Equitas Resources (EQT.V) has announced that after several months of trying to close a deal with Cartesian Royalty Holdings, both companies were unable to come to an agreement on a gold prepayment facility and the negotiations have now officially ended. Equitas is now talking to several other providers of ‘long term financing’, so we expect the company to have its plan B ready before the end of this year.
Securing funding will be necessary to execute on its plans to build a 600 tonnes per day CIL plant on the property, which will process the bulk sample material in 2017. The engineering design and costing of this plant is still in progress, and we expect Equitas to be able to provide more details in due course.
Equitas also released the assay results from two holes that were drilled below the existing open pit at Crente. The company followed up on a historic hole which encountered 31 meters at 2.37 g/t. Equitas did find similarly sized intervals with 31 and 29 meters, but the average grade was a bit lower at respectively 1.12 g/t and 1.03 g/t. In both holes some higher grade intercepts were encountered as well, and 4 meters of 2.2 g/t and another 4 meters at 3.14 g/t gold (starting at a depth of just 36 meters) are looking more promising.
We expect Equitas to release more updates shortly and we are particularly looking forward to the cost estimate of the CIL plant, and how the company plans to fund its construction.
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The author has no position in Equitas Resources. Equitas isn’t a sponsor of the website, but its shareholder Zimtu Capital is. Please read the disclaimer
