Condor Gold raises £4m to advance La India Project

Condor Gold has raised £4m via a placing, it announced on Tuesday, to advance its La India Project.

The AIM-traded firm said the placing was of 9,523,810 new shares at a price of 42p each, including a directors’ and chief financial officer’s subscription of 4,871,414 shares.

It was arranged directly by the company, with institutional and other investors.

“Following the placement Condor will have a net cash position of approximately £8m,” said chairman Mark Child.

“The placement has been conducted quickly following an offer by Jim Mellon, Condor's largest shareholder, to invest a further £2m in the company.

“The board decided to accept further £2 million primarily from existing shareholders.”

Child said the placement proceeds would be used to advance the La India Project towards production, and expand the gold mineral resource.

Condor has successfully permitted three open pits at La India.

Following the permitting of the Mestiza and America open pits, together with the La India open pit, the company had a 1.12 million ounce gold open pit mineral resource permitted for extraction, inclusive of a mineral reserve of 6.9 million tonnes at three grams of gold per tonne, for 675,000 ounces of gold.

La India has total Indicated mineral resources of 9.85 million tonnes at a grade of 3.6 grams of gold per tonne, for total contained ounces of 1,140,000 ounces of gold and total inferred mineral resources of 8.48 million tonnes at a grade of 4.3 grams of gold per tonne, for a total contained ounces of 1,179,000 ounces of gold.

A processing plant and associated mine site infrastructure is also permitted.

“The placement proceeds will be used to complete engineering and other technical studies, purchase the remaining 5% of the land in and around the mine site infrastructure, place a deposit on a processing plant, finance a 4,000 metre infill drilling programme currently underway with two drill rigs within the high grade starter pits within the permitted La India open pit,” Mark Child said.

“The extra cash also allows Condor to continue with exploration activity aimed at demonstrating the potential for a five million ounce gold district at La India Project.

“The company will commence a 5,000 metre drilling programme on the Cacao vein in the near future.”

At 1149 GMT, shares in Condor Gold were down 2.85% at 45.66p.