Flanagan to head Australian junior hunting for Simandou riches

Australian junior Arrow Minerals has announced a recapitalisation and board restructure, which is aimed at unlocking the potentially significant value of its Simandou North iron-ore project in Guinea.

Under the plan, iron-ore executive David Flanagan will be appointed MD. As founding MD of Atlas Iron, Flanagan built five new iron-ore mines in five years and he is also a former executive chairperson of Delta Lithium.

Former Atlas Iron director Jeff Dowling will be appointed nonexecutive chairperson of Arrow. Dowling is a current nonexecutive director at NRW, Fleetwood and S2 Resources. With Dowling’s appointment, current executive chairperson Tommy McKeith will become a nonexecutive director.

As part of the recapitalisation plan, Arrow will raise A$4-million, comprising a A$3.5-million two-tranche placement at 0.1c a share and a share purchase plan for an additional A$500 000.

Flanagan, whose appointment is subject to shareholder approval, will subscribe for A$175 000 shares in the placement.

The proceeds of the equity raising will be used to advance exploration at Simandou North, which is located immediately along strike from Rio Tinto’s giant Simandou project.

Arrow reports that high-grade intercepts were achieved in limited shallow, first-pass drilling of a small portion of the prospective rocks. Results included 12 m at 60.1% iron from 2 m and 4 m at 58.75% iron from 10 m.

Rio Tinto’s Simandou stands out as the world’s biggest untapped high-grade iron-ore deposit. The Simfer joint venture between Rio Tinto and Chalco Iron Ore has an estimated 2.8-billion-tonne mineral resource, of which 1.5-billion tonnes were converted to ore reserves, supporting a mine life of 26 years with an average grade of 65.3%.