TORONTO, April 09, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Noront Resources Ltd. (“Noront” or the “Company”) (TSX Venture:NOT) today provided a corporate update and closed a private placement of flow-through shares.
Road Development
Last August, the province announced funding and support for two First Nation led access road proposals linking the Ring of Fire and their communities to the provincial highway system. Since that time Noront has provided support to the proponent communities for the access roads in order to expedite the permitting process. The Company has made environmental assessment and engineering studies available and met with community groups to provide expertise and organizational input. The provincial government has assembled a team representing four ministries which is providing support and guidance.
Upgrades to existing roads are ongoing and environmental fieldwork which has taken place since earlier this year should culminate in the filing of project descriptions by mid-year. Government timelines estimate shovels will be in the ground in 2019.
The Company was also pleased to see the $1 billion previously allocated by the provincial government to infrastructure spending in the Ring of Fire was present in the province’s recently announced 2018 budget.
Exploration Update
Noront will continue its copper-zinc focused exploration program in the second half of 2018 with ground geophysical surveying and targeted drilling at the Company’s McFaulds and Butler VMS properties.
The McFaulds program objective is to generate drill targets using ground electromagnetic (EM) systems and to continue testing the strike and dip continuity of the newly discovered McFaulds No. 8 and No. 9 sulphide lenses. At Butler, recent soil surveying identified highly anomalous copper-zinc-silver associated with EM targets between the No. 3 and No. 4 occurrences.
Flow-through Private Placement
To finance the upcoming year of exploration work, Noront closed a private placement of 10,000,000 flow-through common shares today at a price of $0.42 per flow-through share for gross proceeds of $4.2 million (the “Offering”).
These shares will be “flow-through” shares pursuant to the Income Tax Act (Canada). The flow-through shares are subject to a statutory hold period of four months plus one day which will expire on August 10, 2018.
In connection with the Offering, EMD Financial Inc. received a cash finder’s fee equal to 5% of the gross proceeds up to $1.3 million, a finder’s fee, paid in shares, of 6% of the gross proceeds in excess of $2.5 million to a maximum of $4.0 million and a corporate finance fee of $10,750. There were 414,081 common shares issued at a price of $0.37 per common share in satisfaction of the share component of the finder’s fee. The common shares are subject to a statutory hold period of four months plus one day which will expire on August 10, 2018.
Marten Falls First Nation Shares
The Company would also like to announce the issuance of 311,111 common shares to Marten Falls First Nation. These shares are part of an exploration and pre-development agreement with our First Nation partner announced on April 13, 2017. The common shares are subject to a statutory hold period of four months plus one day which will expire on August 10, 2018.
RCF Interest Payment
The Company also announces that payment of interest in the amount of $387,000 for the first quarter of 2018 pursuant to the Convertible Debenture has been satisfied by delivery of 1,022,457 common shares of the Company (the “Interest Shares”) at an effective price of $0.3785 per Interest Share. The Interest Shares are subject to a four month hold period, expiring on August 11, 2018.
The calculation of the number of Interest Shares issued was based on the volume weighted average trading price of the common shares of the Company during the 20 trading days prior to March 31, 2018. After giving effect to the private placement, the issuance of shares to Marten Falls First Nation and the Interest Shares, there are 358,759,308 common shares of the Company issued and outstanding.