Placing of ?4.7 million

RNS Number : 3884S

Goldstone Resources Ltd

18 November 2011

 



GOLDSTONE RESOURCES LTD

("GoldStone" or "the Company")

PLACING

GoldStone (AIM: GRL), the AIM quoted exploration company focused on gold in West Africa, announces that it has conditionally raised approximately £4.7 million (before expenses) through a placing of new ordinary shares at a price of 5 pence per share (the "Placing").

Background to the Placing

Goldstone's projects, located in Ghana, Gabon and Senegal, range from grassroots projects to advanced exploration.  The Company intends to utilise the funds raised to explore the projects further, in particular the advanced Homase/Akrokerri project, which contains a JORC compliant gold resource of 405,600 ounces. 

On 20 October 2011, the Company announced the second set of positive drilling results from the first phase of drilling at the Homase/Akrokerri project.  The results have given GoldStone the confidence to commission a second phase 4,500 metre drilling programme which will be focused on increasing the resource base along the Homase trend and testing new exploration targets in the Akrokerri granite area.

At the Company's Manso Amenfi project in Ghana, a permit-wide soil sampling programme was completed in June 2011.  The results, some of which returned a gold content as high as 2.4 g/t gold, demonstrated the presence of multiple elongated and consistent gold in soil anomalies of considerable extent up to five kilometres in strike.  GoldStone is currently undertaking a geochemical investigation and a geophysical survey is planned, the results of which will assist the Company's geologists to rank soil anomalies in order to identify areas for further exploration.

In Senegal the Company has conducted a permit-wide termite mound sampling programme over its wholly owned Sangola licence area.  The results indicate the presence of significant gold anomalies.  The Company's efforts in the coming months will be to investigate the identified anomalies further by follow-up surface sampling, trenching and drilling.

In Gabon, the Company has conducted a logistical reconnaissance over the Oyem and Ngoutou licence areas.  It was found that both areas contained artisanal gold workings in the streams that cut through the identified gold anomalies and both areas are easily accessible by using existing logging roads.  From desktop work it was established that the gold in soil anomaly associated with the Oyem permit in the northern part of Gabon covers a well-known regional geological structure in gold-prospective Archean rocks and that the Ngoutou anomaly in the eastern central part of Gabon also covers Archean rocks.  The Company is currently undertaking geological reconnaissance studies at both sites which includes in-fill soil sampling and shallow drilling in order to identify targets for deeper drilling planned for next year. 

The Placing

The Company, through its joint brokers, Westhouse Securities Limited and Optiva Securities Limited, has conditionally placed 94,080,160 new ordinary shares (the "Placing Shares") at 5p per share, raising £4,704,008 (before expenses).

The existing power granted by shareholders to the Directors of the Company to allot shares for cash is insufficient to allow the issue of all of the Placing Shares.  Therefore, the Placing is conditional on the passing of certain resolutions at the Annual General Meeting of the Company which is expected to be held on 5 December 2011 and is expected to be completed at 8.00 a.m. on 6 December 2011 on admission of the Placing Shares to trading on AIM.  A circular, incorporating the notice of Annual General Meeting, will be posted to shareholders today.

Unity Mining Limited ("Unity"), which holds 75,414,166 ordinary shares, representing 33.63 per cent. of the current issued share capital, has undertaken to subscribe for 31,639,160 ordinary shares in the Placing.  Unity is a substantial shareholder in the Company under the AIM Rules for Companies and its subscription in the Placing is classified as a related party transaction.  The Directors of GoldStone (excluding Rod Hanson who is a director of Unity) consider, having consulted with Westhouse Securities Limited, that the terms of the subscription by Unity are fair and reasonable insofar as shareholders are concerned.

Following the Placing, there will be 318,356,738 ordinary shares of 1p each in issue.

Jurie Wessels, Chief Executive Officer of GoldStone, commented:

"We view the completion of the fundraising, which exceeded expectations in difficult market conditions, as a vote of confidence in the potential of our projects.  The proceeds of the placing will be used to further unlock the potential value of our assets by an extensive drilling campaign at Sangola, continued exploration at our intriguing Gabonese prospects, continuing our work at Manso Amenfi and by executing our resource drilling endeavours at our flagship Homase/Akrokerri project."

Enquiries

GoldStone Resources Limited	[phone]
Jurie Wessels / Hendrik Schloemann
Westhouse Securities Limited	[phone]
Tim Feather / Matthew Johnson
Optiva Securities Limited
Jason Robertson	[phone]
Jeremy King	[phone]
Walbrook PR	[phone]
Louise Mason Bob Huxford

 

END

 

 

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