G Mining-Reunion Gold spinout Greenheart raises $36M for exploration

Greenheart Gold (TSXV: GHRT) shares gained 10.5% Friday after it said it had closed a $36-million, upsized private placement to fund exploration at its projects in the Guiana Shield.

The company was spun out in July from G Mining Ventures (TSX: GMIN; US-OTC: GMINF), which acquired Reunion Gold in a $875-million deal this year for its Oko West development project.

Greenheart is focused on regional assets outside of Oko West in the Guiana Shield. These include the Abuya and Majorodam projects in Guyana and Suriname, respectively.

The financing, at 50¢ per share and underwritten by Canaccord Genuity and Paradigm Capital, closed 44% higher than the $25 million offering floated on Sept. 25.

Greenheart shares rose to a 12-month high of 95¢ on Friday, having touched a low of 45¢ in that period. It has a market capitalization of $70 million.

Last month, CEO Justin van der Toorn said in a press release that the company had signed non-binding deal to start due diligence to buy the 95-sq.-km IGAB gold project in Suriname from local prospectors. IGAB is 30 km south of Newmont’s (NYSE: NEM, TSX: NGT, ASX: NEM, PNGX: NEM) Merian mine, which hosts nearly 4 million oz. gold in reserves and another 1.5 million oz. in resources.

The early-stage prospect has already produced high-grade gold from artisanal mining, with rocks yielding bonanza 94.2 grams gold per tonne samples.

The goal is to get and maintain a pipeline of up to five or six early-stage exploration projects in Guyana and Suriname “in the near future,” Van der Toorn said in a Sept. 25 release.

Grassroots prospects

On Friday, Dundee Corporation (TSX: DC.A) acquired 2 million shares of Greenheart for $1 million in a private placement, increasing its stake to 7.68%. Dundee says it bought the shares just to invest, but it endorses the company and its early exploration results.

Early sampling results IGAB show promising grades, and Greenheart plans to begin detailed exploration by January. The company also plans geological mapping, soil sampling, and geophysical surveys to define drill targets along key structural contacts.

The deal is to fund prospecting, soil sampling and geological mapping at the Majorodam project in Suriname. The target area at Majorodam is on the same fold structure as Chinese-owned Zijin Mining’s Saramacca deposit.

Greenheart will also conduct work at its Abuya project in Guyana. Located near Zijin’s Aurora gold mine, Abuya has shown early promise. Initial mapping is complete, and soil sample results are expected soon.

* This article has been updated to reflect that Zijin Mining now owns the Saramacca deposit, not Iamgold, any longer, as initially stated. A previous version also stated that Greenheart purchased IGAB from G Mining Ventures.  In fact, the IGAB deal was with local prospectors from Suriname and had no connection to G Mining Ventures.