Sipa Resources have more than doubled the anticipated cap on their share purchase plan to $4.2 million after a flood of applications from bullish shareholders.
The rush to increase exposure to the company coincides with the start of a maiden drilling program at the Paterson North project, which is on strike from the ground generating so much good news for Antipa and its JV partner Rio Tinto.
Sipa Resources were swamped in the rush by shareholders wanting to secure their share purchase entitlement in the latest share purchase plan, boosting funds raised from an original target of $2 million to $4.2 million.
In a sign of growing market support for quality greenfields exploration, Sipa announced today they had received applications for $5.3 million, but scaled this back to $4.2 million. This is the maximum allowable without calling a shareholders meeting to approve the issue of new capital.
Sipa’s Managing Director and Geologist, Lynda Burnett, said “The exceptional response to the SPP reflected the depth and strength of the company’s share register, the quality of its key exploration projects and improving sentiment towards the exploration sector.”
Together with a recent share placement, the share purchase plan has boosted Sipa’s cash reserves to about $5.7 million.
The shares were issued at 2 cents each, compared to the current market of 2.4 cents after touching 3.3c in the last couple of weeks.
One of the exploration projects exciting shareholders is Paterson North, directly along strike and only 10 kms from Antipa Minerals’ and Rio Tinto’s recently identified Meekus IP anomaly and the Calibre and Magnum deposits further south.
The Paterson province is home to the giant Telfer gold mine and the Nifty copper deposit and has recently been re-rated for its potential for further large discoveries.
Sipa’s maiden drilling program at Paterson North began earlier this month, with up to 10,000 metres of aircore drilling targeting a large copper-gold-bismith anomaly known as the Obelisk prospect, immediately north of Antipa-Rio’s Magnum and Citadel copper-gold projects.
Burnett said the response to the share purchase plan was “a tremendous result which puts Sipa in an enviable position as we ramp-up our exploration both in Australia and Africa.
“We currently have a very exciting drilling campaign underway in one of Australia’s most prospective provinces, the Paterson province in WA, and are enthusiastic about the initial results of that drilling in the coming weeks. We are also planning follow-up work at our emerging Akelikongo nickel discovery in Uganda and additional phases of work in Australia.” Said Mrs Burnett
