PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Gold miner West Wits Mining will raise A$2.5-million to fund development work at its Witwatersrand Basin gold project, in South Africa.
The ASX-listed company on Thursday announced that it would issue 138.8-million shares, at a price of 1.8c each, to sophisticated and professional investors, under its existing placement capacity.
The placement price represented an 15% discount to West Wits’ 15-day volume weighted average share price of 2.12c a share.
“Securing this A$2.5-million placement at a time when there is global market uncertainty is a great result for West Wits as we maintain operational readiness at Qala Shallow to move into production, while concurrently carrying out Phase 1 of our exciting uranium exploration programme at the wider Witwatersrand Basin project,” said MD Jac van Heerden.
“We continue to progress our negotiations regarding a long-term toll processing agreement for our future gold production and we look forward to being able to update the market on this in due course.”
Van Heerden noted that the funds raised would allow West Wits to maintain operational readiness at Qala Shallows to enable the ramp-up of development, where the project was expected to reach peak steady-state production of 55 000 oz/y over a ten-year period, and an average 43 000 oz/y over its 15.7-year mine-life.
The revised definitive feasibility study estimated peak funding of $63-million over a three-year period.