$63,000 cash, 30 tenements and a $2 million Helix placement

Two acquisitions approved as cash reaches a critical level

Helix Resources Limited (ASX:HLX) has expanded its exploration portfolio while leaving the September quarter with just $63,000 in cash. Shareholders subsequently approved the acquisition of 30 gold tenements in Western Australia’s Mosquito Creek Basin and the White Hills copper-gold project in Arizona, while the company completed a $2 million placement to replenish its funding base.

The cash position represented only 0.3 quarters of estimated funding based on relevant quarterly outgoings of $181,000. Helix said the next quarter would involve desktop interpretation and therefore lower expenditure, while pointing to the placement as the basis for continuing operations and pursuing its objectives. The placement comprised 50 million shares at $0.04 each and was completed on 19 October, after the reporting period.

Mosquito Creek becomes the centre of Pilbara strategy

The Western Australian acquisition gives Helix 100% of 30 exploration and prospecting tenements in the Mosquito Creek Basin and Nullagine District, adjoining AIM Mining’s Nullagine Gold Project and sitting near the Blue Spec gold-antimony deposit. The company says the district has historical production and resources totalling about 2.4 million to 2.5 million ounces, although most historical drilling has focused on two corridors and the wider basin remains comparatively untested.

Consideration for the tenements includes $50,000 in cash, $200,000 worth of Helix shares priced at $0.035 each and a 1% net smelter royalty. Data review and desktop studies are now under way to shape a work program, building on Helix’s stated shift towards Pilbara gold in its Pilbara gold pivot, reported before the latest approvals.

White Hills advances while Gold Basin faces court setback

Shareholders also approved the White Hills copper-gold project in Arizona. Helix has paid $100,000 in cash and is due to issue up to 6,153,846 consideration shares to the seller’s nominee. The company is continuing desktop studies and plans to finalise drilling targets after analysing rock samples collected during earlier field mapping.

That project now sits alongside a materially less certain Arizona asset. The Supreme Court of British Columbia has declared Helix’s Gold Basin earn-in and joint venture agreement unenforceable, set the arrangement aside and awarded petition costs against the company. Helix disputes the court’s jurisdiction, arguing the agreement involved a US company and an Australian company and was governed by Western Australian law. The board is considering its position, following the Gold Basin court ruling that was reported earlier this month.

Funding relief arrives alongside a wider work program

Beyond the newly approved projects, Helix is reviewing data and planning work at its 50%-owned Weerianna project in Western Australia. Its New South Wales portfolio remains active too, with proposed infill auger work in the Eastern Tenement Group and a reassessment of the Restdown gold project, subject to access and further review.

The immediate financial picture is therefore more complicated than the quarter-end balance suggests. The company has raised new money, but the placement follows a period in which operating and exploration outflows left funding coverage below one quarter. The next test is whether the capital can be converted into defined, affordable drilling programs across a portfolio that now spans Pilbara gold, Arizona copper-gold and the established Cobar ground.