JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Pilbara junior Artemis Resources has raised an additional A$2-million from institutional clients of Patterson Securities, taking the company’s cash reserves to more than A$20-million.
The additional capital will be raised through the issue of 10-million fully paid ordinary shares at A$0.20 a share, together with 2.5-million free-attaching options.
Earlier in the week, the company announced a A$4.5-million capital raise.
Executive chairperson David Lenigas said that the company had significant interest from institutions to increase the size of the capital raise.
“We have a lot to do over the coming months to prepare for the recommencement of production through our Radio Hill plant and fund the exploration and bulk sampling work on our conglomerate gold plays through 2018 and this new cash to bank will stand the company in a very good and strong position as we move forward,” Lenigas commented in a statement.
Artemis’ deposits are within 40 km of the Radio Hill processing plant and include one of Australia’s most exciting cobalt discoveries at Carlow Castle, diamonds at the Blacktop tenements as discovered by De Beers, copper and zinc at Whundo, a conglomerate gold deposit at Purdy’s Reward and Australia’s largest platinum resource at Munni Munni.
The company on Wednesday also reported significant increases in the Carlow Castle resource, which Lenigas said positioned the project to be a significant new cobalt province in Australia.
Carlow Castle has a code-compliant indicated and inferred resource has increased to 2.3-million tonnes at 1.3 g/t gold, 0.11% cobalt, 0.5% copper and 1.6 g/t silver, within a global resource of 4.5-million tonnes at 0.9 g/t gold, 0.07% cobalt, 0.4% copper and 1.3 g/t silver.
“With the world cobalt prices now at $79 750/t, our Carlow Castle project’s potential is looking very attractive. These three deposits are only a few of the many high priority targets now identified by Artemis over 50 km. Apart from plans to continue drilling to expand the resource base further, we now have engaged consultants to run a fast-track scoping study to assess the potential economic processing of this material through our nearby and soon-to-be recommissioned Radio Hill treatment plant,” Lenigas said.