Aldridge Minerals (TSX-V:AGM) – advancing a gold and polymetallic VMS project in Turkey – jumped 40% in early afternoon trade on Tuesday ahead of a pre-feasibility study due out later this month.
More than 14 times the usual number of shares had changed hands on the Toronto venture board by 2pm chasing the firm all the way up to $0.61 from yesterday’s close of $0.435, giving the explorer a market value of over $30 million.
The company raised $15 million last month at a price of $0.475 a share.
Toronto-based Aldridge is due to deliver a pre-feasibility on its Yenipazar gold VMS deposit which also holds silver, copper, lead and zinc in central Turkey before the end of the month.
A November resource update indicated contained metal of 900,000 gold, just under 30 million silver ounces and over 200 million pounds of copper at Yenipazar with a juicy overall gold equivalent grade of 2.42g per tonne.
The Yenipazar project is subject to an earn-in agreement with Alacer Gold Corp. Aldridge can earn a 100% working interest subject to a 6% net profit interest until revenues of $165 million are generated, and a 10% NPI from then on.
Aldridge is bright spot in the junior mining sector which suffered a terrible 2012.
Mining IPO proceeds collapsed 80% last year while the volume of secondary equity offerings fell by almost half.
The tough market saw a reduction in average proceeds by junior companies to just $4m million, down from $6 million in 2011.
