Regency raises £600,000
Article Date: Apr 12 2007Mining exploration and investment group Regency Mines has raised £580,000 to accelerate its Mambare nickel project in Papua New Guinea.
AIM-quoted Regency, headed by ex-City analyst Andrew Bell, has raised the money at a depressed 1.75p to help with its nickel limonite project on the Pacific island. Sponsored financial research and investment company City Equities has taken the lion’s share of the placing, increasing its Regency stake to 17.6 per cent.
Serial investor Bruce Rowan’s Starvest vehicle, one of whose directors, John Watkins, is also on Regency’s board, has also subscribed and now holds 15.5 per cent of the company, which wants to “fast-track” Mambare. The deposit holds a potential 200 million tonnes of ore, with one per cent nickel and 0.1 per cent cobalt and parts of it contain ore with significant iron alongside the nickel.
Regency argues this could be shipped direct to Chinese blast furnaces, where it would yield a nickel-rich pig iron for processing into stainless steel. Bell, who with his partly-owned Bellmin company now owns 26.4 per cent of Regency, believes ‘the appeal for the Chinese is that they would effectively be paying only for the nickel content of the ore and would get the iron for nothing’.
Floated at 2p two years ago, Regency shares soon rose to nearly 6p before turning south. At 1.63p, down 0.37p today, they have speculative potential.
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