Freshly-minted gold explorer PVW Resources is launching an initial public offering to raise up to $7 million.

Incorporated in February, the company wants to raise between $5m and $7m selling up to 35 million shares at 20c each.

The IPO is set to open on November 8 and close on November 30, with listing pencilled in for December 12.

Following the raising the company will have a market capitalisation of up to $21.8m and up to $8.4 million in the bank.

It’ll use the cash to undertake exploration programs at its Mount Clifford, Tanami, and Gordon Sirdar gold projects in Western Australia.

PVW will be led by managing director Aaron Maurer, who most recently held a senior role at Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN), where he ran the flagship Mt Marion lithium operation and headed the re-start of the Koolyanobbing iron ore project.

Exploration focus: Mount Clifford

PVW’s initial focus will be the Mount Clifford project, 60km north of Leonora.

There is a very large dataset available from over 50 years of gold and base metals exploration at Mount Clifford, which PVW wants to build on to bring the project into production as quickly as possible.

The company reckons it will take a significant effort to document, review and analyse all this in detail, but at least two prospects – Jungle Well and Mt Clifford — have been earmarked for drilling next year.

An independent geologist’s report prepared by Indeport concluded that the project offered several exploration opportunities, despite being held by various explorers and miners over the years.

The Mount Clifford project.
The Mount Clifford project.

The Jungle Well open pit was previously mined by Consolidated Gold Mines (CGM) in 1996, producing 20,000 ounces of gold.

CGM went broke in 1998, and only limited exploration has been undertaken since.

And much of the previous exploration was focused on nickel and base metals, so it was possible gold mineralisation had to some extent been overlooked, says geologist Neal Leggo.

“Strong potential exists for mineralisation below the [Jungle Well] pit with numerous significant intercepts in the deeper drill holes and little deeper drilling,” he says.

“There is significant potential for repetitions of gold mineralisation to the north and to the south of Jungle Well.”

At the Mt Clifford target –8km from Jungle Well – historical drilling returned high grade intersections including 11m at 8.52 grams per tonne of gold, and 5m at 26.62 grams per tonne of gold.

Anything above 5 grams per tonne is considered high grade.

“Indeport considers that the exploration strategy proposed by PVW Resources is consistent with the good mineral potential and prominent status of the Mt Clifford project within their portfolio of mineral assets,” Mr Leggo says.

Once PVW has listed, the explorer will gear up for a drilling campaign to kick off in the first quarter of 2019.