SCOTGOLD has raised nearly £800,000 to aid its quest for gold and silver in the Trossachs, but at the expense of another fall in its share price.

The company, which has permission to mine at Cononish, near Tyndrum, in the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, placed 15.3 mil-lion shares at 3.1p each and negotiated a loan extension.

In response, its share price fell 0.5p or 12.9% to close at 3.375p, a fresh 52-week low.

Shares in Scotgold, led by chief executive Chris Sangster, floated on the alternative investment market in February 2010 at 6.6p and reached a peak of 7.4p in October of 2011.

Executive chairman John Bentley said: "This fundraising is an important step towards the commercialisation of our project at Cononish. We now have funds to complete our preparatory work and look forward to completing the development study early next year."

As part of the fundraising, subscribers were issued with one warrant for each new share which they can convert into shares at a price of 4.5p each within the next 18 months.

Scotgold also arranged to extend the £1.2 million facility it agreed with South Africa's FirstRand Bank this summer by another £320,000.

Scotgold said once the development study is complete, it will be able to determine the best funding structure for construction of the Cononish mine.

The company told investors last month that it will need to raise £10m to £12m of debt and secure a similar injection of equity to develop the site.

Scotgold expects to recover 21,000 ounces of gold and 74,700 ounces of silver from Cononish annually.

Pre-production costs have almost doubled in three years due to commodity prices, but the company estimates it can recoup the costs of development in just 18 months of production. The project is expected to bring 52 jobs to the area.