Mining firm to raise €4m

Irish mining company, Conroy Gold and Natural Resources is set to raise up to £3.15 million (€3.94m) in additional funding, via a new share placing.

The Dublin-based company — whose ultimate aim is to develop an open-pit gold mine at Clontibret in Co Monaghan — is placing just over 16.15 million new ordinary shares on the market.

At the turn of the year, Conroy was awarded seven new prospecting licences across counties Clare, Tipperary and Kilkenny.

The company said the new licence areas contain similar geology to its existing areas of interest in Monaghan and Armagh.

Recently revised resource estimates at its Clontibret asset — which upped the gold estimate by 20% to 600,000 ounces — “transformed” the economics of the prospect, the company said.

Meanwhile, another Irish-headquartered mining company — the John Teeling/AIM-listed diamond explorer, Botswana Diamonds has said that it is set to start identifying kimberlites on one of its newly awarded prospecting licences, in the Orapa region of Botswana.

The new licence, which covers an area of 262.6 square kilometres is 100% held by Atlas Minerals, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Botswana Diamonds.

The asset has been awarded for an initial period of three years after which it can be renewed for two additional periods of two years each.

The initial work willbe high resolution geophysics over targeted areas followed by percussion drilling of identified anomalies.

Commenting on the move, Mr Teeling said: “This is a highly prospective licence, which is under-explored.

“The sand cover of 30 to 60 metres has meant that exploration techniques used until now, particularly soil sampling, have not been effective.

“The area shares similar characteristics with the area around the Gope mine development of Gem Diamonds and the X36 project of Petra Diamonds. New high resolution geophysics using airborne magnetics will be used to identify drilling targets.”