St Augustine Gold and Copper Ltd, a development-stage company advancing the King-king Copper-Gold Project in Mindanao, has announced that its private placement has closed over-subscribed for total gross proceeds of US$7.5 million.

Queensberry Mining and Development Corporation subscribed to 43 million units of the placement for proceeds of US$4.3 million, effectively increasing its equity interest in St Augustine to 40%.

Proceeds from the placement will be used for the further development of King-king, including key project milestones such as permitting, feasibility, consolidation and general working expenses.

Commenting on the placement, president and CEO Paolo Villar said: “The strong support for this placement from existing shareholders in a challenging financing market was particularly pleasing and led to an over-subscription. With the funds from the placement, the company is well capitalized to continue to move the project forward.”

The King-king project is expected to recover 3.16 billion pounds of copper and 5.43 million ounces of gold over its 25 year mine and process life. According to the preliminary feasibility study that was released on September 18, 2013, the project has a pre-tax NPV of $2 billion with an IRR of 24.8%. The mineral reserve amounts to 617.9 million tonnes @ 0.300% total copper and 0.395 grams/tonne gold.

King-king is one of the largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits in the world. It is listed as a top three-priority mining project by the Philippine government.