Element 29 welcomes Alpayana, Randy Smallwood as investors
Element 29 Resources Inc. [ECU-TSXV, EMTRF-OTCQB, ECU-BLV] said it has raised $35.5 million from a non-brokered private placement consisting of 32.2 million common shares priced at $1.10 per share.
Net proceeds from the financing will be used to fund exploration activities at the company’s Peru projects, including the 2026 drilling program at its flagship Elida porphyry-copper-molybdenum-silver deposit in west central Peru.
“We would like to thank our existing shareholders for their continued support, and we are pleased to welcome Alpayana S.A.C., led by Chair Alejandro Gubbins, as a new strategic investor with a 9.9% interest in the company,’’ said Element 29 President and CEO Richard Osmond. “Alpayany has a long history of mining in Peru, with a strong track record of value creation and deep in-country operational expertise,’’ he said. “We are also pleased to welcome Randy Smallwood into the financing. Together, their participation represents a strong endorsement of the company and our Peru portfolio, strengthening our technical and financial position as we advance our projects toward potential tier-1 discoveries in a world class mining jurisdiction.’’
Smallwood recently stepped down as CEO of Wheaton Precious Metals Corp. (WPM-TSX, WPM-NYSE). After more than 15 years of leading the business he co-founded, Smallwood has assumed the role of non-executive Chair of the Board of Directors.
Element 29 shares advanced on the news, rising 1.5% or $0.02 to $1.35. The shares trade in a 52-week range of $1.40 and 29 cents.
Element 29 is an emerging junior with a highly experienced management team and board, focused on exploring and potentially developing Tier-1 deposits in Peru, one of the lowest-cost, lowest-risk mining jurisdictions globally.
The company’s principal objective is to explore and significantly expand its Elida porphyry deposit. Alongside Elida, the company has three early stage, highly prospective porphyry copper projects in Peru, covering 25,000 hectares of titled concessions. These include the Flor de Cobre porphyry copper-molybdenum prospect situated in the Southern Peru Copper Belt, just 26 kilometres from the Cerro Verde copper mine, as well as the Paka and Pahuay porphyry copper skarn prospects related to potential tertiary-aged, mineralized porphyry complexes intruding along the eastern margin of the Peruvian Coastal Batholith.
In a recent press release, Element 29 said drilling at Elida continues to return long intervals of copper-molybdenum-silver mineralization beginning near surface and extending beyond the limits of the current pit-constrained mineral resource estimate. Recent drilling highlights include 9-3.7 metres of grade 0.38% copper equivalent (CuEq) (0.31% copper, 0.02% molybdenum, and 2.22 g/t silver) from 29.8 metres depth. Elida has an initial pit-constrained inferred resource estimated at 321.7 million tonnes of grade 0.32% copper, 0.03% molybdenum, and 2.61 g/t silver at an 0.2% copper cutoff grade and low 0.74:1 modeled strip ratio.