AEX Gold (AEXG) listed on the Aim board last week, the latest gold hopeful to come over from Canada. The company is looking to restart an underground mine in Greenland by the end of next year.
It raised £42.5m at 45p, from a target of £45m. The listing doubled AEX’s share count, and 53 per cent of its shares are now on Aim.
AEX does not have the usual feasibility study that miners complete before financing projects, although the brownfield nature of Nalunaq means there is less work to do to get it up and running.
As well as the existing underground development, there are ore stockpiles left over from the failed Angel Mining venture with impressive grades as well, with 70,000 tonnes (t) at a 8-10 grammes per tonne (g/t) of gold, although AEX cannot yet process it. Nalunaq does not have a reserve but the lower-certainty inferred resource is 263,070 ounces (oz) at 18.7g/t.
With gold at almost $2,000/oz (£1,526), any new entrants to the London exchange will attract attention. Miners and prospectors are not short of interest in Canada at the moment either, but AEX chief executive Eldur Ólafsson said the London move was already in motion by the time the TSX sparked up.
He told Investors Chronicle the company had not had much support in Canada since listing in 2017, as buyers moved from gold to cannabis and cryptocurrency plays. These have almost totally fizzled now, with investors storming back into gold.
Next for AEX is bringing in bids for a processing plant and mining contractors, with tenders out this month. A camp will be set up at Nalunaq in April, Mr Ólafsson said.
