Bellevue’s $100m capital raising proves an easy draw for investors

The capital raising bonanza appears to be continuing unabated for resource companies with Bellevue Gold (ASX:BGL) leading the pack after receiving firm commitments for its $100m institutional placement.

It noted that strong demand from both domestic and offshore institutions meant that the fully-underwritten placement had been covered several times over.

Bellevue is also looking to raise a further $20m through a share purchase plan to existing shareholders.

Proceeds from the placement and share purchase plan will be used to grow resources and accelerate development of its namesake project in Western Australia.

It will also be used for further regional exploration, to re-establish access for mechanised re-entry to underground and establish drill platforms, fund underground mine development and establish non-processing infrastructure.

Earlier this week, the company defined a maiden indicated resource for the Bellevue project of 860,000 ounces of gold at a grade of 11.6 grams per tonne gold.

Infill drilling is underway to further grow the overall resource of 2.3 million ounces of gold and to convert more of the inferred resource into the higher confidence indicated category.

Indicated resources have sufficient information on geology and grade continuity to support mine planning.

Small cap miners topping up

Red Metal (ASX:RDM) has received firm commitments for its $3m share placement priced at 9c per share.

Proceeds from the placement will be used to advance targets towards drilling on several of the company’s projects.

These include a 2D seismic trial over the advanced Maronan silver-lead project, magnetotelluric surveying for large copper-gold breccia systems on Corkwood and ground electromagnetic surveys on the new Pardoo nickel-copper project.

Meanwhile, Castle Minerals (ASX:CDT) has completed an oversubscribed placement of shares priced at 1c each to raise $973,078 before costs.

The funds will be used to progress exploration at the Wanganui, Polelle and Beasley Creek gold projects in Western Australia and at the Wa Project in Ghana.