It took SEMARNAT a few quarters longer than expected due to the government changes in Mexico, but almost 7 months after receiving the ETJ for the La Fortuna project, Minera Alamos (MAI.V) is now the proud owner of the long-awaited notification confirming the completion of the technical review of Minera Alamos’ mine plans.
This notification basically means the change of land use is going ahead (the designated purpose of the land will change from agricultural to mining activities) for a minor fee of just a few hundred thousand dollars. Meanwhile, the permit application is going ahead as the SEMARNAT approval was required to initiate the more local permits needed to start mining operations. From what we have been told, the local Sonora government is very much in favor of the development of the Santana project, and we wouldn’t expect any major hiccups from now on. As all local communities have pretty much signed off on the development of the project and there’s strong provincial support, we would be very surprised to see anyone or anything torpedo this project.
This notification also means the odds of bringing Santana into production without incurring any additional equity dilution – which has been promised numerous times – are improving. For the next few months, we would like to see Minera Alamos working out its funding options (a large part/if not all of the required development capital is expected to be provided by Osisko Gold Royalties (OR, OR.TO) as their backing of the Company certainly implies a relationship that joining the dots is based on providing project capital in return for NSR’s (just like Osisko did on the Fortuna project) and if the current cash position of around C$4M isn’t sufficient to cover the working capital needs, Minera Alamos’ preference would very likely be to gain access to a working capital facility rather than issuing more shares.
The sale of the option agreement on the (Guadelupe de) Los Reyes project to ePower Metals (EPWR.V), to be renamed Prime Mining, is going ahead, and ePower is expecting to close the acquisition and its concurrent C$6M subscription receipts-based financing in the second half of this month.
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The author has a long position in both Minera Alamos and ePower Metals/Prime Mining. Please read the disclaimer
