The Board of Santana Minerals Ltd (ASX:SMI, Santana, or the Company) is pleased to report on another strong quarter for the Company.
Key Highlights
Operations
-- Infill drilling at Rise and Shine (RAS) continued, with assay results returned in January contributing to the February 2024 Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) update.
-- An updated MRE was declared on 16 February upgrading the Indicated proportion of resources at RAS from 279koz to 1.3Moz of gold. The global mineral resource on the Bendigo-Ophir project now stands at 37Mt @ 2.1g/t for 2.5Moz of gold.
-- Phase 6 metallurgical testwork results based on a Master Composite sample at RAS showed total gravity/CIL recoveries between 91% and 95%.
-- Post quarter end, a Scoping Study focused solely on the Indicated portion of the RAS deposit revealed outstanding outcomes from an initial 10 years of mining. The vast majority of deeper and Inferred resources were excluded from the study. These are subject to ongoing infill drilling. Highlights included:
---- A 1.5Mtpa processing plant recovering a total of 1.12Moz of gold at an average production rate of 110,000oz per annum for an initial 10 years.
---- An after tax NPV10 of NZ$937M, IRR of 75% and a Simple Payback of 1 year achievable at spot prices for gold of NZ$3,900/oz.
---- A Net Profit after Tax (NPAT) of NZ$2.0B generated over the initial 10 years.
---- Cash operating costs to produce gold of NZ$897/oz and total production costs of NZ$1,392/oz.
Corporate and Finance
-- Damian Spring and Sam Smith were appointed to the Board as CEO & Executive Director, and Executive Director IR and Corporate Affairs, respectively.
-- A 1 for 5 bonus options were offered to existing shareholders with an exercise price of $1.08 per share and an expiry date of 28 February 2025.
-- Subsequent to the end of the quarter, the Company completed a 15% (27.1M shares at $1.15 per share) placement to sophisticated investor clients of Bell Potter and Euroz Hartleys to raise a gross A$31.2 million. Additionally, a Share Purchase Plan to be offered to existing shareholders (targeting to raise up to A$4.0 million) and a future buy-back of unmarketable parcels was announced.
For more information, download the attached PDF.
Download this document
