Results of Annual General Meeting

RNS Number : 3012D

SolGold PLC

30 January 2018

 

                                                                                                                       30 January 2018

SolGold Plc

("SolGold" or the "Company")

Results of Annual General Meeting

SolGold plc (AIM: SOLG) confirms that all resolutions put to shareholders were unanimously passed by a show of hands at the Company's Annual General Meeting, held on 30 January 2018 in Brisbane, Australia.

A breakdown of proxy votes received ahead of the cut off is set out below:

	Votes for (1)	%(2)	Votes against	%(2)	Abstain (3)
Ordinary Business
1.    Adoption of Financials	856,407,587	99.89%	975,000	0.11%	9,500
2.    Re-appointment of Brian Moller	748,704,828	89.67%	86,247,146	10.33%	22,439,413
3.   Re-appointment of John Bovard	832,609,378	97.12%	24,706,429	2.88%	75,580
4.    Re-appointment of BDO (UK) LLP as Auditors	856,371,357	99.89%	975,000	0.11%	25,580
5.     Authority to allot shares	855,989,670	99.86%	1,189,602	0.14%	212,815
Special Business
6.    Disapplication of Pre-Emption Rights of Existing Shareholders	855,683,160	99.83%	1,437,177	0.17%	271,750
7.    Shorter Notice Period for Calling General Meetings	854,644,327	99.70%	2,584,582	0.30%	163,178
8.    Amendments to Company's Articles of Association	856,139,782	99.88%	999,988	0.12%	252,317

Notes:

(1)   Any proxy appointments which gave discretion to the Chairman have been included in the "for" total.

(2)   As a percentage of the aggregate of votes "for" plus votes "against".

(3)   An abstention is not counted towards the votes cast "for" or "against" a resolution.

By order of the Board

Karl Schlobohm

Company Secretary

CONTACTS

Mr Nicholas Mather                                                                                       Tel: [phone]

SolGold Plc (Chief Executive Officer)                                                             [phone]

[e-mail]

Mr Karl Schlobohm                                                                                         Tel: [phone]

SolGold Plc (Company Secretary)

[e-mail]

Mr Ewan Leggat / Mr Richard Morrison                                                Tel: [phone]

SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP (Broker)

[e-mail] 

Follow us on twitter @SolGold_plc

NOTES TO EDITORS

SolGold is a Brisbane, Australia based, dual LSE and TSX‐listed (SOLG on both exchanges) copper gold exploration and future development company with assets in Ecuador, Solomon Islands and Australia.  SolGold's primary objective is to discover and define world‐class copper‐gold deposits.  The Board and Management Team have substantial vested interests in the success of the Company as shareholders as well as strong track records in the areas of exploration, mine appraisal and development, investment, finance and law.  SolGold's experience is augmented by state of the art geophysical and modelling techniques and the guidance of porphyry copper and gold expert Dr Steve Garwin.

In October 2017, at the Mines and Money Americas Conference in Toronto, SolGold's Nicholas Mather won the award for the CEO of the Year - Exploration, Latin America.  SolGold won the Exploration Award for Latin America, and Ecuador won the Country Award for Latin America.  Each party then duly won the 2017 award for each respective category on a global basis at London Mines and Money on 30 November 2017.

The Company announced USD54m in capital raisings in September 2016 involving Maxit Capital LP, Newcrest International Ltd and DGR Global Ltd, and a USD41.2m raising in June of 2017 largely from Newcrest International with USD1.2m raised from Ecuadorean investors.  All of these raisings were undertaken at substantial premiums to previous raisings.  In November 2017 SolGold raised a further £45m at 25p per share, placed with institutions and Newcrest pursuant to their anti-dilution rights.  SolGold currently has circa USD110m in available cash to continue the exploration and appraisal of its flagship Cascabel Project, and with which to conduct regional exploration programs on its 77 other 100%-owned projects in its wholly owned subsidiary companies.

Mr Craig Jones joined the SolGold Board on 3 March 2017, nominated to the Board of SolGold by Newcrest Mining, now a 14.54% shareholder in SolGold.  Mr Jones is a Mechanical Engineer and is currently the Executive General Manager Wafi-Golpu (Newcrest-Harmony Joint Venture).  He has held various senior management and executive roles within the Newcrest Group, including General Manager Projects, General Manager Cadia Valley Operations, Executive General Manager Projects and Asset Management, Executive General Manager Australian and Indonesian Operations, Executive General Manager Australian Operations and Projects, and Executive General Manager Cadia and Morobe Mining Joint Venture.  Prior to joining Newcrest, Mr Jones worked for Rio Tinto.

Cascabel, SolGold's 85% owned "World Class" (Refer www.solgold.com.au/cautionary-notice/) flagship copper‐gold porphyry project, is located in northern Ecuador on the under‐explored northern section of the richly endowed Andean Copper Belt.  SolGold owns 85% of Exploraciones Novomining S.A. ("ENSA") and approximately 5% of TSX‐V‐listed Cornerstone Capital Resources ("Cornerstone"), which holds the remaining 15% of ENSA, the Ecuadorian registered company which holds 100% of the Cascabel concession.  Subject to the terms of existing agreements, Cornerstone is debt financed by SolGold for its share of costs to completion of a Feasibility Study ("Financing Option").

In terms of repayment, SolGold shall receive 90% of Cornerstone's share of earnings or dividends from ENSA or the Tenement to which Cornerstone would otherwise be entitled until such time as the amounts so received equal the aggregate amount of expenditures incurred by SolGold that would have otherwise been payable by Cornerstone, plus interest thereon from the dates such expenditures were incurred at a rate per annum equal to LIBOR plus 2 per cent until such time as SolGold is fully reimbursed.

The investments by Newcrest for 14.54% of SolGold endorses Ecuador as an exploration and mining destination, the management team at SolGold, the dimension, size and scale of the growing Alpala deposit, and the prospectivity of Cascabel and its multiple targets.  The gold endowment, location, infrastructure, logistics are important competitive advantages offered by the project.

To date SolGold has completed geological mapping, soil sampling, rock saw channel sampling, geochemical and spectral alteration mapping over 25km², along with an additional 9km² of Induced Polarisation and 14km² Magnetotelluric "Orion" surveys over the Alpala cluster and other targets at Aguinaga, Parambas, Tandayama-America, Moran and Chinambicito.

SolGold has completed over 70,000m of drilling and expended over USD70M in Ecuador, which includes Cascabel exploration, regional exploration, corporate costs and investments into Cornerstone.  This has been accomplished with a workforce of up to 260 Ecuadorean workers and geoscientists, and 6 expatriate Australian geoscientists.  The results of 60 holes drilled (including re-drilled holes, daughter holes and current holes) and assayed to date have produced some of the greatest drill hole intercepts in porphyry copper-gold exploration history, as indicated by Hole 12 (CSD-16-012) returning 1560m grading 0.59% copper and 0.54 g/t gold including, 1044m grading 0.74% copper and 0.54 g/t gold.

The average grade of all metres drilled to date on the project, including non-mineralised intersections, currently stands at 0.30% copper and 0.24 g/t gold.  Intensive diamond drilling is planned for the next 12 months with 12 drill rigs expected to be operational by early 2018, targeting over 120,000m of drilling in 2018.

Cascabel is characterised by fifteen (15) identified targets, "World Class" drilling intersections over 1km in length at potentially economic grades, and high copper and gold grades in richer sections, as well as logistic advantages in location, elevation, water supply, proximity to roads, port and power services; and a progressive legislative approach to resource development in Ecuador.

SolGold has drill tested 5 of 15 copper-gold targets delineated in the 50km2 tenement with a focus on Alpala. 

Further drill testing at Alpala will focus on:

·     Extending and infilling the Alpala Central area with Rigs, 1, 6 and 5.

·     Expanding the system at Alpala Northwest and Trivinio with Rigs 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12.

·     Testing extensions of the system at Alpala Southeast with Rigs 2, 3, and 4.

·     Testing geochemical and magnetic targets at Alpala West and Carmen with Rig 7.

There are currently 12 drilling rigs active at Alpala. 

The Alpala deposit is open in multiple directions and the mineralised corridor marked for drill testing of the greater Alpala cluster occurs over a 2.2km strike length from Trivinio in the northwest to Cristal in the southeast.  The mineralised corridor is known to be prospective over up to 800m width.

The remainder of the targets are scheduled for testing in 2018, subject to ongoing technical assessment, and completion of ground magnetic modelling and Spartan Orion deep IP surveys.

The Company is currently planning further metallurgical testing and completion of an independent Preliminary Economic Assessment and Pre-Feasibility Studies at Cascabel.  SolGold is investigating both high tonnage open cut and underground block caving operations, as well as a high grade / low tonnage initial underground development towards the economic development of the copper gold deposit/s at Cascabel.

Drill hole intercepts have been updated to reflect current commodity prices, using a data aggregation method, defined by copper equivalent cut-off grades and reported with up to 10m internal dilution, excluding bridging to a single sample.  Copper equivalent grades are calculated using a gold conversion factor of 0.63, determined using an updated copper price of USD3.00/pound and an updated gold price of USD1300/ounce.  True widths of down hole intersections are estimated to be approximately 25-50%.

Following a comprehensive review of the geology and prospectivity of Ecuador, SolGold and its subsidiaries have several applications for additional exploration licences in Ecuador over a number of promising porphyry copper gold targets throughout the Country.

SolGold, through its 4 subsidiary companies, has 100% ownership of 77 granted concessions throughout Ecuador.  Each subsidiary company has technical teams, led by experienced senior geologists, on the ground prospecting granted tenements and collecting baseline data, whilst regional geophysics surveys are being planned.  Significant copper occurrences have been identified at numerous projects to date, including La Hueca, Machos, Rio Armarillo, Sharug, Porvenir and Timbara.

In Queensland, Australia the Company is evaluating the future exploration plans for the Mt Perry, Rannes and Normanby projects, with drill testing of the Normanby project planned for the coming quarter.  Joint venture agreements are being investigated for a joint venture partner to commit funds and carry out exploration to earn an interest in the tenements.

SolGold retains interests in its original theatre of operations, Solomon Islands in the South West Pacific, where the 100% owned, but as yet undrilled, Kuma prospect on the island of Guadalcanal exhibits surface lithocap characteristics which are traditionally indicative of a large metal rich copper gold intrusive porphyry system. 

SolGold intends in the future to apply intellectual property and experience developed in Ecuador to target additional "World Class" copper gold porphyries at Kuma and other targets in Ecuador and the Solomon Islands.

SolGold is based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.  The Company is listed on the LSE and TSX, with both exchanges using the ticker code: SOLG, and currently has on issue a total of 1,696,245,686 fully-paid ordinary shares, 31,795,884 share options exercisable at 28p; 9,795,884 share options exercisable at 14p and 46,762,000 share options exercisable at 60p.

 

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