Afri-Can has completed a private placement totalling $500,000. Sodomex II Limited Partnership has agreed to subscribe an amount of $100,000. The partner of Sodomex II is Capital d’Amerique CDPQ Inc., a subsidiary of the Caisse de Depot et de Placememt du Quebec. The balance has been subscribed by clients of Loewen, Ondaatje, McCutcheon Limited (LOM).
The private placement will comprise 1,666,667 units priced at 30 cents per share. Each unit consits of one share and one-half warrant. Each full warrant will entitle the bearer to acquire an additional share at 36 cents, over a period of 18 months. The placement is subject to regulatory approval.
Proceeds from the private placement will be used mainly to conduct a detailed geophysical survey of the Woduna concession (block J) and the Together Quando concession (block B). This survey will enable Afri-Can to further conduct bulk sampling programs designed to confirm the presence and extent of diamonds.
Blocks J and B lie on the northern boundary of the known rich diamondiferous deposits currently being mined along the south and central Namibian West Coast. To the south of these projects, an inferred resource exceeding 4.25 million carats has been estimated for the region between Halifax and Mercury Islands (Marine & Coastal, June 6, 2000). Block J lies approximately 10 kilometres west of Namco’s Mercury Island mining licence area (ML 36) and is adjacent to the south by Namibian Minerals Corporations’s (Namco) property (EPL 1950), which has a published resource of 653,000 carats (BOE Securities, Oct. 26, 1999).
The survey on block J will be carried out on the prospective shoreward (150 square kilometres) of the licence underlain by crystalline bedrock and thin sediment cover. The zone identified contains the potential for diamondiferous deposits that match the geological models of the surrounding producing mining licences. The surveys plan to collect 900 line kilometres of high-resolution geophysical data. The interpretation will include an evaluation of depositional environments with potentially diamondiferous sediments and the delineation of bulk sampling targets.
The survey on block B will be carried over the entire concession area with targeted water depths ranging from 15 and 30 metres. It is expected that at least two important terraces should be present within the boundaries of the concession. These terraces are anticipated at water depths ranging between 20 and 29 metres. Elsewhere along the West Coast, terraces at these depths are known to host diamond deposits. The survey plans to collect 800 line kilometres of high-resolution geophysical data. The interpretation will include an evaluation of depositional environments with potentially diamondiferous sediments and the delineation of bulk sampling targets.
LOM and Afri-Can have mutually agreed not to pursue the special warrants offering previously announced. The parties considered that the timing and conditions of the financing were not in the best interest of the corporation and its shareholders at this time. It has been decided to finance the development of the corporation on a project-by-project basis, until continuing negociations with other parties are completed.
