Armadale Capital Plc / Index: AIM / Epic: ACP / Sector: Investment Company

1 April 2022

Armadale Capital Plc

('Armadale' or 'the Company')

 Issue of Equity under block admission arrangements

Armadale Capital plc, the AIM quoted investment group focused on natural resource projects in Africa, announces that, during March 2022, it has received exercise notices for a total of 29,091,193 warrants to subscribe for ordinary shares of 0.1 pence each in the capital of the Company ("Ordinary Shares"), at exercise prices of 2.2 pence (27,591,193 warrants), 3.0 pence (833,333 warrants) and 3.25 pence (666,667 warrants) per Ordinary Share, raising a total of £653,673.  Accordingly, pursuant to the block admission arrangements announced on 18 June 2020 and 28 June 2021, it has issued 29,091,193 Ordinary Shares which rank pari passu with the Company's existing Ordinary Shares.

Following the issue of these new Ordinary Shares, the Company's total issued share capital consists of 567,752,119 Ordinary Shares with no shares held in Treasury.  This figure may be used as the denominator for the calculations by which shareholders can determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the Company.

The warrants remaining from those issued in March 2019 at an exercise price of 2.2 pence per Ordinary Share expired on 13 March 2022 and, accordingly, the 2,942,332 warrants that have not been exercised have lapsed.

The information contained within this announcement is deemed to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU No. 596/2014) which is part of UK law by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. Upon the publication of this announcement, this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain. 

Notes

Armadale's wholly-owned Mahenge Liandu Graphite Project is located in a highly prospective region, with a high-grade JORC compliant indicated and inferred mineral resource estimate announced February 2018 - 59.5Mt at 9.8% TGC. This includes 11.5Mt @ 10.5% Measured 32.Mt Indicted at 9.6% and 15.9Mt at 9.8% TGC, making it one of the largest high-grade resources in Tanzania.

The work to date has demonstrated the Project's potential as a commercially viable deposit, with significant tonnage, high-grade coarse flake and near surface mineralisation (implying a low strip ratio) contained within one contiguous ore body.

The Company's updated Definitive Feasibility Study (June 2020) confirmed Mahenge as a long-life low-cost graphite project with a US$430m NPV and IRR of 91% based on a two-stage expansion strategy comprising:

·      Stage One - processing plant and infrastructure at a nominal design basis rate of 0.4-0.5 Mt/pa to produce a nominal 60,000t/pa graphite concentrate in the first three years of production

·      Stage Two - a second 0.5 Mt/y plant and associated additional infrastructure doubling throughput to 1 Mt/y from Year 5 of operation

The DFS shows that Armadale can be a significant low-cost supplier to the graphite industry with the potential to generate pre-tax cashflows of US$985m over an initial 15 year mine-life and scope for further improvement as this utilises just 25% of the current resource, which remains open in multiple directions.

Projected timeline to first production is expected to be approximately 10-12 months from the start of construction and the capital cost estimate for Stage 1 is US$39.7m, which includes a contingency of U$S4.1m or 15% of total direct capital cost, with a 1.6 year payback for Stage 1 (after tax) based on an average sales price of US$1,112/t. Stage 2 expansion is expected to be funded from cashflow.

More information can be found on the website www.armadalecapitalplc.com.