First Day Dealings on AIM

RNS Number : 5368Y

Papua Mining Plc

02 March 2012

 



2 March 2012

Papua Mining plc ("Papua Mining" or "the Company")

First Day Dealings on AIM

Trading in the shares of Papua Mining (AIM: PML) commences today on AIM.

The Company is focussed on the exploration for, and if commercially feasible, development of gold and copper deposits in Papua New Guinea. On 20 February the Company announced that it had placed 15,938,167 new ordinary shares with institutional and retail investors at £0.44 per share, raising approximately £7.0m before expenses and was seeking Admission to AIM.

It is the first AIM IPO of a mining/exploration company so far this year.

Key Points

·    Papua Mining holds two exploration licences in the West New Britain province on the Papua New Guinea island of New Britain (one of which is under renewal) and one exploration licence in Ambunti which is located in the East Sepik province on the mainland. Papua New Guinea has numerous world-class copper-gold deposits.

·    The Company has also applied for a further 11 licences which, if successful, would result in a total area of 4,394 sq km being available to the Company for exploration.

·    The two exploration licences in West New Britain surround three areas currently being explored by Coppermoly Limited in a joint venture with Barrick Gold Corporation, the world's largest gold producer.

·    The Placing of 15,938,167 new Ordinary Shares at £0.44 per share, raised approximately £7.0m before expenses (£6.2m net) to fund an exploration programme (already underway) including up to 12,000 metres of drilling over the next two years.

·    The Placing shares represent 50.0% of the entire share capital as enlarged by the Placing.

·    Very experienced management team led by Hugh McCullough, Chief Executive Officer; Kieran Harrington, Technical Director; and Chris Muller, Country Manager and Chief Geologist.

·    Hugh McCullough and Kieran Harrington were both executive directors of Glencar Mining plc, an AIM listed company with an excellent record of deposit discovery in West Africa. Glencar was acquired by Gold Fields in 2009. Chris Muller was the Principal Geologist on the major Wafi-Golpu project in Papua New Guinea and was responsible for the discovery hole on the Golpu West porphyry.

·    The board is led by non-executive Chairman, Michael Jolliffe, a founding shareholder and former President and Chief Executive Officer of Burren Energy.

·    Papua Mining's Nominated Adviser and broker is Cenkos Securities.

Hugh McCullough, Chief Executive Officer, commented:

"We have assembled a very senior and experienced team to carry out exploration programmes in one of the most prospective gold and copper territories in the world. Although Papua New Guinea is the location of a number of significant gold and copper mines, there remain parts of the country which are underexplored, including the areas covered by the licences we hold and have applied for.

"We are very pleased with the level and quality of investor support we have received and to have joined AIM. We also look forward to continuing the exploration work programme which is aimed at delineating drill target areas to allow us to commence drilling later this year."

ends

Enquiries:

Papua Mining plc
Hugh McCullough	[phone]
Cenkos Securities - Nominated Adviser & Broker
Beth McKiernan/Ken Fleming	[phone] [phone]
Square1 Consulting - Financial Public Relations
David Bick/Mark Longson	[phone]

 

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