Rambler Metals and Mining (LON:RMM, CVE:RAB) shareholders have yesterday approved the recently announced cash call by the company and it has now placed 27.78 million shares at 36 pence each, raising £10 million before expenses.
Seymour Pierce and Ocean Equities acted as the joint brokers for the placing.
The proceeds will be used for working capital as it begins commissioning the copper floatation circuit and before full production at the Ming copper-gold mine in the second half of 2011.
President and chief executive George Ogilvie said: "The raising of the funds strengthens our balance sheet at a time when first revenue is about to be realized from the mining of the Nugget Pond Crown Pillar and later the mining of the Tilt Cove East Mine Deposit.
“The private placement mitigates our risk should the mining of these satellite deposits prove unsuccessful and removes any dependence on third party off-take financing. The company now has a strong financial basis to bring the Ming Mine into production at a time of record copper, gold and silver spot prices.”
The Ming mine is located in Canada on Newfoundland and Labrador's Baie Verte Peninsula.
Last week, Rambler said it received final approval for the Nugget Pond Crown Pillar. Contractors were preparing to mobilise for open pit development, and first production is planned for May 2011.
The group said in the same statement the Tilt Cove East mine project has been released from Environmental Assessment and that it has received first comments on the development plan from the Department of Natural Resources. The project is expected to begin in June 2011 with first production immediately following the Nugget Pond Crown Pillar.
On April 18 the Provincial Department of Natural Resources gave Rambler the go ahead to mine all remaining material in the Nugget Pond Crown Pillar, located just 150 meters from the processing facility. With this final approval the company has signed work agreements with contractors for the drilling, blasting and rock haulage.
Rambler is anticipating that all material from this zone will be stockpiled and ready for processing by May 2011. Historical resource estimates have indicated that the amount of material available will be between 10,000 and 15,000 metric tonnes grading between 5 to 11 grams per ton gold. Historic mill recoveries from the main zone are in the range of 92-96 percent.