Mining Weekly
Wednesday November 20, 2019
BY: MARIAAN WEBB
East African explorer Thani Stratex Resources (TSR), in which Aim-quoted Oriole Resources holds 26.1%, has secured funding for an accelerated exploration programme at its Djibouti projects over the next three years.
The funding was secured through a direct investment into joint venture company Thani Stratex Djibouti (TSD), which is 50:50 owned by TSR and African Minerals Exploration and Development (AMED) Fund II-controlled Nuture subsidiary Onyx.
In terms of the agreement, AMED Fund II would commit funding through unsecured convertible notes to TSD, which were convertible into preference shares at $2.24295 each.
The exploration programme would consist of 42 000 m of drilling, focusing on the Pandora, Hesdaba and Assaleyta projects. The best drilling results to date at Pandora include 35.07 m at 1.28 g/t gold and 8.30 m at 7.21 g/t gold.
The first $2.5-million tranche of the funding would be used to undertake an initial 6 500 m of drilling.
Thereafter, further tranches will be advanced subject to TSD achieving performance milestones, including resource definition and the completion of technical studies.
Further, TSR has restructured to spin out TSD, which is now a standalone company. As a result, Oriole holds 13.05% of TSD.
“We look forward to seeing the projects in Djibouti making progress again after what has been an extended period of inactivity since early 2018. Oriole's early work on these assets, prior to the formation of Thani Stratex in 2014, showed that they are highly prospective for gold,” said Oriole CEO Tim Livesey.