PERTH (miningweekly.com) − ASX-listed Cape Lambert would increase its interests in two potentially large-scale West African iron-ore projects as part of an A$80-million play for Pinnacle Group Assets, the Tony Sage-led company announced on Thursday.

Cape Lambert is to increase its stake in Pinnacle, which owns the Kukuna iron-ore project, in Sierra Leone, and the Sandenia iron-ore project, in Guinea, to 90,2%, from its current 47,4% shareholding.

The company also made an A$1,10 a share offer to the remaining 9,8% of Pinnacle shareholders, which would expire on May 20.

Around A$40-million of the offer price would be payable through the issue of 67-million Cape Lambert shares, deemed at a price of around 60c a share, with a further A$20-million payable in cash. A further $20 million would be paid in cash on or before December 31.

The company’s shares were trading at around 48c a share at the time of writing.

Sage said on Thursday that the acquisition would deliver a greater than 90% ownership of two potentially large-scale iron-ore projects in the emerging West African iron-ore province, and would expose the company’s shareholders to a conceivably significant value uplift, with drilling planned to start at both projects in the near term.

The Kukuna project comprises one exploration licence of 68 km² and is located only 70 km north of Cape Lambert’s Marampa iron-ore project and associated infrastructure.

The Kukuna project has an exploration target of between one- and two-billion tons, grading at between 30% and 35% iron.

The Sandenia project in turn comprises two exploration licences covering 608 km². Prospect-scale mapping and sampling of the priority exploration targets would start in the June quarter of this year, to enable the design of a first-pass drilling programme, currently scheduled to start in the second half of the year.
 

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