Kodal Minerals PLC (AIM:KOD, FRA:7UE) said its focus for the coming year will be on its Bougouni lithium project in Mali, while it also continues to pursue gold exploration in West Africa.
The AIM-listed company said it is in a strong financial position after a number of fund raisings during the year. These included a £0.5mln equity financing facility and a US$1.5mln convertible loan note, both of which have been fully converted. In March this year, Kodal completed another equity fund raising that totalled £3.5mln.
Kodal said its mining licence application for Bougouni is going through the final approval process and it expects to receive the licence in the near future.
The company noted the recent resurgence of interest in the lithium sector driven by the focus on green energy.
“The demand for lithium continues to exceed previous forecasts as the utilisation of lithium-ion batteries increases in the green energy solutions both on a large infrastructure scale as well as on the personal level through vehicles and personal devices,” Kodal said, noting that the Bougouni project is well positioned to take advantage of this supply shortfall.
It added that “the strongly rising prices for the lithium spodumene concentrate will underpin our efforts to secure financing for the Bougouni project development”.
During the year, Kodal expanded its portfolio of gold exploration projects with the acquisition of the Fatou gold project in southern Mali, while it also regained management and retained a 100% interest in the Nielle gold concession in northern Cote d'Ivoire. The company said it is now implementing an exploration programme across its gold projects in Mali and Cote d'Ivoire with the aim of rapidly defining new mineral resources that will underpin the value of these highly prospective assets.
Announcing its results for the year to 31 March 2021, Kodal said pre-tax losses narrowed slightly to £623,00 from £630,000 in the previous year.
Exploration and evaluation expenditure on the company’s projects fell to £542,000 from £1.6mln, leading to an increase in the carrying value of the group's capitalised exploration and evaluation expenditure to £8.96mln from £8.64mln after currency changes. The carrying value of the gold projects in Mali and Cote d'Ivoire was £1.47mln and the lithium projects in Mali £7.48mln at the end of March.
Cash amounted to £2.43mln at the year end and the company’s net asset value was £12.63mln, up from 8.05mln.