Mustang Resources has shipped 34,400 carats of rubies to be sold in Thailand.
It appears the explorer is having better luck selling its rubies in Thailand than it did in Mauritius.
Investors were hopeful, pushing the share price up 5 per cent to an intra-day high of 2.1c in Thursday morning trade.
The shares are trading close to a 52-week low, however.
In October, Mustang learned the hard way about how people like to buy their rubies when it took 405,000 carats to auction in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius.
Only eight of the 21 schedules were sold — to Thai and Indian companies — while the remaining 13 didn’t meet the reserve price.
The auction was well-hyped before it took place and the failure saw Mustang’s share price drop by 69 per cent in a single day and the exit of head honcho Christiaan Jordaan not long after.
It looks now as if recently installed managing director Bernard Olivier has set the junior gem and graphite miner back on track.
This latest package of medium and higher-grade rubies was recovered as part of Mustang’s bulk sampling operations at its Montepuez project in Mozambique from January to May.
The parcel includes 10,238 carats recovered from the processing of 22,180 tonnes at a grade of 46 carats per hundred tonnes from the recently discovered Block B.
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Mustang has now also started work on defining a maiden resource, scheduled for release in the December quarter, and will begin an upgrade to double the processing capacity at its ruby plant in June.
“Our revised exploration and development strategy is now well on track,” Mr Olivier said.
Mr Olivier hopes the completion of an initial resource and economic viability work later this year, along with the planned plant capacity increase, will pave the way for commercial-scale production operations to start in the first half of next year.
Stockhead is seeking further comment from Mustang.