CORA GOLD (LSE: Cora) 9.15p, Mkt Cap £27m. Today’s Letter to Shareholders brings tidings of comfort for those who invested at 10p in the recent placing that raised £6.25m. This East African gold company’s share price reached 19.5p after a sequence of positive development news. Cora is an emerging gold developer with three de-risked project areas within two known gold belts in Mali and Senegal covering over +1,100 sq. km. The primary focus is on developing the Sanankoro prospect in the Yanfolila Gold Belt, Southern Mali, where Cora expect to produce cash-flow from an open pit oxide gold mine in 2022.
The development news is the result of some 43,000 meters of drilling (including exceptional grade) leading to November’s updated JORC-compliant Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) showing 21.9m tonnes at 1.15 grams per tonne gold for a total of 809.3 thousand ounces of gold. This is a +200% increase from the maiden resource published in December 2019 and all the deposits remain open in all directions indicating further potential for lower risk step-out drilling.
There are various milestones before the DFS (Definitive Feasibility Study) is completed which unlocks US$25m mine construction funding already committed in a equity VWAP price and debt structure which minimises dilution. After the site visits by the key contractors and consultants there are several workstreams underway. This includes Metallurgical test work samples, all waste rock samples have been sent to Waterlabs in South Africa for geochemical analysis. Hydrogeological drilling and geotechnical drilling and test pit programmes have commenced, and sterilisation drilling on the plant, tailings waste storage facility and waste rock sites are due to be completed in Q1 2022. The later stage in Sanankoro’s development of completing the ESIA (Environmental and Social Impact Study) but all is progressing .
The Letter to Shareholders stated that it is well-funded for Sanankaro DFS in H1 2022 and Drill results from Tagan permit expected early 2022. At below the recent placing price Cora and seem worth buying.