Alice Queen Ltd (ASX:AQX) has received binding commitments for its proposed $1.8 million placement to progress gold work at its Horn Island Project in Queensland, recent Fijian acquisition and its Northern Molong Project in NSW.
The placement has been managed by Fresh Equities Pty Ltd and was strongly supported by existing major shareholder Datt Capital.
The company intends to use proceeds to assess the value of the historic run of mine and ore stockpiles at Horn Island via a planned RC drill program along with progressing the review of historical exploration results at Fiji and to start a maiden preliminary field program.
The funds will also be used for an ongoing review of recently completed exploration programs and future planning in the Molong Volcanic belt in NSW, and for general working capital.
Horn Island bulk ore sorter tests
The company recently received positive results from bulk ore sorter test-work at its Horn Island Project, Torres Strait, Far North Queensland.
Diamond core totalling around 2 tonnes from the inferred resource area of 7.9 million tonnes at 1.9 g/t gold for 492,000 ounces was assessed along with a separate sample collected from legacy low-grade stockpiles from mining operations in the 1980s.
Results of the Tomra Ore sorter test-work demonstrated the suitability of this low-cost, low-energy processing solution with high-volume feed rates of 48 tonnes per hour (tph) and 79 tph applied with high gold recoveries of 94% and 93% respectively.
Fiji gold acquisition
The company’s gold interests are being extended to Fiji through the acquisition of exploration company Viti Pte Mining Limited which has two Special Prospecting Licences (SPLs) - SPL 1514 Nabila and SPL 1513 Viani - which Alice Queen will begin to explore subject to regulatory and completion conditions.
Fiji has a long history of gold production and the company is confident the advanced assets will add to its gold inventory at Horn Island.
Placement details
As a part of the fundraising initiative, the company plans to issue around 140 million shares at a price of 1.3 cents per share.
The placement also includes attaching1 for 2 unlisted options, with an exercise price of 3 cents and maturity of 2 years from the date of issue, subject to shareholder’s approval at the next general meeting of the company.
The placement shares are expected to be issued in the coming days and will be issued without shareholder approval under the company’s remaining placement capacity under the ASX’s listing rule 7.1.