It has been a busy and largely productive week for small-cap miners, leaving investors slightly more satisfied with their lot. That said, after years of being starved of investment, there’s still a lot of ground to make up.
The week’s biggest winner, URU Metals, floated higher on what looked like a fairly workaday announcement: the start of ground geophysics at the Zeb Nickel Project near Mokopane, Limpopo, South Africa.
The shares doubled in value, even though this exploratory work is still at a very early stage.
There was more grist in this week’s announcement from Strategic Minerals, which owns the Redmoor tungsten-tin-copper project in Cornwall.
The latest drilling results revealed what management described as ‘exceptional’ tungsten grades. According to managing director Dennis Rowland, the data positions Redmoor ‘as one of the highest-grade deposits globally’. The stock rose 90 per cent.
From the West Country to Ethiopia and Kefi Copper & Gold’s attempts to create one of the country’s biggest mines.
URU Metals shares doubled after the group announced the start of ground geophysics at the Zeb Nickel Project near Mokopane, Limpopo, South Africa
On Monday, it said it expects to finalise a £180 million debt financing package for its Tulu Kapi gold project in Ethiopia this week. This forms part of a £340 million investment in the operation.
Investors liked what they heard, with the stock advancing 43 per cent.
Shuka Minerals climbed 42 per cent this week after the company said financing for its planned purchase of Zambia’s Leopard Exploration and Mining and the Kabwe Zinc Mine is close to completion.
Gathoni Muchai Investments has told Shuka that funds from its increased loan are now being processed and should clear next week.
The LEM vendors remain supportive, and completion will follow once payment, share issuance and warrant transfers are finalised under the existing non-dilutive GMI facility.
Now onto the wider market. The aftershocks of America’s regional banking wobble found their way down the pile to the AIM All-Share, which was off 1.4 per cent. It fared slightly worse than the FTSE 100, which was down 1.2 per cent.
The flipside of the good news in the natural resources sector came in the form of Premier African Minerals, which flagged the need to raise fresh cash — an event likely to be significantly dilutionary. This was spelt out in an update ahead of the company’s annual meeting. The stock was down 30 per cent over the week and is off 66 per cent year to date.
Similar mechanics were at play for Bezant Resources, which announced the issue of new stock after a significant slug of warrants was exercised. The stock fell 27 per cent.
Mosman Oil and Gas was on a similar trajectory after it raised almost £1.7 million, which it will use to develop its helium projects in the United States.
Away from the diggers, it was a tough week for podcast group Audioboom, which was off 24 per cent.
The reason? Despite speculation to the contrary, nobody has come forward to acquire the business. Rumoured potential buyers include Amazon and Fox Corporation.
The disappointment overshadowed what was otherwise a generally robust update on trading.
Finally, the 9 per cent fall in the Bitcoin price pulled the rug from under London’s nascent crypto-treasury sector. So much for BTC being the new gold.
For while the precious metal surged to a new record, Bitcoin was hit by overextended long positions, according to analysts.
‘On the chart it looks worse. In context, it is a classic crypto reset where hot air escapes, leverage gets punished and the market relearns position sizing in real time,’ noted News Defused in its analysis.
The hammer fell on The Smarter Web Company, which dropped 38 per cent. It recently bought about £9 million worth of the cryptocurrency for over $120,000 a pop and is sitting on a treasury of £220 million, according to filings, though this was the value of the holding on Monday.
Smaller players London BTC and Coinsilium were not immune to the sectoral downturn.
Additional Bitcoin material supplied by www.newsdefused.com
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