Terrain Minerals are racing ahead with their Great Western Gold project following an injection of new funds from shareholders and management.
The Perth-based ASX junior announced today the company had raised $845,500, well in excess of the $500,000 originally contemplated in the recent underwritten share purchase plan.
Due to strong demand from shareholders during the share purchase plan, the board placed an additional $250,000 at 0.008 cents per share with sophisticated investors.
This follows the share purchase plan being almost 100% subscribed for with the underwriters only picking up around 11% of the original $500k placement.
The vote of confidence in Terrain’s future was echoed by management, who chipped in another $95,500 from the exercise of management options at 0.0078 cents.
Terrain have wasted no time putting the money into the ground, with the immediate start of a 21-hole RC drill program at Great Western near Leonora in W.A. Seven holes will infill drill the eastern end of the pit and are aimed at lifting 42% of the 62,805-ounce JORC resource from inferred to indicated status to be included in a prefeasibility study.
A scoping study got underway earlier this year, but Terrain made the call to upgrade this to prefeasibility study status to fast-track development and comply with new ASIC rules.
The remaining 14 holes in the new drill program will target several open sections within the central and western zones and the top 30 metres have known outcropping mineralization. New drilling to define the resource at these shallow depths could have a major positive effect on the project’s capital requirements and early cashflow.
Once completed, Terrain is planning a second stage of nine diamond drill holes for metallurgical, bulk density and geotechnical studies.
The current mine plan at Great Western is based on 322,500 tones at 5.14 g/t gold, but this could be significantly boosted by additional exploration down plunge and along strike where mineralisation extends beyond the existing mine design.
Terrain have plenty of historical drilling to provide encouragement too, with a total of 147 holes over 15,000 metres on the books currently.
Previous drilling at depth struck an impressive 21 metres at 5.21 g/t gold, including 4 metres at 13.8 g/t gold.
With mining studies already well advanced and cash in the bank, there now seems to be little to stop Terrain from advancing from explorer to producer in the near term.
By Matt Birney
