Ihave beenlooking over the list of mining financings closed during themonth ofJuly and found roughly $250 million was raised by variousenterprises.Many were small, but one was huge - the $167.6-millionproject loanobtained by Largo Resources for thedevelopment of itsMaracas vanadium project in Brazil.
Then I glanced through theJune list. There were only nine dealsclosed that month, all small exceptthe $35-million-worth of specialunits issued by CrystallexInternational.
No mine financings closed in May, April orin the last half of March.
There have been a few notable proposedofferings in July. One is byToronto's St Andrew Goldfieldsto raise $20 million toadvance development of the Smoke Deep zone atthe Holloway mine atMatheson, ON. The company is also repurchasingsenior secured goldnotes.
Other deals have been proposed by Yukon-NevadaGold Corp.(US$25 million), Sabina Gold & Silver($22.4million), Crowflight Minerals ($12 million), andMalaNoche Resources ($300 million).
Finally, thedeal proposed by San Gold Corp. ofBissett, MB, caughtmy eye. This is a gold miner, tiny by internationalstandards, but withthree producers and a fourth one to come on streamlater this year.Tonnages are small, but grades are high, in theneighbourhood of 7.5 to9.9 g/t Au. The potential in the area isexcellent as shown in the newHinge mine (13.5 g/t) and the developing007 zone (58 to 88 g/t Au).
OnJuly 13 San Gold sent out a news release saying it wanted to raise$130million through a bought deal. Then the next day, July 14, thecompanysent word that it is shrinking the deal to $80 million, plusanoverallotment that could bring it up to $92 million. The companyisoffering 20 million common shares at a price of $4 each, rather thantheoriginal 32.5 million shares at the same price. The shares willbebought by syndicate lead by Dundee Securities and BMO Capital Markets.
Thatis a significant drop in expectations. As San Gold CEO Dale GinntoldCMJ, "The markets were just a little shaky. There were some otherbigdeals ahead of us, and maybe we were a little late to the table."
Whateverthe reason, we will wait and see if San Gold's experiencemeans thatinvestors are tightening their belts or if it was a case ofpoor timing.