Strategic Minerals receives A$500K from Leigh Creek sale for Redmoor
A$500,000 leaves escrow as the AIM company retains contingent copper interests and directs proceeds towards Redmoor tungsten development.
Theo Marchetti
Strategic Minerals plc LONSML OTCMKTSSMCDF, quoted on London's AIM market, completed the sale of its Australian Leigh Creek copper business on Wednesday for A$750,000 in total cash consideration.
The Nov. 4 completion announcement said A$500,000 held in escrow had been released following Australian Foreign Investment Review Board approval. Proceeds will support the company's flagship Redmoor tungsten-copper-tin project in southeast Cornwall.
The cash total includes earlier payments, rather than representing an entirely new receipt. The Sept. 3 sale terms identify the earlier receipts. A deposit of A$100,000 arrived in June 2025. The buyer paid another A$150,000 when exercising its call option in December 2025.
Strategic Minerals retains potential equity, royalty and earn-out receipts from the business sold to South Pacific Minerals Investments Pty Ltd, trading as privately held Cuprum Metals. The completion notice does not quantify retained liabilities or announce a revised Redmoor budget or study-completion date.
Future Payments Depend On Leigh Creek
Under the Sept. 3 terms, the equity consideration targets a value of A$3 million, subject to a maximum holding of 19.9 per cent in a new company that Cuprum intends to list on a recognised exchange. That listing is a plan, with no listing date given in the completion notice.
The Sept. 3 agreement adds any equity shortfall to earn-out payments if shares are not issued within three years of completion or fall below the target value.
The Nov. 4 notice also confirms a 2 per cent net smelter royalty on the first 24,900 tonnes of copper produced. Cuprum can buy back one percentage point for A$1.5 million.
Under the Sept. 3 terms, the earn-out represents 20 per cent of half-yearly operating cash flows from the start of commercial production, up to A$4 million. The completion notice gives no date for commercial production, so these retained interests do not establish a schedule of cash receipts for Redmoor.
"The cash now released from the project together with potential future payments from our various retained interests in the project will be used to further accelerate activities at our Redmoor project in Cornwall which remains our key focus," executive chairman Charles Manners said.
Redmoor Has A Separate Study Funding Programme
Strategic Minerals develops Redmoor through its wholly owned Cornwall Resources subsidiary. Its Sept. 25 half-year report recorded unrestricted group cash of US$10.026 million at June 30, a historical balance rather than a post-disposal cash figure.
The Sept. 25 report put Redmoor's inferred resource at 17.4 million tonnes grading 0.49 per cent tungsten trioxide. Its preliminary economic sensitivity analysis used an ammonium paratungstate price assumption of US$1,200 per metric tonne unit, rather than a current market quotation.
On Sept. 28, Strategic Minerals announced US$9.25 million of U.S. government industrial-base funding for Cornwall Resources. It described a cost-shared prototype agreement supporting drilling, resource updates, feasibility studies and pre-site development.
Remaining project costs would be met through company cash and further U.K. grants if secured. The announcement said the project execution plan required finalisation and that follow-on production funding was not guaranteed.
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The next scheduled field milestone in Strategic Minerals' October presentation is completion of Redmoor's 22,500-metre infill drilling programme in the second quarter of 2027. That programme is intended to provide data for the project's feasibility studies.
