The Minto mine in the Yukon.
LSE-listed Pembridge Resources has closed a transaction to buy the Minto mine in Canada’s Yukon from Capstone Mining – nearly a year-and-a-half after the deal was first announced.
Pembridge initially offered to buy Minto for $37.5-million, but then struggled to close the equity financing element of the acquisition, leading to Capstone placing the mine on care and maintenance.
Pembridge would now buy Minto for $20-million and would aim to resume operations by the fourth quarter of this year, it announced on Tuesday.
The consideration for the acquisition due to Capstone would be payable out of future cash flows and realisations from Minto and was based on certain hurdles linked to production levels, as well as future copper prices.
In addition, Pembridge announced that it had secured $10-million from US private equity group Copper Holdings and US asset manager Lion Point entity Cedro Holdings to fund the recommencement of operations.
In addition, Pembridge said that it had raised £400 000 of working capital at 16p a share, which was a 25% premium to the share price when trading was suspended on February 15, 2018.
Pembridge CEO David Linsley commented that the acquisition of Minto was a “transformational opportunity”, which was why the company continued to pursue the transaction despite last year's downturn in commodity markets and the challenging environment for raising capital.
Capstone president and CEO Darren Pylot said that the sale was good news for his company, which would no longer incur the expense of having the mine on care and maintenance, and for employees, contractors and the local economy.
Minto in 2017 produced 16 332 t of copper, 170 809 oz of silver and 25 205 oz of gold. Capstone had forecast production of 19 000 t of copper at a C1 cash cost of $2.35/lb to $2.45/lb and an all-in sustaining cost of $2.55/lb to $2.65/lb for 2018, before placing the mine on care and maintenance.