On Wednesday morning, NEGx Minerals (TSX: NGEX; OTCQX: NGXXF) announced the sale of up to approximately 9.1 million shares via a non-brokered private placement. Each share will be priced at $11 for gross proceeds of up to $100 million. A few hours later, the news was released that the placement had been upsized to $175 million with the number of shares rising to 15.9 million.
Net proceeds of the placement will be used predominantly used towards furthering exploration at the 100%-owned Lunahuasi epithermal project and continued exploration and maintenance of the 69%-owned Los Helados porphyry project in South America. Los Helados is 31%-owned by Nippon Caserones Resources, which owns the operating Caserones mine only 17 km away.
Both projects host copper-gold-silver deposits. They are separated by a 10-km distance and an international border. Lunahuasi is in San Juan Province, Argentina, and the Los Helados is in Region III, Chile.
Resources have been established for Los Helados. Using a cut-off grade of 0.33% copper equivalent, the indicated portion contains 18.4 billion lb. of copper, 10.2 million oz. of gold and 97.5 million oz. of silver (2.08 billion indicated tonnes at 0.40% copper, 0.15 g/t gold, and 1.5 g/t silver). The inferred resource contains an additional 8.2 billion lb. of copper, 3.6 million oz. of gold, and 50.2 million oz. of silver (1.08 billion tonnes at 0.34% copper, 0.10 g/t gold, and 1.4 g/t silver.)
NGEx noted that the private placement is subject to regulatory approval, including the Toronto Stock Exchange. Trusts settled by the late Adolf H. Lundin have indicated their intention to participate offering.
More information is posted on www.NGExMinerals.com.
