Investment company Papillon Holdings is making “good progress” with the sale of its stake in the Kilimapesa project in Kenya to Mayflower Capital Investments.
The Kilimapesa project is a joint venture between Aim-listed gold miner Goldplat and Papillon.
Goldplat, which also has gold recovery operations in South Africa and Ghana, says Papillon has submitted its prospectus to the Financial Conduct Authority.
Following the completion of the transaction, it has been proposed that Goldplat nonexecutive director Gerard Kisbey-Green be appointed as a director of Papillon.
“I am pleased to see the progress made by Papillon for its re-admission to the main market, as well as the transaction on all fronts," comments Goldplat CEO Werner Klingenberg.
As a part of due diligence and testing the state of operations, Kilimapesa successfully restarted gold production with the first smelt taking place on September 14, 2020, yielding an 87 oz gold bar, and with the intention to continue gold production at the mine.
Additionally, an updated competent person report has been successfully completed and will be released as a part of re-admission documentation.
Kilimapesa is an established gold mine with an existing 671 446 oz Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant resource and further resource expansion and mine enhancement potential.
Production commenced at Kilimapesa in 2012 with the mine having an established infrastructure including a processing plant commissioned in 2016 with design capacity of 200 t/d. However, it was put on care and maintenance in 2019, primarily owing to insufficient funding.
Additional mine and process plant enhancement studies are under way and are to be implemented upon completion of the transaction to achieve yearly gold production to current design capacity of 5 000 oz, increasing to 10 000 oz and to a run rate of 25 000 oz scheduled for the second quarter of 2022.