15th Apr 2015 10:54
LONDON (Alliance News) - Polymetal International PLC Wednesday said it has bought a 25% stake in the Lichkvaz property in Armenia and said it has agreed an earn-in programme to increase its interest to 50%.
In return, FTSE-250 listed Polymetal issued the holding company that owns the license, which has not been named, with 429,260 Polymetal shares for USD3.5 million, which according to an Alliance News calculation results in a share price of around USD8.153 per share.
Polymetal shares were trading up 1% to 584.50 pence per share on Wednesday morning, which equates to around USD8.60752 per share.
Polymetal said it will finance exploration activities of up to 15 kilometres of exploration drilling, technical research as well as a JORC feasibility study in exchange for a right to increase its share in the project up to 50% after the completion of these tasks. Polymetal did not state how much financing it would provide for the earn-in.
The Lichkvaz property has a non-JORC compliant resource estimate of 2.4 million tonnes at 6.9 grammes per tonne in the inferred category, which would lead to the production of around 500,000 ounces of gold equivalent. Polymetal also believes there is "significant exploration potential" on the property.
"I am pleased to report that we have decided to pursue the acquisition of the Lichkvaz, our first step in Armenia." said Vitaly Nesis, group chief executive of Polymetal. "I hope this high-grade project will grow through exploration and provide us with an optimal stepping stone into a new jurisdiction for Polymetal."
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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