Placing to Fund Expansion Drilling at Lighthouse

RNS Number : 3409N

Rockfire Resources PLC

23 September 2019

 

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014 ("MAR") 

23 September 2019

Rockfire Resources plc

("Rockfire" or the "Company")

Placing to Fund Expansion Drilling at Lighthouse

Rockfire Resources plc (LON: ROCK), the AIM-quoted gold and base metal exploration company, is pleased to announce it has completed a placing of ordinary shares in the Company ("Ordinary Shares") to raise gross proceeds of £350,000 (the "Placing"). The proceeds of the Placing will be used to fund the expansion and resource upgrade of the Plateau Gold Project in Queensland, Australia.

Highlights

On 4 July 2019, Rockfire announced a maiden Inferred JORC Resource at the Lighthouse Gold Project in Queensland of 1,349,000 tonnes @ 1.18g/t Au for 51,000 ounces of gold. Of this, 1,147,330 tonnes @ 1.10g/t Au for 40,400 ounces of gold are at the Plateau Gold Deposit ("Plateau"). This resource is mostly within the top 50m from surface and remains open along strike and at depth. Gold has been intersected in a single drill hole at Plateau at 550m vertically below surface, demonstrating that the breccia host remains mineralised with gold to at least that depth.

·    £350,000 raised via the Placing for gold resource expansion drilling at Plateau;

·    Drilling is expected to increase the JORC category to Measured and Indicated;

·    Plateau has similarities to the 1.5m-ounce Mt Wright Gold Mine, 50km northeast of Plateau;

·    Gold mineralisation at Plateau is open in all directions;

·    Previous drilling at Plateau includes 22m @ 1.9g/t Au (from 32m), 5m @ 7.5g/t Au (from 40m) and 7m @ 2.7g/t Au (from 17m).

Details of the Placing

Rockfire has raised gross proceeds of £350,000 through a placing of 116,666,666 new Ordinary Shares, at an issue price of 0.3 pence per Ordinary Share (the "Placing Shares"). Investors subscribing in the Placing will also receive one warrant for each Placing Share subscribed for (the "Placing Warrants"), exercisable at 1 pence per Placing Warrant for a period of three years from issue.

Should the Company's volume weighted average share price equal or exceed 2 pence per Ordinary Share for five consecutive business days, the Company is obliged to write to each Placing Warrant holder providing notice of exercise of the Placing Warrants after which the Placing Warrant holder will have up to 14 days notice to pay for the exercise of their Placing Warrants ("Accelerator Clause").

In conjunction with the Placing, SI Capital Ltd, the Company's broker, has been issued with 2,333,333 warrants, under an existing contractual agreement (the "Broker Warrants"). The Broker Warrants are exercisable at 1 pence per Broker Warrant, for a period of three years from issue and are subject to the Accelerator Clause.

David Price, Chief Executive Officer of Rockfire, commented:

"It is pleasing to have completed this placing to provide funding for the expansion of the resource at Plateau, as well as to target an uplift in the confidence of the resource category. To move towards eventual monetisation of the Plateau Gold Deposit, the increase in confidence from the Inferred category to the Measured and Indicated is a significant step towards achieving this goal."

"Management is committed in our focus on building value in our portfolio through skilled project assessment, commercially-driven geological work, prudent expenditure and appropriate capital raisings. We have a talented team with the practical experience to drive our mining interests forward and I look forward to announcing news of progress from our planned drilling at Plateau."

"I would personally like to thank our existing shareholders for their continued support, as well as welcoming new shareholders to the Rockfire register.  We are ready to increase our momentum as we undertake critical, vigorous and exciting project development by our planned resource expansion and upgrade drilling program We look forward to updating shareholders further on our activities over coming months."

Further Details on Plateau

The Rockfire technical team has observed numerous important similarities between Plateau and the operating Mt Wright Gold Mine (+1.5Moz gold), located 50km northeast of Plateau. Management believes another breccia complex similar to Mt Wright may exist at Plateau.

Zinc and Lead (+/- Silver) ratios at Plateau are similar to the upper levels of Mt Wright (from surface down to 160m deep), indicating that the best developed gold mineralisation may potentially be deeper than the current level of drilling. The main lode mineralisation at Mt Wright was not intersected until 160m below surface, with mineralisation extending beyond 1,200m below surface.

Plateau and Mt Wright share similarities including;

ü a Permo-Carboniferous breccia complex host, with predominantly polymict breccia;

ü they both occur in close proximity to an intrusion of rhyolitic composition;

ü both deposits contain tuffisite pipes (a fine-grained, milled breccia);

ü they have approximately similar geometry and size;

ü the rhyolites comprise flow-banding and breccia phases.

Funds raised via the Placing will be used to expand gold resources at the Plateau Deposit in areas where previous drilling has intersected 22m @ 1.9g/t Au (from 32m), 13m @ 1.9g/t Au (from 26m), 5m @ 7.5g/t Au (from 40m), 7m @ 2.7g/t Au (from 17m)  and 8m @ 2.0g/t Au (from 8m). All depths are quoted as vertical depths.

The Placing proceeds will also be used to increase the level of confidence of the resource at Plateau from the 'Inferred' category to the 'Measured and Indicated' category. In particular, the top 50m from surface will be targeted to provide open cut mining opportunity for the Company. Lighthouse has three operational gold processing plants within 50km, which forms an integral part of the company's strategy to monetise these resources.

A link to a plan showing the target zones for drilling at Plateau is provided here.
http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/3409N_1-2019-9-23.pdf

Admission and Total Voting Rights 

The Placing has been completed using the Company's existing share authorities. Admission of the Placing Shares to trading on AIM is expected to occur at 8.00 a.m. on 7 October 2019 ("Admission").

On Admission, the Company will have 552,552,943 ordinary shares of 0.1p each in issue, each with one voting right.  The Company does not hold any Ordinary Shares in treasury. Therefore, from Admission, the total number of Ordinary Shares and voting rights in Company will be 552,552,943.

With effect from Admission, the above figure of 552,552,943 may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the share capital of the Company under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

For further information on the Company, please visit www.rockfireresources.com or contact the following:

Rockfire Resources plc David Price, Chief Executive Officer	[e-mail]
Allenby Capital Limited (Nominated Adviser) John Depasquale / Asha Chotai		Tel:[phone]
	Tel: [phone]
SI Capital Ltd
Nick Emerson	Tel:  [phone]

 

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