- Junior miner Conico (CNJ) is gearing up to tap investors for some fresh funding early next week
- The company entered a trading halt today, with details of the raise set to be announced when the halt lifts next Tuesday
- Interestingly, Conico said in late-July it was not planning to raise any extra capital soon
- This was despite having just $171,000 in the bank at the end of June
- Shares in Conico last traded for 1.8 cents each yesterday afternoon
Junior miner Conico (CNJ) is gearing up to tap investors for some fresh funding early next week.
The company froze its shares today as it irons out the details of the raise, with today’s trading halt slated to lift on Tuesday morning.
The news of the capital raise may come as a bit of surprise to investors, however, given Conico said just two weeks ago it is not planning to raise any further cash to fund quarterly operations.
In its June quarterly report, Conico revealed it has just $171,000 of cash in the bank after going cashflow-negative by $113,000 over the quarter. This meant at current spending levels, the company only had enough money left to survive for 1.5 financial quarters.
Nevertheless, Conico said the majority of its June quarter spending came from expenses related to the pre-feasibility study (PFS) of its Mt Thirsty cobalt project. The study has now been completed, however, and as such the company said it expects quarterly spending to ease up over the September quarter.
“Based on the current cash being used in operations, Conico has sufficient cash for the time being and is not currently proposing to raise further cash to funds its operations,” the company said.
Whether the company changed its mind about its funding needs or has something bigger brewing is yet to be seen.
Conico said now that the PFS for Mt Thirsty is complete, the project is Australia’s most advanced genuine cobalt project. The project has a pre-tax net present value (NPV) of $44.4 million with all-in sustaining costs of US$35,400 million (roughly A$49.5 million) per tonne of contained cobalt.
Shares in Conico last traded for 1.8 cents each yesterday afternoon. The company has a $6.92 million market cap.