Iron ore magnate Gina Rinehart has invested $8.7 million into copper explorer White Cliff Minerals Ltd (ASX: WCN), sending its shares more than 20% higher.
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Major investment to drive exploration
Ms Rinehart's company, Hancock Prospecting, has acquired the stake via a private placement, which constitutes about 13.5% of White Cliff's shares on issue.
The money raised via the placement will be used to expand and accelerate the company's exploration activities at the Rae copper project.
White Cliff's Managing Director, Troy Whittaker, said:
Hancock Prospecting's decision to invest is a major milestone for White Cliff and powerful third-party validation of what we are building at Rae. We have spent the past two seasons demonstrating that Rae can deliver exceptional grades across a mineralised system with genuine district-scale potential. The timing could not be more compelling. Copper prices have reached record highs, supply is tightening and global demand continues to grow. The search for large, high-quality new copper discoveries has rarely been more important, and we believe Rae has the potential to become one of them.
Mr Whittaker said the money would help accelerate drilling at the Danvers one deposit, "aggressively test the scale" of Danvers two and three, and advance exploration across the broader area.
He added:
We are still at an early stage in understanding the full scale of this system, but the results to date demand an ambitious program, and that is exactly what we now intend to deliver.
The issue of shares to Hancock Prospecting is subject to shareholder approval. White Cliff intends to hold a meeting in mid-October to hold a vote on the placement.
White Cliff shares traded as high as 2.1 cents on the news before settling back to be 17.7% higher at 2 cents.
The company is valued at $56.2 million.
Recent results are promising
White Cliff in early September released new drilling results, including an intersection of 6.18% copper over a length of 23 metres from drill hole DAN26036 at the Danvers three discovery.
Mr Whittaker said of the results:
DAN26036 is exactly the type of result we want from step-out drilling. More than 220m from DAN26012, it has delivered 23m at 6.18% Cu, including 3.90m at 16.45% Cu and a new Danvers record assay of 23.5% Cu – Assays that demonstrate thick and high-grade continuity of the copper mineralisation. The high-grade zone remains open, with another 248m still untested towards the next drillhole in the southwest.
