Sonoro raises $3 million for Mexico gold project
Sonoro Gold Corp. [SGO-TSXV, SMOFF-OTCQB, 23SP] said Monday it has raised $3 million from an oversubscribed private placement financing and will use the proceeds to fund ongoing development at its Cerro Caliche gold project in Sonora, Mexico.
The company said the oversubscribed, non-brokered private placement consisted of 20.05 million units priced at 15 cents each. That’s up from 13.5 million when the offering was initially announced on June 6, 2022 and 13.5 million on June 21, 2022.
Each unit consists of one Sonora common share and one share purchase warrant. Each warrant entitles the holder to purchase one additional common share for two years from the closing date at any exercise price of 22.5 cents per share.
Sonoro shares fell on the news, dropping 6.9% or $0.01 to 13.5 cents. The shares are currently trading in a 52-week range of 39 cents and 12 cents.
Sonoro is an exploration and development company, with a portfolio that includes the Cerro Caliche project and the San Marcial properties in Sonora, Mexico.
In January, 2018, Sonoro struck the first of five option agreements enabling it to acquire 100% interest in the Cerro Caliche group of concessions. The 1,400-hectare property is surrounded by several gold-silver mining operations, including Equinox Gold Corp’s [EQX-TSXV, EQXGF-OTC] Mercedes mine and Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd.’s (AEM-TSX, AEM-NYSE)  advanced Santa Gertrudis project.
The Cerro Caliche property contains low sulphidation epithermal gold-silver deposits in and around northwestern oriented vein-structural zones containing precious metals within veins, veinlets and fractures.
Measured an indicated resources at the site stand at 27 million tonnes of grad 0.42 g/t AuEq or 364,000 ounces. On top of that is an inferred resource of 5.5 million tonnes grading 0.44 AuEq or 77,000 ounces.
The company recently released an updated preliminary economic assessment for Cerro Caliche, which contemplates an optimized mine plan for an open pit, heap leach mining operation, with an initial two-year production rate of 8,000 tonnes per day, rising to 15,000 tonnes per day for the remainder of its projected seven-year lifespan.
Over that lifespan, the operation is expected to produce 344,500 ounces of gold equivalent (AuEq) or an average of 45,000 ounces annually at an all-in-sustaining cost of US$1,333 an ounce. The initial capital expenditure cost is expected at US$26 million, including a US$3 million contingency.
The pre-tax net present value discounted at 5% [NPV] is pegged at US$84.4 million.
“We are currently in the permitting phase and anticipate announcing soon an updated NI-43-101 resource estimate that will include the new geological data from our recently completed drilling program,” said Sonoro President and CEO Kenneth MacLeod.
“The economic impact of the updated resource on the proposed mine will be contemplated in a further technical report.”