BMG Resources Limited has landed a timely $2.5 million placement at 2.1 cents per share, backed by cornerstone investor Tribeca Investment Partners - an internationally recognised firm specialising in high-growth resources plays - along with European strategic participants and strong retail support.
The raise will fuel an expanded exploration push across the company’s Western Australian gold portfolio, coinciding with an impressive share price hike from 24 cents to 31 cents - up 29.17 per cent in recent sessions.
The hike comes amid the company’s current positive news flow and a still-solid gold market, despite recent turbulence that has markets scratching their collective heads as they try to sort fact from fiction.
Placement proceeds will primarily bankroll an up-scaled 10,000m drilling program at BMG’s flagship Abercromby gold project.
The primary objective of the drilling is to expand the company’s maiden mineral resource estimate of 11.12 million tonnes at 1.45g/t gold for 518,000 ounces of open-pit and underground gold in indicated and inferred categories.
Delivered at a low discovery cost of $8.35 per ounce, that resource remains open in all directions, with less than 20 per cent of the six-kilometre-long prospective stratigraphy drill-tested to date.
Higher-grade components within the estimate, including underground portions at a 1.25g/t gold cut-off grade, underpin near-term development potential on the granted mining lease.
Abercromby sits about 30 kilometres south-southeast of Wiluna in the highly productive Agnew-Wiluna Greenstone Belt. The company believes it is a ductile-style gold system, similar to the Ramelius Resources’ high-grade 2.1 million-ounce Never Never gold deposit near Dalgaranga in WA’s Mid West.
With Abercromby’s free-milling gold, open-pit upside and toll-treatment discussions advancing amid high gold prices, a planned first-quarter scoping study will assess a potential low-capex, fast-payback mining scenario.
BMG Resources non-executive chairman John Prineas said: “At BMG, we have remained sharply focused on Western Australian gold – an investment class that is now one of the best performing in global resources. The Board is delighted to appoint Ben Pollard as CEO to drive the next phase of BMG’s growth. Ben has deep experience in the WA gold sector with a rare blend of exploration, development and operational capability proven across multiple gold projects for more than 25 years.”
Funds will also support drilling at BMG’s Bullabulling gold project near Coolgardie, next to Mineral 260’s rapidly growing Bullabulling gold mine, whose in-ground inventory - through aggressive drilling - has recently doubled to 4.5 million ounces of gold.
BMG Resources’ Bullabulling tenure has been geologically interpreted to potentially host strike extensions of Mineral 260’s gold lodes, along with nearby fertile ultramafic sequences, leaving the company well placed for a possible large-scale find in the highly endowed Coolgardie Mineral Field.
Adding new leadership muscle to its senior corporate complement, BMG has appointed Ben Pollard as chief executive officer. Pollard is a seasoned gold geologist with over 25 years of experience and has a proven track record in exploration, resource definition, project development, and value creation.
He has led or founded companies that have delivered multiple high-reward exits through asset acquisitions and divestments. Examples include the sale of the Cue gold project to Westgold, the Rothsay gold project to Silver Silver Lake Resources and the Klondyke gold project to Calidus Resources.
Pollard’s background spans majors such as Barrick, Placer Dome, Harmony, and New Hampton, as well as his Cadre Geology consulting business, which he has run since 2015. Notably, the veteran rock kicker has been BMG's exploration manager since 2020 and already knows BMG’s tenure intimately.
To complete the placement, the company will issue 119,047,619 new shares in two tranches, with 73.5M shares settling in February, followed by a second tranche in mid-March, subject to shareholder approval.
Lead managers GBA Capital and Whario Capital receive standard fees plus options. Separately, 19.6M shares have been allocated to S3 Consortium for investor relations, also subject to shareholder approval.
With gold prices firm, the saddlebags full and new leadership driving exploration, BMG Resources is heading into an active drilling phase across WA aimed at both resource growth and fresh discoveries, giving it strong leverage to exploration success.
Support from Tribeca Investment Partners certainly adds another layer of market confidence. Meanwhile, drill results, scoping work and progress at the Bullabulling gold project could act as near-term catalysts to quickly build momentum if the bit delivers.t: matt.birney@wanews.com.au
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Doug Bright
