Strategic Minerals completes acquisition of Aussie copper mine

Strategic Minerals, which agreed to issue Resilience Mining with A$1.45m worth of shares as part of the purchase, will issue the Australian firm with 41.56m ordinary shares in the group.

Managing director John Peters, said issuance of the shares to Resilience "effectively completes our obligations relating to the acquisition of Leigh Creek Copper Mine", allowing the prospect of re-starting production at the site.

The AIM-listed company was already in the process of issuing 38.7m of the shares to Resilience, with a further 2.86m shares set to be handed over on 5 March 2019, assuming no warranty claim was made.

Of the 38.7m shares being issued, voluntary escrow arrangements ensured that one third was escrowed for three months after issue and another one third was escrowed for six months after issue, meaning that of the amount currently being issued, only 12.9 were not subject to any lock-in arrangements.

Application for the shares to be admitted to trading on AIM had already been made and admission was expected to take place around 12 April.

"Considerable investment has been made to understand the requirements to successfully restart operations at Leigh Creek," Peters added. "In particular, the team reviewed the factors, which in its opinion, had resulted in closure of the operations and was comforted by the fact that operations appeared to have significantly improved when working capital considerations, associated with previous practices and falling copper prices, led to the closure of the mine."

As of 0830 BST, shares had picked up 0.74% to 1.76p.