia gold project located near Laverton, Western Australia.
Aucu hosts a resource of 1.15 million tonnes grading 4.2 g/t gold for 156,000 ounces of contained gold at a 1.0 g/t cut-off grade.
Drilling has discovered significant surface expressions of visible gold along strike from this resource including 8 metres at 55.2 g/t gold and 4 metres at 59.9 g/t gold.
Merolia hosts the Ironstone, Comet Well and Burtville East gold anomalies.
Historical drilling intersected substantial mineralisation including 5 metres at 33 g/t gold, 2 metres at 6.65 g/t gold and 3 metres at 5.3 g/t gold.
Recently, White Cliff sampled gold grades of up to 38 g/t gold from surface rock piles at the Burtville East gold prospect.
Drilling in progress at Merolia gold project
White Cliff recently commenced a 2,000 metre air-core drilling program targeting a large gold anomaly at the Ironstone gold prospect.
From the drilling completed to date, logging of drill rock chips has identified quartz veining in several holes.
High grade gold mineralisation is associated with quartz veining 190 metres west of the current drilling.
The samples have been dispatched for assay and results are pending.
Bonanza gold at Aucu
White Cliff also recently received assays grading up to 149.5 g/t gold from the latest results from the Quartz Zone within the Aucu gold project.
Intersections from the two latest holes included 11 metres at 15.2 g/t gold and 66 metres at 0.91% copper.
The Quartz Zone outcrops at surface in all road cuttings completed and visible gold has been identified in rock samples at surface in all road cuttings to date.
Further assays are expected.
Analysis
The capital raising was both underwritten and oversubscribed, which is a testament to the current gold projects White Cliff is advancing.
These funds have allowed White Cliff to commit to a drill program at the Ironstone prospect within the Merolia gold project and continue work at Aucu.
With work in progress at both Merolia and Aucu and assays pending, news flow is expected to continue, keeping the company and investors leveraged to exploration upside.
Upcoming news flow includes:
- Further assays from Aucu;
- Assays from Ironstone;
- New soil sample results at Merolia;
- New metallurgical test-work on Aucu targeted for January 2017;
- Drilling Burtville East for gold planned for January 2017; and
- New JORC resource for Aucu expected in February 2017.