Horizon pockets $2.93 million from Vox shares sale

Horizon Minerals has tipped $2.93 million into its till after selling a share package it received in escrow from TSX-listed Vox Royalty late last year following a royalties divestment deal relating to gold projects in Western Australia’s Goldfields region.

The company also collected an initial $4 million when the agreement was struck and Vox later decided to complete the deal via the share package instead of a further cash consideration. The deal related to royalties covering the Janet Ivy and Otto Bore gold projects and Horizon says it sold the Vox shares on market through the NASDAQ and TSX exchanges for an average price of US$2.077 (AU$3.19).

The sale further bolsters Horizon’s balance sheet, which is shown in the company’s March quarterly report today to sit at a healthy cash and investments position of $12.3 million.

Management says its cash stash will support its aspirations to kick off the earliest possible gold production from its more than 900-square-kilometre tenement package that contains several multi-commodity assets, including 1.28 million ounces in various gold resources.

Horizon recently confirmed its mission to develop its near-term production opportunities, starting with its well-advanced Cannon underground operation. It has also kicked off a prefeasibility study (PFS) on its next proposed underground development at Penny’s Find.

Cannon contains an indicated and inferred resource of 226,000 tonnes going 4.4 grams per tonne gold for 32,330 ounces, while Penny’s Find contains a combined indicated and inferred resource of 429,000 tonnes running 4.57g/t gold for 63,000 ounces.

With both its Boorara and Kalpini open pit projects showing strong cashflows at $2800 an ounce of gold in recently-completed initial optimisations, Horizon has also rebooted  work on its bigger Boorara development via a possible combination of heap leach and carbon-in-leach (CIL) processing pathways that also indicate strong cashflows.

Boorara contains a combined measured, indicated and inferred resource of 11.03 million tonnes at 1.26g/t gold for 448,000 ounces, with evaluations looking at contract mining and toll treatment as a possible pathway to early development. Management is also examining the longer-term leaching pathways for an extended operation.

Horizon is also looking at its Rose Hill and adjacent Brilliant North development plans near Coolgardie, handily located just south of the Great Eastern Highway and the Greenfields gold processing mill.

Rose Hill contains a JORC-estimated combined measured, indicated and inferred open-pittable resource of 290,000 tonnes at 2g/t gold for 18,400 ounces, while its indicated and inferred underground resource runs to 510,000 tonnes at 4.6g/t gold for 74,900 ounces.

The company has interests in several other diversified projects, prominently for gold, centred around Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie and lithium projects near Bridgetown in WA’s South West region. It also has the Nimbus silver-zinc project south-east of Kalgoorlie, near the Boorara mine.

Poignantly, Horizon has revealed a proposed merger where it will acquire all of the shares of Greenstone Resources in addition to all of that company’s listed options. The merger is due for completion in mid-June.

Management describes the deal as a logical combination of assets in WA’s Eastern Goldfields, which will create a significant company with 1.8 million ounces of gold resources within an extensive 939-square-kilometre landholding and exposure to other multi-commodity assets.

With its vast tenement holdings, considerable potential gold resources to develop and further exploration underway, particularly in WA, Horizon has a lot on its plate. But with a now bolstered cash position and with a gold price that is continuing to soar, the company is set to be an intriguing watch in 2024.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au