Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Uranium developer Berkeley Energia has secured $10-million in financing from major shareholder Resource Capital Funds (RCF) to progress infrastructure work and exploration programmes at the Salamanca project, in Spain.
The RCF financing comprised the issue of $5-million in ordinary shares in the company, priced at 32p a share. The issue price represented a premium of around 9% to the ten-day volume weighted average price of Berkeley shares.
RCF also agreed to provide an additional $5-million through the sale of a 0.375% fully secured net smelter royalty over the Salamanca project, subject to final documentation.
The royalty was consistent with the company’s focus on minimising dilution to protect the equity value of its shareholders, said Berkeley MD Paul Atherley.
“The funding allows us to undertake the initial infrastructure development ahead of the start of main construction and financing later in the year. In addition, it will allow us to target a number of high-value exploration targets looking for additional Zona 7 style deposits over the next few months.”
The Salamanca project was expected to deliver about 4.3-million pounds a year of uranium oxide over a mine life of 18 years. All major approvals for the development of the project were already in place.
Atherley said on Tuesday that the results of optimisation studies being undertaken as part of definitive feasibility work, which would be published within the next few months, was expected to demonstrate Salamanca’s robust economics even at the current low uranium prices.