American Eagle raises $29 million for B.C. copper-gold drilling
American Eagle Gold Corp. [AE-TSXV, AMEGF-OTCQB] has raised $29.1 million from a non-brokered private placement of pursuant to a subscription agreement with a unit of South32 Ltd. [S32-ASX].
The company’s shares advanced on the news, rising 3.09% or $0.03 to $1.00. The shares trade in a 52-week range of $1.07 and 23.5 cents.
Under the agreement, South32 purchased 33.32 million common at a price of $0.875 per share, a move that leaves South32 with a 19.9% stake in American Eagle. Prior to completion of the offering, South32 did not own any shares in American Eagle. South32, which produces a range of commodities, including bauxite, alumina, aluminum, copper, zinc, lead and nickel plus manganese from operations in Australia, South Africa and South America, now has the right to nominate one individual to the board of directors of American as long as it holds at least 10% of the company’s issued and outstanding shares.
American Eagle’s key asset is the NAK copper-gold porphyry project, which is located 85 kilometres from Smithers, B.C., in the Babine copper-gold porphyry district of west-central, British Columbia.
The property lies close to past producing mines (Bell, Granisle) and is road accessible. American Eagle said it will use the proceeds to fund drill program expansions in 2025 and 2026. It said further details of the 2025 program will be shared once assays from the 2024 program are received.
American Eagle was in the news last year (May, 2023) when it announced that Vancouver metals giant Teck Resources Ltd. (TECK.B-TSX, TECK.A-TSX, TECK-NYSE) had pledge to make a strategic investment in the company through a flow-through share financing on a private placement basis.
Immediately after closing of the offering, it said Teck would hold 14.4 million common shares of American Eagle, or 15% of the company. At that time, the junior said it would l use the proceeds to fund its 6,000-metre drill program on a number of targets at the NAK project.
American Eagle said the NAK project benefits from its proximity to excellent infrastructure through all-season roads as well as proximity to Smithers, Houston and Burns Lake, which lie along a major rail line and Provincial Highway 16. Historical drilling and geophysical, geological and geochemical work at NAK, which began in the 1960s, tested only to shallow depths. Still, the work revealed a very large near-surface copper-gold system that measures over 1.5 kilometres by 1.5 kilometres. Drilling completed in 2022, 2023, and 2024 by American Eagle has returned significant intervals of high-grade copper-gold mineralization that reach beyond and much deeper than historical drilling, indicating that zones of near-surface and deeper mineralization, locally with considerable higher grades, exist within the broader NAK property mineralization.
Recent drilling highlights include results from drilling on the near-surface South Zone, which returned 101 metres of 1.11% copper equivalent (CuEq) from 47 metres, within 144 metres of 0.90% CuEq from surface within 451 metres of 0.43% CuEq from surface.