LONDON (Alliance News) - Scotgold Resources Ltd Friday said its new non-executive chairman, Nat Le Roux, agreed to provide it with GBP300,000 of funding at the end of March via convertible loan notes, on top of the GBP450,000 that new co-broker Vicarage Capital raised for the company through a share placing last month.
It said Le Roux's convertible notes carry an interest rate of 1% a year and convert into shares at GBP0.006 a share. The repayment date is September 30, 2016.
The gold explorer also said it has been focusing on optimising the mining plan for the Cononish Gold project and it had undertaken a mining methodology trade off study, revised mine access design and more detailed geotechnical work. It will announce the result of the work it has done by the end of this month.
"In parallel various financing options are being considered for the necessary capital to bring the project into production. These will be advanced in more detail once the technical studies mentioned above are completed," it said.
It's also continuing to evaluate high grade outcrop samples identified by previous exploration close to the Cononish project to identify possible Cononish' style deposits outside the immediate Cononish area.
At the Grampian project, Scotgold is currently finalising the agreements with the Crown over its options areas. The Crown told the company that it will re-grant all the company's existing option areas for a further three year, subject to a reduction in area in the Inverliever option, once appropriate legal agreements are concluded.
Field work aimed at the completion of the regional and infill programs at Grampian will start shortly, Scotgold said, predominantly in the Knapdale, Inverliever, Ochils and Glen Lyon areas.
Last month's share placing, which raised GBP450,000 to fund the ongoing technical studies, involved the placing of 90 million shares with new shareholders at 0.005 pence each.
Scotgold shares were up 4.4% at 0.548 pence in London Friday morning.
By Steve McGrath; stevemcgrath@alliancenews.com; @stevemcgrath1
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.