Canadian mining entrepreneur Rob McEwen has upped his holdings in Inventus Mining (TSXV: IVS) through the participation in the gold junior explorer’s latest private placement financing to support its ongoing exploration in Ontario.

In total, McEwen, through his company McEwen Mining (TSX: MUX), will buy 10 million units of Inventus at a price of C$0.04 per unit. McEwen currently holds approximately 35.8 million shares, or about 21% of Inventus, having built his take over the years since Inventus operated under its old name Ginguro Exploration.

Inventus’ shares gained 50% to C$0.045 apiece by 1:20 p.m. ET, for a market capitalization of C$7.6 million.

In addition to McEwen’s purchase, an additional 5 million units will be sold to other investors, for gross proceeds of C$600,000 to fund Inventus’ exploration activities.

The company’s main asset is the Pardo paleoplacer gold project located 65 km northeast of the Sudbury mining district. The current exploration target is a near-surface gold-bearing conglomerate reef that ranges from 1 to 4 metres thick.

A 2018 technical report on Pardo outlined three target ranges for the gold-bearing conglomerate based on the limited exploration work to date, with the largest estimated at 12.5 million tonnes grading 3.5 g/t for a gold content of 1.4 million oz.

The conglomerate, if economically feasible, would be subject to low-cost surface strip mining methods, Inventus said on its website. The company had also billed the project as the “first large-scale paleo-placer gold deposit in North America”.

In 2022, Inventus conducted the first phase of a 50,000-tonne advanced exploration bulk sampling program at Pardo, returning an average head grade of 3.4 g/t gold. The bulk sample program has built confidence of the gold grade and paved the way for an initial resource estimate on the property, the company said.

Source: MINING.COM – Read More