Comet Resources makes strong progress at Santa Teresa Gold Project in Mexico

Comet Resources Limited (ASX:CRL) has made significant progress on the development pathway at Santa Teresa High-Grade Gold Project in Baja California, Mexico, including the release of an initial JORC-compliant mineral resource estimate. The company finalised the acquisition of Santa Teresa during the September quarter, which was further enhanced by funding from Raptor Capital International of US$6 million (up to US$20 million) via a gold stream and royalty facility. These proceeds will fund development activities at Santa Teresa and the facility will be secured only against the project itself and any further tenements acquired in the region. Busy quarter Comet managing director Matthew O’Kane said: “The September quarter has been a very busy one again for Comet, with the completion of the acquisition of the Santa Teresa Gold Project, as well as finalisation of the streaming agreement with Raptor to provide development capital for the project. “We also got onto the ground for the first field visit to the Barraba Copper Project, which post-quarter-end we have now gained access to for exploration activities which will commence in November.” Post-quarter-end, the company released the JORC inferred mineral resource estimate for Santa Teresa of 369,000 tonnes at 7.47 g/t for 88,600 ounces of contained gold and this was based on a gold cut-off grade of 2.5 g/t. Interminco project management The company has also appointed Interminco Services Ltd as project manager for the project. This company has delivered several projects from successful exploration through to mine production in Chile, Mexico and the USA and is also experienced in commercial strategy, advising on projects for leading global mining companies, as well as Juniors at various stages of development. Next steps for Santa Teresa Interminco will have a team based in Ensenada, about 100 kilometres from site, and will focus initially on planning for the upcoming drilling program and associated permitting, managing the drilling program itself as well as sampling, assaying and database management. To allow planning for the initial drilling program to progress a site based exercise of creating a GIS database of all prior drill collar locations as well as historical shafts, trenches and surface outcroppings on the mineralised veins will be undertaken. Completion of fa ield mapping and sampling exercise to support planning for and locations of initial drilling program and permitting of the initial drilling program at Santa Teresa is expected in the current quarter. The initial drilling will then commence by quarter one 2021 at the latest. Regional geology of the Santa Teresa Gold Project. Barraba Copper Project The company’s Barraba Copper Project in northern New South Wales has never been systematically tested by modern exploration techniques. Following the validation of existing exploration data, the initial drilling program will focus on the drill-testing of areas below and along strike of the historically mined lodes at the Gulf Creek Mine. The drilling will be complemented with downhole geophysical surveys with the aim of providing additional information about potential parallel and blind lodes. The initial exploration program will commence in November to target the Murchison Copper Mine and several IP anomalies to the north of the Gulf Creek Mine. This will entail a grid based geochemical soil and rock chip sampling program together with geological mapping. Fully funded going forwards On September 23, 2020, Comet announced the completion of the first tranche of its placement of 100 million fully paid ordinary shares at 2 cents per share to raise $2 million before costs. The company issued 98,500,000 shares under the placement to raise $1.97 million and the remaining 1,500,000 fully paid ordinary shares from the placement were issued on October 16, 2020. The company also received applications from existing shareholders for $2.3 million at the same price per share under its share purchase plan (SPP), which closed on Thursday, October 1, 2020. Due to the strong demand from shareholders for the SPP, with oversubscriptions of $1.8 million being received, the company decided to accept oversubscriptions of $500,000 meaning the SPP raised a total of $1,000,000 before costs of the offer. O’Kane said: “We had a very successful placement and SPP. “We are now well-funded and are looking forward to pressing ahead and advancing our projects further in quarter four.”