Cohiba boosts coffers by $1M as directors, investors exercise options

Cohiba’s directors continue to back the aspiring copper producer with the injection of more of their own cash through the conversion of options.

Cohiba Minerals (ASX:CHK) directors and management collectively exercised 10,710,375 of the total 98,841,055 options that were converted to shares.

The exercise of the 98,841,055 options, which account for around 47% of the total options on issue that expired on May 22 this year, boosted Cohiba’s cash balance by nearly $1m.

CEO Andrew Graham and non-executive director Nochum Labkowski stumped up a combined $64,604 to add more Cohiba shares to their respective portfolios.

It follows executive chairman Mordechai Benedikt’s early option exercise last month totalling $278,595, which took his substantial stake to 9.3%.

Benedikt has been a shareholder in Cohiba for the past five years and injected millions of dollars.

His rationale for picking up more shares in the company is the “mega potential” for another Olympic Dam discovery in South Australia’s Gawler Craton.

Earlier this year, Cohiba expanded its South Australian portfolio to include the Warriner Creek prospect because of the strong potential for a major iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) discovery in BHP’s (ASX:BHP) backyard.

Iron oxide copper gold ore deposits (IOCG) — like BHP’s Olympic Dam mine or more recent Oak Dam discovery — can be tremendously large, and simple-to-process concentrations of copper, gold and other economic minerals.

Cohiba has resumed drilling at its Horse Well prospect in the Gawler Craton, targeting coincident gravity and magnetic anomalies in close proximity to the Oak Dam West deposit.

The company says the target zone in the latest hole (HWDD06) sits in the same host granite as the Oak Dam deposit and OZ Minerals’ (ASX:OZL) 4.25-million-tonne-per-annum Carrapateena mine and exhibits strong indicators of the IOCG potential.

Drilling at BHP’s Oak Dam deposit has delivered significant intersections such as 425.7m at 3.04% copper, 0.59 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 346 parts per million (ppm) uranium and 6.03g/t silver from 1,063m; including 180m at 6.07% copper, 0.92g/t gold, 401ppm uranium and 12.77g/t silver from 1,070m.

“We are excited to be back at Horse Well armed with considerable additional insights into the geology and structure of the area and trust that this will translate into exploration success,” Graham said.

“We remain confident that the Horse Well Prospect represents a key IOCG target zone within the Gawler Craton and are committed to investigating it to the fullest extent possible.”

Cohiba is planning to drill up to 12 holes at its Horse Well prospect.

This article was developed in collaboration with Cohiba Minerals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.