Axiom Mining (ASX:AVQ) has raised $2 million through a private placement of shares and options to sophisticated and professional investors including a significant investment from global resource fund Cleary Capital.
The shares were priced at $0.015 each while one option exercisable at $0.02 and expiring on 30 November 2014 was issued to investors for every two shares subscribed.
Proceeds will be used to develop the Isabel Nickel Project, subject to a favourable outcome in the High Court later this month, and drilling on the West Guadalcanal Project.
Axiom is poised to start a 2,500 metre scout drilling program targeting the Taho and Polo prospect areas of its West Guadalcanal Project in the Solomon Islands.
This follows more highly encouraging trenching results that have defined a gold mineralisation occurrence along 1.5 kilometres of strike including:
- 26 metres at 0.88g/t gold and 64g/t silver including 2 metres at 4g/t gold
- 25 metres at 0.59g/t gold and 52g/t silver
- 43 metres at 0.70g/t gold open
The company has also completed a high definition 2000 line kilometre airborne magnetic survey that has highlighted deep tapping regional structures intersecting both the Taho and Polo prospect areas.
This has contributed to subsurface drill targeting at both prospects.
West Guadalcanal covers 485 square kilometres and is considered under‐explored and highly prospective for Southwest Pacific style mineralisation, namely gold‐silver‐basemetal epithermal and copper‐gold porphyry including skarn mineralisation.
Commissioner John Brown is expected to deliver before the end of September 2014 a decision on the lengthy High Court battle with multi-billion dollar refining giant Sumitomo Metal Mining Company over the Isabel Nickel Project in the Solomon Islands.
The Isabel Nickel Project is 80% owned by Axiom via local subsidiary Axiom KB Limited that includes the Kolosori and Bungusule tenements, which contain the largest nickel laterite deposits in the Pacific.
Previous operator Kaiser Engineering had concluded that the historic and non-JORC resources of159 million tonnes at 1.045% nickel and 0.07% cobalt were sufficient to operate a heap leach mine for 15 years at a process rate of 2,800 tonnes per day.
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