Scotgold Resources Limited, the Australia-based gold exploration firm focused on Scotland, announced on Thursday it entered into an agreement with Fern Wealth GmbH of Switzerland to arrange the procurement of loan funding from a syndicate of high net worth investors for up to £3 million.

“Fern Wealth is a sophisticated wealth management company based in Zug, Switzerland whose focus is to seek out and manage quality investment opportunities for their investors,” said ScotGold.

“Subject to the successful procurement of the new loans, the company intends to use the proceeds received to fast-track the company’s optimisation initiatives to achieve a gold production run rate of c.23,500oz p.a. by the end of Q1 2023.”

On March 30, Scotgold reported revenue of A$6.4 million (£3.6 million) for the six months to December 31, 2021, and said “significant progress” had been made at its Cononish Gold and Silver Mine near Tyndrum.

First-half loss before taxation widened to A$5.3 million (£3 million). Cash at December 31 was A$963,000.

On Thursday, Scotgold said its core optimisation initiatives planned for 2022 include: “Design, construct, and commission a tailings thickener, a cost-effective technology to improve the throughput and recoveries of concentrate product in the processing plant to achieve a monthly run rate of c. 4,000 feed tonnes to the process plant by end of Q2 2022 which equates to c 16,000 – 17,500 ounces p.a. run rate of gold by the end of Q2 2022 …

“Enhancing mining efficiencies of the underground mine to ensure continuous operations; and …

“Design, construct, and commission an ore sorter at the processing plant between the existing crushing unit and the mill to realise an increase in ounces of gold processed per tonne at lower tonnages and potentially lower CAPEX and OPEX.

“Due diligence to be completed by the end of Q2 2022 and the sorter, if approved, to be operational by the end of Q1 2023.”