A fairly busy week for the diggers, and the latter part was dominated by news from gold producer Acacia Mining PLC (LON:ACA) and its parent company, the Canadian giant Barrick Gold Corporation (NYSE:ABX).
The former saw shares surge late on Thursday as Barrick struck a deal with the Tanzanian government to resolve a dispute, which has hit operations in the country.
Barrick agreed the African country would take a 16% stake in three gold mines operated by Acacia, a 50% share in revenues from the mines and a one-off payment of $300mln (£228m).
Under the deal, Acacia would form a new joint venture with the Tanzanian government to operate its three mines in the country, including Bulyanhulu and Buzwagi and North Mara.
However, Acacia still needs to approve the deal and said it was seeking further clarification as it is yet to receive a formal proposal.
“Tanzania has rightly received bad press recently, and an agreement with African Barrick/Acacia Mining is essential for Tanzania's future as a destination for foreign investment,” noted broker Beaufort Securities.
“If indeed the agreement reached is a 16% (mine level) equity stake for Tanzania, investors will breathe a sigh of relief. And all Tanzanian based resources companies should see a positive rerating.”
Meanwhile, Bacanora Minerals Ltd (LON:BCN CVE:BCN) shares advanced as it reached another milestone in its bid to start mining lithium from its flagship Sonora project in Mexico with the receipt of environmental approval from the government.
The environment ministry has given the go-ahead for a 35,000tpa (tons per annum) lithium carbonate operation, following comprehensive studies carried out over two years.
"One-by-one we are ticking off our checklist ahead of our goal of developing Sonora into a world class lithium operation," chief executive Peter Secker told investors.
Elsewhere, Cadence Minerals Plc (LON:KDNC) noted that investee firm Macarthur Minerals Limited has completed its acquisition of 15% of Yalgoo Exploration Pty Ltd which owns the Melville Gold Project in Western Australia.
Yalgoo Exploration owns two granted exploration licences (E59/2077 and E59/2140), covering an area of 191 square kilometres (47,161 acres) in the Murchison region, which lie around 500 km north-east of Perth.
Cadence has a 15.7% equity interest in Macarthur, which is an Australian mining exploration company.
The ramp-up of production continued in the third quarter at Shanta Gold Limited’s (LON:AHG) New Luika gold mine in Tanzania.
As a result of new underground workings, the total ore mined underground shot up to 75,996 tonnes from 41,096 tonnes in the previous quarter.
Gold production in the quarter dipped to 18,225 ounces (oz) from 19,657 oz in the second quarter, with the company seeing some grade variability in an isolated western section of Bauhinia Creek.
In the fourth quarter, the grade is expected to improve as the company is now operating from two stopes.
To Ireland, and Galantas Gold Corp (LON:GAL,CVE:GAL) highlighted the accelerated development work at the Omagh Gold Mine in Northern Ireland.
The acceleration follows the resolution of issues related to blasting operations and the company said the underground development totals more than 90 metres.
It highlighted that the Stinger vein mineralisation was intersected, it is 0.5 metres wide, and a narrow width loader has now been acquired to operate short term on the vein while the firm awaits delivery of new specialist mining equipment.
Additionally, it noted that ore will be stockpiled underground until there’s enough material for batch processing at the floatation plant.
In other news, Capital Drilling Ltd told investors that revenue for the third quarter amounted to US$30mln, up 26% from the same period last year.
The company noted that the revenue tally was similar to the preceding quarter but said it was the group’s strongest third quarter for five years. It added that fleet utilisation for the quarter was 52%, with 48 rigs in use.
In a statement, the company declared an interim dividend of 0.5 US cent per share for the first half of the year, to be paid on October 6.
Landore Resources Ltd (LON:LND) raised gross proceeds of £1mln through a subscription of 50,000,000 new ordinary shares at a price of 2.0p each.
The subscription price represents a premium of approximately 3.9% to last night’s closing middle market price of 1.93p per ordinary share.
Tertiary Minerals plc (LON:TYM) revealed last week it was in advanced discussions regarding acquisition opportunities in the fluorspar and industrial minerals sector in a corporate and operational update
In the statement, Tertiary’s managing director, Richard Clemmey said: “Management is also focused on acquisition opportunities in the fluorspar and industrial minerals sector. Advanced discussions and technical due diligence are in progress and we look forward to releasing further news in due course."