First Class Metals PLC completed its first full year of mining activity with several successful explorations, though saw a pretax loss and rising administration costs.
On Friday, the Blackburn, England-based metal discovery company with operations in northern Ontario said its pretax loss widened to £1.6 million in the year to December 31 from £701,040 year-over-year. This came as administration costs increased to £1.5 million from £693,583.
However, the company did see promising results from several of its mining projects.
Over the course of the year Full Class Metals received 6 exploration permits for its North Hemlo, Sunbeam, Zigzag, Esa McKellar and Enable projects all in northern Ontario.
It confirmed gold assays of 19 grams per tonne at the North Hemlo site, as well as a successful stripping program at Sunbeam.
It also confirmed a ‘robust gold anomaly’ at Esa and completed channel sampling and drilling at Zigzag.
During the year, Full Class Metals raised around £1.1 million through an oversubscribed placing, subscription, and warrant conversion, issuing 2.0 million shares and converting 375,000 warrants, all priced at 10.00 pence per share. The company also raised £603,000 through a directors’ share loan, issuing 12.0 million shares at 6.00 pence per share.
At year-end, the group had total cash reserves of £140,802.
In news reported after the year-end, First Class Metals entered into an exclusivity agreement with Broken Rock Resources for its Quinlan property, which was consolidated into an option agreement in March. The site contains significant lithium anomaly.
The site contains 98 claims, with 50 belonging to FCM and 48 optioned from BRR. Under the agreement, FCM completed an execution payment of C$10,000 in cash and C$15,000 in shares. FCM’s contractual work requirement for the first year on site is C$50,000.
It also agreed to an exclusivity agreement with Ontario Inc and Gravel Ridge Resources worth C$5,000 for 36 single cell mining claims northeast of its Timmins Mining Camp.
Despite promising agreements, the group said that it will continue to generate no profit in the near term.
In June, the company sold its McKellar and Enable projects for £270,000 to the 79th GRP Ltd as well as entered into a working capital loan with the group worth 230,000.
While it has sufficient funds to conduct all current operations, the group says it must seek funding within the next year to finance any new exploration and mining operations.
First Class Metals share closed down in London on Friday at 2.67 pence.
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