International Tower Hill Mines plans to raise $10.3 million in support of a prefeasibility study on its Livengood gold deposit, 110 km north of Fairbanks, Alaska.
In July, the Vancouver-based company announced it had finalized the key contracts to complete a prefeasibility study on the large, but low-grade Livengood project, with an expected release date of October 2021.
The project contains measured and indicated resources of 525.38 million tonnes grading 0.68 g/t gold for 11.5 million oz. gold
Tower Hill’s three largest shareholders have already taken their pro-rata share of the at-the-market offering – 5.7 million shares (or 3% of shares outstanding) at a closing market price of $1.40 per share on Sept. 1. for a total of $7.9 million. Following completion of the offering, Paulson & Co. will own 31.8% of Tower Hill’s shares, with Sprott Asset Management holding 15.1% and Electrum Strategic Opportunities Fund II 14.2%.
The remainder of the offering – $2.4 million – will be made through B. Riley as the sales agent, at its discretion. Shares will not be offered through the Toronto Stock Exchange.
The project contains measured and indicated resources of 525.38 million tonnes grading 0.68 g/t gold for 11.5 million oz. gold. The resource figure includes proven and probable reserves of 391.7 million tonnes grading 0.71 g/t gold for 9 million oz. gold.
Livengood has seen a number of economic studies, most recently a prefeasibility study in April 2017. That study projected a C$1.8-billion initial capex for a mine producing an average of 294,100 oz. gold per year over a 23-year life. However, the project was not economic at the $1,250 per oz. base case gold price used in the study. At that gold price, the study projected a net present value (NPV) of -$552 million at a 5% discount rate; an after-tax internal rate of return of 0.5%, and a payback period of 22.1 years.
(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)