First Andes Silver Raises $2M to Fund Santas Gloria Drilling and Secures NSW Licences
First Andes Silver raised $2M via private placement of 16.7M shares at C$0.12 to finance Q2 2026 Santas Gloria drilling, Peru exploration and claim payments. The company received conditional six-year licences for Carrington, Stony Creek and Dartmoor in New South Wales, requiring A$10,000 deposits and A$9,960 fees, pending TSXV approval.
1. Private Placement Financing Details
First Andes Silver has secured a private placement of up to 16,666,667 common shares for aggregate gross proceeds of CAD2 million, utilizing the listed issuer financing exemption under National Instrument 45-106 and Coordinate Blanket Order 45-935. The financing structure allows for the payment of finder’s fees in cash and share purchase warrants exercisable for two years, subject to TSX Venture Exchange rules. Closing remains conditional on exchange acceptance, with the related offering document available on SEDAR+ for investor review.
2. Allocation of Net Proceeds
Net proceeds will primarily support an expanded Q2 2026 diamond drilling program and follow-up exploration work at the high-grade Santas Gloria property in Peru, covering annual mineral claim renewals and general working capital. The budget contemplates at least 5,000 metres of new drilling across multiple vein swarms, detailed geophysical surveys and targeted geochemical sampling designed to upgrade near-surface silver intercepts reported in 21 of 26 holes completed in 2024–2025.
3. Conditional Grant of Australian Exploration Licences
First Andes has been notified of the six-year conditional grant of three silver-focused licences in New South Wales—the Carrington, Stony Creek and Dartmoor projects. Vendor Southern Star Pty Ltd. must satisfy security deposits totaling AUD30,000 and first‐year rentals near AUD10,000. Upon final TSXV acceptance, First Andes will initiate soil and stream-sediment geochemistry programs to refine drill targets on over 450 km² of tenure within the Lachlan Orogenic Belt, leveraging historic high‐grade intercepts up to 6,000 g/t Ag and robust alteration corridors identified by satellite SWIR data.
4. Investor Implications and Outlook
The combined Peru and Australia programs position First Andes to deliver near-term catalysts: a more aggressive Santas Gloria drill campaign with multiple resource expansion targets, and inaugural fieldwork on underexplored epithermal and skarn systems in NSW. Management’s execution‐focused teams aim to generate maiden resource estimates by mid-2027 on one or more projects, while controlling overhead and preserving balance sheet flexibility. Investors should monitor assay results, licence grant confirmations and JV negotiations as key value inflection points.