TIDMSOLG
RNS Number : 6639M
SolGold PLC
01 May 2018
1 May 2018
SolGold plc
("SolGold" or the "Company")
James Clare Joins SolGold Board
Eduardo Valenzuela Appointed as Study Manager
Appointment of James Clare as SolGold Non-Executive Director
The Board of Directors of SolGold (AIM: SOLG) is pleased to
announce that Mr James Clare has been appointed as a Non-Executive
Director to the SolGold Board of Directors.
Mr Clare is a partner at Bennett Jones LLP, one of Canada's
leading corporate law firms. He is a corporate and securities
lawyer with extensive experience in the mining sector both
domestically and internationally. He was extensively involved with
SolGold's TSX listing process and provides ongoing legal and
corporate advice to the Company in relation to its Canadian
regulatory and business matters.
Mr Clare is recognised by Lexpert as a leading mining lawyer in
Canada, and repeatedly recommended for his experience in mining,
corporate finance and securities law by the Canadian Legal Lexpert
Directory.
Mr Clare also currently acts as a Non-Executive Director of PJX
Resources Inc, Riverside Resources Inc and Spanish Mountain Gold
Ltd.
Appointment of Eduardo Valenzuela as SolGold Study Manager
The Board of Directors is also pleased to announce the
appointment of Mr Eduardo Valenzuela as SolGold Study Manager. Mr
Valenzuela's initial priority will be to deliver on the various
study elements for the development of the Company's Alpala deposit
in Northern Ecuador.
Mr Valenzuela is a mining engineer with an Honours Degree in
Mining Engineering, from the University of Chile and Master of
Business (International Management) from Curtin University in WA
and extensive mining industry experience in Australia, Latin
America, USA, the Middle East and Asia, working with top-tier and
junior mining companies and consulting organizations including BHP
Minerals, Western Collieries, Anaconda Nickel, IFC (World Bank),
BHP Engineering, SKM, Hatch and Amec Foster Wheeler among
others.
Mr Valenzuela's background includes:
Ø Extensive project management and mine operations experience
across a wide range of mining projects and commodities including
copper, gold, silver, zinc, nickel, iron ore, lithium, coal and
industrial minerals.
Ø Extensive multi-disciplinary feasibility study management
experience covering geology, mine planning, ore processing,
materials handling and infrastructure, involving a variety of
mining projects in Australia and overseas.
Ø Strategic planning, business development, and mine consulting
experience covering most technical and operational aspects of
mining and project improvement.
Ø Experience in project financing with the International Finance
Corporation (World Bank) both as staff member based in Washington
DC and subsequently as a consultant providing advice to the IFC on
mine project financing primarily in the Asia Pacific and Latin
America regions.
Ø Corporate experience including roles such as Technical
Director, VP Business Development, Non-Executive Director, and
Non-Executive Chairman with ASX listed companies.
Ø Experience in the sourcing, evaluation, and acquisition of
mine exploration projects in Latin America and Australia.
Ø A wide network of mining industry and project financing
contacts in Australia, Latin America and the USA.
Commenting on the appointments Executive Director Nick Mather
said: "SolGold is fortunate to benefit from the appointment of
Messrs Clare and Valenzuela. We are committed to the high standard
of rigour that both James Clare and Eduardo Valenzuela will bring
to SolGold's efforts at both corporate and project levels to
achieve world class outcomes for its shareholders."
By order of the Board
Karl Schlobohm
Company Secretary
CONTACTS
Mr Nicholas Mather Tel: +61 (0) 7 3303 0665
SolGold Plc (Chief Executive Officer) +61 (0) 417 880 448
nmather@solgold.com.au
Mr Karl Schlobohm Tel: +61 (0) 7 3303 0661
SolGold Plc (Company Secretary)
kschlobohm@solgold.com.au
Mr Ewan Leggat / Mr Richard Morrison Tel: +44 (0) 20 3470
0470
SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP (Broker)
ewan.leggat@spangel.co.uk
Follow us on twitter @SolGold_plc
NOTES TO EDITORS
SolGold is a Brisbane, Australia based, dual LSE and TSX--listed
(SOLG on both exchanges) copper gold exploration and future
development company with assets in Ecuador, Solomon Islands and
Australia. SolGold's primary objective is to discover and define
world--class copper--gold deposits. The Board and Management Team
have substantial vested interests in the success of the Company as
shareholders as well as strong track records in the areas of
exploration, mine appraisal and development, investment, finance
and law. SolGold's experience is augmented by state of the art
geophysical and modelling techniques, and the guidance of porphyry
copper and gold expert Dr Steve Garwin.
In October 2017, at the Mines and Money Americas Conference in
Toronto, SolGold's Nicholas Mather won the award for the CEO of the
Year - Exploration, Latin America. SolGold won the Exploration
Award for Latin America, and Ecuador won the Country Award for
Latin America. Each party then duly won the 2017 award for each
respective category on a global basis at London Mines and Money on
30 November 2017.
The Company announced USD54m in capital raisings in September
2016 involving Maxit Capital LP, Newcrest International Ltd and DGR
Global Ltd, and a USD41.2m raising in June of 2017 largely from
Newcrest International with USD1.2m raised from Ecuadorean
investors. These raisings were undertaken at substantial premiums
to previous raisings. In November 2017 SolGold raised a further
GBP45m at 25p per share, placed with institutions and Newcrest
pursuant to their anti-dilution rights. SolGold currently has circa
USD85m in available cash to continue the exploration and appraisal
of its flagship Cascabel Project, and with which to conduct
regional exploration programs on its 73 other 100%-owned tenements
in its wholly owned subsidiary companies.
Mr Craig Jones joined the SolGold Board on 3 March 2017,
nominated to the Board of SolGold by Newcrest Mining, now a 14.54%
shareholder in SolGold. Mr Jones is a Mechanical Engineer and is
currently the Executive General Manager Wafi-Golpu
(Newcrest-Harmony Joint Venture). He has held various senior
management and executive roles within the Newcrest Group, including
General Manager Projects, General Manager Cadia Valley Operations,
Executive General Manager Projects and Asset Management, Executive
General Manager Australian and Indonesian Operations, Executive
General Manager Australian Operations and Projects, and Executive
General Manager Cadia and Morobe Mining Joint Venture. Prior to
joining Newcrest, Mr Jones worked for Rio Tinto.
Cascabel, SolGold's 85% owned "World Class" (refer
www.solgold.com.au/cautionary-notice/) flagship copper--gold
porphyry project, is located in northern Ecuador on the
under--explored northern section of the richly endowed Andean
Copper Belt. Having fulfilled its earning requirements, SolGold is
a registered shareholder with an unencumbered legal and beneficial
85% interest in ENSA (Exploraciones Novomining S.A.) and
approximately 5% of TSX--V--listed Cornerstone Capital Resources
("Cornerstone"), which holds the remaining 15% of ENSA, the
Ecuadorian registered company which holds 100% of the Cascabel
concession. Subject to the terms of existing agreements,
Cornerstone is debt financed by SolGold for its share of costs to
completion of a Feasibility Study.
In terms of repayment, SolGold shall receive 90% of
Cornerstone's share of earnings or dividends from ENSA or the
Tenement to which Cornerstone would otherwise be entitled until
such time as the amounts so received equal the aggregate amount of
expenditures incurred by SolGold that would have otherwise been
payable by Cornerstone, plus interest thereon from the dates such
expenditures were incurred at a rate per annum equal to LIBOR plus
2 per cent until such time as SolGold is fully reimbursed.
The investments by Newcrest for 14.54% of SolGold endorses
Ecuador as an exploration and mining destination, the management
team at SolGold, the dimension, size and scale of the growing
Alpala Deposit, and the prospectivity of Cascabel and its multiple
targets. The gold endowment, location, infrastructure, and
logistics are important competitive advantages offered by the
project. Cascabel is characterised by fifteen (15) identified
targets, "World Class" drilling intersections over 1km in length at
potentially economic grades, and high copper and gold grades in
richer sections, as well as logistic advantages in location,
elevation, water supply, proximity to roads, rail, port and power
services; and a progressive legislative approach to resource
development in Ecuador.
To date SolGold has completed geological mapping, soil sampling,
rock saw channel sampling, geochemical and spectral alteration
mapping over 25km(2) , along with an additional 9km(2) of Induced
Polarisation and 14km(2) Magnetotelluric "Orion" surveys over the
Alpala cluster and other targets at Aguinaga, Parambas,
Tandayama-America, Moran and Chinambicito.
SolGold has completed over 100,000m of drilling and expended
over USD100M in Ecuador, which includes Cascabel exploration,
regional exploration, corporate costs and investments into
Cornerstone. This has been accomplished with a workforce of up to
260 Ecuadorean workers and geoscientists, and 6 expatriate
Australian geoscientists. The results of all holes drilled and
assayed to date have produced some of the greatest drill hole
intercepts in porphyry copper-gold exploration history, as
indicated by Hole 12 (CSD-16-012) returning 1560m grading 0.59%
copper and 0.54 g/t gold including, 1044m grading 0.74% copper and
0.54 g/t gold. Intensive diamond drilling is planned for the next
12 months with up to 12 drill rigs operational.
SolGold has drill tested 8 of 15 copper-gold targets delineated
in the 50km(2) tenement with a focus on Alpala. Further drill
testing at Alpala will focus on:
-- Extending and infilling the Alpala Central area.
-- Expanding the system at Alpala Northwest and Trivinio.
-- Testing extensions of the system at Alpala Southeast.
-- Testing geochemical and magnetic targets at Alpala West and Carmen.
The Alpala deposit is open in multiple directions and the
mineralised corridor marked for drill testing of the greater Alpala
cluster occurs over a 2.2km strike length from Trivinio in the
northwest to Cristal in the southeast. The mineralised corridor is
known to be prospective over up to 800m width. A number of targets
are scheduled for testing during 2018, subject to ongoing technical
assessment, and completion of ground magnetic modelling and Spartan
Orion deep IP surveys.
The Company and its external consultants prepared an initial
mineral resource estimate at the Cascabel Project in December 2017.
Results are summarised in Table B within the Cautionary Statement
(refer www.solgold.com.au/cautionary-notice/). The Mineral Resource
Estimate was compiled in mid-December 2017 based on 53,616m of
drilling. That meterage represents approximately 54% of the over
100,000m metres currently drilled on the project. There remains
strong potential for further growth from more recent drilling
results, and continued rapid growth of the deposit.
The Company is currently planning further metallurgical testing
and completion of an independent Preliminary Economic Assessment
and Pre-Feasibility Studies at Cascabel. SolGold is investigating
both high tonnage open cut and underground block caving operations,
as well as a high grade / low tonnage initial underground
development towards the economic development of the copper gold
deposit/s at Cascabel.
Drill hole intercepts have been updated to reflect current
commodity prices, using a data aggregation method, defined by
copper equivalent cut-off grades and reported with up to 10m
internal dilution, excluding bridging to a single sample. Copper
equivalent grades are calculated using a gold conversion factor of
0.63, determined using an updated copper price of USD3.00/pound and
an updated gold price of USD1300/ounce. True widths of down hole
intersections are estimated to be approximately 25-50%.
Following a comprehensive review of the geology and
prospectivity of Ecuador, SolGold and its subsidiaries have several
applications for additional exploration licences in Ecuador over a
number of promising porphyry copper gold targets throughout the
Country.
SolGold, through its 4 Ecuadorean subsidiary companies, has 100%
ownership of extensive concession areas throughout Ecuador. Each
subsidiary company has technical teams, led by experienced senior
geologists, on the ground prospecting granted tenements and
collecting baseline data, whilst regional geophysics surveys are
being planned. Significant copper occurrences have been identified
at numerous projects to date, including La Hueca, Machos, Rio
Armarillo, Sharug, Porvenir and Timbara.
In Queensland, Australia the Company is evaluating the future
exploration plans for the Mt Perry, Rannes and Normanby projects,
with drill testing of the Normanby project planned for the coming
quarter. Joint venture agreements are being investigated for a
joint venture partner to commit funds and carry out exploration to
earn an interest in the tenements.
SolGold retains interests in its original theatre of operations,
Solomon Islands in the South West Pacific, where the Kuma prospect
on the island of Guadalcanal exhibits surface lithocap
characteristics which are traditionally indicative of a large metal
rich copper gold intrusive porphyry system.
SolGold intends in the future to apply intellectual property and
experience developed in Ecuador to target additional "World Class"
copper gold porphyries at Kuma and other targets in Ecuador and the
Solomon Islands.
SolGold is based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The Company
is listed on the LSE and TSX, with both exchanges using the ticker
code: SOLG, and currently has on issue a total of 1,696,245,686
fully-paid ordinary shares, 31,795,884 share options exercisable at
28p; 9,795,884 share options exercisable at 14p and 46,762,000
share options exercisable at 60p.
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
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