Greatland losses widen as it progresses development work

The AIM-traded firm, which is still pre-revenue, said that at Havieron, it released the stage one pre-feasibility study on the South-East Crescent of the deposit.

That study revealed the “tip of the Havieron iceberg”, with a fraction of the initial resource supporting the total capital expenditure of the project, justifying a “fast-start approach” to early cash flow generation, and reinvesting back into Havieron development and infrastructure.

A total of 219,561 metres of drilling was completed from 266 holes at Havieron, with all of the latest completed holes continuing to intersect mineralisation, and 19 reporting “significant” mineralisation.

Since the end of the first half, the company also announced an updated mineral resource in early March that “substantially increased” Havieron’s resource and reserve.

At the Juri joint venture, meanwhile, the maiden drilling programme was completed on the Paterson Range East and Black Hills tenements, which consisted of nine holes for 4,958 metres, testing six targets.

Greatland said gold assays found mineralisation at the Saddle Reefs target within Black Hills, and first gold was identified at the Goliath Prospect.

Juri was being advanced to stage two, to expand the exploration programme at the joint venture.

Finally, the company also reported further exploration in the Paterson region, where multiple new targets were drilled within the Scallywag licence, following the analysis of results of an airborne electromagnetic survey and further geological interpretation of regional aeromagnetic and gravity datasets.

Other exploration analysis and detailed target identification was carried out on Greatland's other 100%-owned tenements, meanwhile.

On 16 September, the firm acquired the wholly-owned Pascalle tenement, the wholly-owned Taunton tenement, and two tenement applications for exploration licences in the Paterson region of Western Australia, for a consideration of cash and shares.

On the corporate front, Greatland issued 82,000,000 new shares at a price of 14.5p each in November, for a total consideration of £11.2m, net of costs.

It had also expanded its management team and board with the appointment of Christopher Toon as chief financial officer in July, Otto Richter as group mining engineer in August, and Paul Hallam as a non-executive director from September.

“We are very pleased with the strides we have taken in the first six months of the year as we continued to deliver outstanding progress at Havieron, ensured the company remained well capitalised to accelerate exploration activities and built up of the breadth and capability of the Greatland management team and board,” said chief executive officer Shaun Day.

“At Havieron, our joint venture with Newcrest released the stage one pre-feasibility study.

“The study revealed that a segment of the initial resource covers the total capex of the project, supporting Greatland's belief that the profile of Havieron makes it a globally unique opportunity for bringing a low risk, low capex tier-one gold-copper mine into production.”

In addition, Day said the rapid development and growth potential at Havieron was demonstrated by the recently-released mineral resource and reserve update which, in 10 months of further drilling, added more than 50% in total gold content.

“Looking ahead, 2022 is set to be an exciting and busy time for Greatland with the extensive growth drilling campaign continuing at Havieron and a feasibility study due by the December quarter.

“We are also preparing for the upcoming launch of the 2022 exploration programme at the Juri JV building upon the results from the initial campaign and focusing on drilling several high-priority targets, along with ramping up exploration activities across our 100% owned targets.

“Greatland is in a strong operational position with an experienced team to execute our growth plans to increase shareholder value and build a company of significant scale.”

At 1023 GMT, shares in Greatland Gold were down 5.02% at 14.95p.