By Ian McConnell
THE company developing the Cononish gold mine in Argyll has now drawn down £1.2 million of loans aimed at fast-tracking its ramping up of production at the site near Tyndrum.
And Scotgold Resources anticipates the remaining £1.8m of the total £3m of loans, from a syndicate of high-net-worth investors through an agreement with Swiss group Fern Wealth, will be fully drawn down by June 30.
READ MORE: Scottish gold mine operator eyes more prospects
Reiterating the target output and timescale it indicated back in April when it unveiled the agreement with Fern Wealth to procure loan funding of up to £3m, Scotgold said yesterday it intends to use the proceeds received “to fast-track...optimisation initiatives to achieve a gold production run rate of [circa] 23,500oz (ounces) [per annum] by the end of Q1 2023”. The firm produced 1,257 ounces of gold and 5,881 ounces of silver at Cononish in the first quarter of this year.
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Brexit could have taken many forms. Cheshire Cat Boris Johnson chose this one
Scotgold said the £1.2m of loans had enabled it to improve its working capital position and to “be able to finalise the purchase of the tailings thickener”, aimed at improving “throughput and recoveries of concentrate product in the processing plant”. The firm's plans also include enhancing efficiencies at the underground mine to ensure continuous operations and the design, construction and commissioning of an ore sorter at the processing plant between the crushing unit and the mill.
In March, Scotgold secured a short-term, £250,000 loan facility with Bridge Barn, a company owned and controlled by non-executive director Nathaniel Le Roux, to cover working capital requirements.
It said this had “been impacted by the delay in shipment of the company’s gold concentrate from port” because of “macro and geopolitical events in March 2022 impacting global shipping lines”. However, it added this loan facility had now been repaid in full, with interest, “utilising revenues from...April 2022 gold concentrate sales which totalled just over £1 million for the month”.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here