SMALL CAP SHARE TIPS: Centurion Resources offers three drill-ready high-grade mining prospects
It's rare for a mining exploration company to come to the market with a lot of the grunt work already done.
But Centurion Resources, soon to be FinnAust Mining, investors are being offered the opportunity to back just such a business.
The firm has invested 12million euros to date that has helped identify three separate drill-ready targets in Finland: two copper with gold credits and the third targeting nickel, copper and platinum group metals.
Centurion Resources: The firm has invested 12million Euros to identify three drill-ready sights.
Each has been selected for development because of its high grade potential, and each could, if some of the neighbouring projects provide a decent benchmark, prove transformational for the company and its backers.
In Aussie firm Western Areas, FinnAust has a strong cornerstone investor that has the expertise of developing assets of this ilk. Western Areas is a dividend paying business with around A$100million of free cash that is using quoted companies rather than wholly owned local subsidiaries to drive its exploration programme.
To do this, it is injecting a portfolio of assets formerly owned by the Finnish state mining company, Outokumpu, into London-listed shell Centurion via a reverse takeover.
AIM-listed Centurion is led by Alastair Clayton, a former director of Extract Resources, a big success story and listed on the ASX 100 until it and AIM-listed sister company Kalahari Minerals were sold for a combined £2.2billion in cash last year.
Once the Centurion reverse takeover is complete, not only will the name change, but the group expects to appoint to the board Dan Lougher and Graham Marshall, respectively chief executive and general manager of Western Areas. Clayton will remain with FinnAust as a director.
The company has conditionally raised £3.4million of new equity financing, with around £1.8million being stumped up by Western Areas, giving it a 68 per cent stake in the AIM-listed group.
The cash injection is enough to fund 10,300 metres of drilling across the three Finnish properties.
The mineralisation of the region around the world-famous Outokumpu copper belt, host to the firm’s properties, is unique with the potential to yield some very high grade resources.
CENTURION AT A GLANCE
AIM ticker: CEN
Current price: 0.46p
Year-high:1.13p
Low: 0.38p
This means that the drilling could be high impact, depending on what has been uncovered.
That the region has been relatively under-explored and under-exploited is a function partly of the fact that the area was initially the fiefdom of a state-owned company.
It has also taken an advancement in some of the exploration science to help potentially unlock the untapped mineral bounty around the historic Outokumpu.
Exploratory holes on the Hammaslahti property have already yielded some very encouraging results, including a 3.4 metre thick intercept at 11.5 per cent copper and 54.4 parts per million of silver.
Unsurprisingly, the drill rigs will start turning here first. A total of 400 metres of drilling is expected before Christmas, with assay results scheduled for after the festivities.
The next cab off the rank after the Christmas break is the company’s Outokumpu copper project, with four targets identified for exploration. Three of them are along strike from the operating Altona Mining’s copper-zinc-gold mine.
What FinnAust is looking for is not a huge copper porphyry project that will take many years and several billions dollars to build; in targeting the thicker seams of higher grade mineralisation that are unique to Finland it can transform the project into a reasonably low-cost “industrial-scale” block caving operation.
Clayton says Altona’s Kylylahti Mine provides a blue-print for what it is looking to do. The Wallaby Zone, for instance, has yielded a 29 metre section at 4.7 per cent copper and almost 38 metres at 3.2 per cent.
Finally, in Enonkoski, FinnAust hopes to have uncovered a higher grade nickel sulphide, copper and platinum group metal project similar in style to types developed by Western Areas.
So we can expect a steady stream of news flow – and if the results do come up trumps then the FinnAust team won’t hang around.
'We can get drill rigs onto the project when we need them,' says Clayton.
'We know how to drill resources correctly, quickly and efficiently once we are on what we think constitutes a resource.'
Most watched Money videos
- Take a look inside the classic Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 car
- Investing Show: How to find the best companies to invest in
- New Rolls-Royce Cullinan includes fold out seats from the boot
- Pension guide specialists help people to understand their options
- 'No one's expecting house prices to drop dramatically again'
- LV= Home insurance advert
- London Paralympics star Jonnie Peacock shares his story
- Take a look inside the classic Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 car
- Should investors worry about Greece and Crispin Odey's warning
- Russian state TV shows Putin for first time in days
- The Pru (Prudential) literally put an elephant in the room in ad.
- Osborne announces £11,00 tax free allowance by 2017
- More than 4,000 jobs to be saved at Port Talbot as steel...
- Up to 7,000 estate agents could go the wall amid growing...
- TRADER TIPS: City insiders say buy pharmaceutical giant...
- Trustees of Premier Foods’ pension scheme accuse activist...
- Losses at challenger bank Monzo quadruple to £33M - and...
- Clash of the titans at warring Stobart: City bigwig joins...
- FTSE LIVE: Weekend trade threats send London market...
- Tesco joins forces with French supermarket giant...
- More than a quarter of Britons expect to be fit and...
- Former WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell raises £100m for his...
- DAILY BRIEFING: Entrepreneur Peter Dubens spends £1.2m on...
- VAT calculator
- Retirement incomes soar 30% in five years to an annual...
- Goodbye to Greensleeves? Ice cream van fleet launches app...
- Is buying a title for £195 ever worth it? I'm Lord Toby -...
- Have I found a 2p coin worth £700
- Can you change a name on a plane ticket?
- Tenants in common