Centamin shares rise on exploration update

The price of shares in FTSE 250 miner Centamin (LON:CEY) has risen by 3.86% to 123.49p (as of 11:20 GMT) after a 120,000 metre drilling programme across the firm’s wholly owned landholdings in Cote d’Ivoire more than doubled mineral resource levels. As a consequence of these results, the company is planning to carry out an additional 90,000 metres in 2019.

CEO Andrew Pardey commented: “2018 saw a further increase in our investment and level of activity in CDI across our 3,472km² land holding. We have only scratched the surface of the potential of these assets, and we are maintaining an intensive campaign in 2019 to define further quality gold ounces.

Doropo continues to demonstrate the potential to be our next organic development project. Ongoing exploration and concurrent viability studies will further unlock the potential future scale of this project as we assess the economics against our internal project value creation criteria. The PEA is progressing well and we look forward to reporting the results to the market at the end of H2 2019. Delivery of a maiden reserve and further feasibility work are critical milestones for 2019, ahead of a Board decision on capital allocated for development.

The success and scale of the 2018 ABC discovery results and the reporting of the maiden Kona South resource in less than two years of active exploration, highlights the scale and quality of the Lolosso Gold Corridor and the regional generative potential of the ABC land package.

Centamin’s core strategy remains on delivering returns using its highly cash generative business which not only delivers a high yield for its shareholders as per our sustainable dividend policy, but also delivering fully funded growth from our exciting exploration portfolio“.