Ariana Resource look to Venus IPO

Venus, which is the company's Cypriot venture, includes the Magellan Project and Mariner Project as well as other targeted exploration projects - Klimata, West Skouriotissa and North Alestos.Magellan, in the central part of North Troodos, is the company's most advanced project and comprises the Kokkinoyia, Klirou and New Sha.It holds a JORC 2012 resources totalling 17 Mt of ore ranging from 0.45% to 1.10% copper grades. All three prospects contain indications of significant quantities of gold, including a resources estimate of 112,000oz at Kokkinoyia and significant gold recently identified in drilling at the Magellan Project; 129m @ 0.5% Cu + 0.55g/t Au. "This is a fully permitted mine site. The feasibility on the resource reserve has been done. It's not only that, but it's got a processing plant that works because it was previously operational into 2019," Sener said.The company is seeking to establish a 50:50 JV for the Apliki Project: (17Mt @ 0.25-0.69% copper) with the Iacovou Group. Iacovou owns the SX-EW processing plant previously operational at the nearby Skouriotissa mine. "We're still planning to achieve an IPO on that business. We wanted to do that last year, we couldn't do because the market just wasn't there to support it. We were looking to IPO in June and both the copper price and the market just fell away," Sener added.Tavsan woes Ariana has faced some headwinds recently, as construction on its Tavsan project stalled last month. Tavsan is 23.5% owned by Ariana Resources via its Zenit subsidiary. Proccea Construction own 23.5% and Ozaltin Holding 53%. Tavsan is expected to be the company's second gold mining project to come online, and was expected to be producing by 2023.First production is now expected to be H1 2024, Sener said.The issue relates to the company's EIA, with objections made outside of the community (but in a local court) relating to the forestry and agricultural status of the land. Judgement ruled in favour of the claims and now the company is awaiting an expert committee to be formed to oversee the land and the claims and report back to the court.This "hurdle" is expected to be cleared in the next few months, Sener said.Project LeopardProject Leopard is part of the company's longer-term strategy on Turkey, Sener says."We've taken a view on the country in terms of its risk profile, and our view on Turkey in the medium to long term is bullish. It remains very bullish and Project Leopard, that exploration region, is the least explored part of the country yet it is the most prospective." Investor woesIn terms of investor sentiment, Sener admits that things have been better. Pointing to the company's low share price - currently at 2.87p/share on the London Stock Exchange - Sener said there is a disconnect between how companies are performing and share price value.The company has "consistently performed," Sener told Mining Journal, pointing to the restructuring in Turkey through 2020 into early 2021 and the £7.74 million in dividends paid back to shareholders in 2021."We've advanced a multi-asset, multi-jurisdictional approach in the vicinity of Turkey," he said.In terms of next steps, the company is now "looking at Southeast Europe more broadly," Sener said."We're also looking at Cyprus and we've advanced assets within that portfolio. We're developing an Australian strategy through what we call the ASKER metals fund. And we are taking positions in a number of discovery stage juniors, as far a field as Kazakhstan, and Western Australia," he explained."We've done a lot of things, positive things, in the last few years. And when you reflect on that, and compare that to share price performance, there's a mismatch in our minds," he added.The company saw investor sentiment improve in the first year of COVID and said other companies experienced this phenomenon also. In 2020, when the world was more or less locked down, Ariana's share price rose past 6p/share on AIM."That was in the middle of COVID," Sener laughs. "In the middle of this pandemic situation when uncertainty was presumably sky high. Yet you know that investor sentiment was the opposite of that. And since that time, not only Ariana, but most of the other companies that we follow quite closely have come off the boil despite the fact that global uncertainty related to the pandemic has decreased over that period of time."However Sener argues that a share price is not the true value of a company, but rather "what you're doing to achieve the company's objectives, ultimately, to deliver value in the long term for shareholders."Panther MetalsAriana's investment fund Asgard Metals took an interest in Panther Metals in 2021. Panther has gold and nickel-cobalt projects in Western Australia and the Northern Territory."The real success story at Black Panther is the first resource estimate completed on the Coglia nickel-cobalt project at Merolia," Sener said.The project is located about 70 kilometres away from the Glencore Murrin Murrin operation, which Sener says has a similar style of mineralisation."We've recently completed met test work on Panther's deposit and they completed the HPAL (high pressure, acid leach) testwork, giving very, very good recoveries. So Panthers actually completing a new capital raise now to go on and complete further drilling on Coglia, with a view to increasing the resource system at 200Mt and above".

ABOUT

SOLUTIONS

LEGAL

SOCIAL

PRECIOUS METALS

Ariana Resource look to Venus IPO

Already have an account? Sign in here

MORE ON THIS TOPIC

FROM OUR PARTNERS

RESOURCE STOCKS

Forsys Metals' pipeline of catalysts to excite the market

RESOURCE STOCKS

The largest mineable measured uranium deposit in the USA

MOST POPULAR

REGULATION

'Their heads should be on spikes': Forrest blasts fossil fuel sector

MINERS

BHP shuffles the deck with leadership switch-up

ESG

WATCH: What do American college students think about mining?

MINERS

IAMGOLD to buy Vanstar

RESEARCH

Premium subscribers only

View more

Mining Journal Intelligence World Risk Report 2023 (feat. MineHutte ratings)

Mining Journal Intelligence Mining Equities Report 2023

Mining Journal Intelligence Global Leadership Report 2023: Social licence

Mining Journal Intelligence Project Pipeline Handbook 2023

THE ASPERMONT BRAND PORTFOLIO

Login

Not a Subscriber?

Subscribe Now