Shares of dually-listed Thor Mining plc (LSE:THR) (ASX:THR) rose unusually high on the Australian Stock Exchange earlier today and prompted the regulators to initiate an inquiry and suspended trading of the miner’s securities.
Regulators on the Australian Stock Exchange suspended trading of dually listed Thor Mining plc earlier today, following greater than usual share price movement and huge turnover, which leaped as high as 58% without apparent company-related development.
In London, shares climbed 20% to 1.20 pence by 11:45 AM GMT, with over 7 million shares being traded as investors speculate on Thor’s response to the Australian regulators regarding the price and volume change.
Incomplete
In a response, Mick Billing, Executive Chairman of Thor, admitted the company has partial drilling results from its Spring Hill gold project 150 kilometres southeast of Darwin, capital of the Northern Territory, Australia, which could explain the share price movement and the heavy trading.
Two other reasons were also cited by Mr. Billing that may have influenced trading today: offtake and financial agreements being negotiated with regards Molyhil and Molybdenum project and the “oversold” nature of the firm’s shares in recent weeks.
Regarding the Spring Hill project update, Thor said it is not able to release the report at this point as the data are still incomplete.
“The company is not in a position to release that information,” Thor stated, adding it will release the information on Monday, 17th September, when the data are available and the trading resumes.
In a separate statement, Thor further stated the information the company has contains “limited share price sensitivity” if it were released day.
“However the information available to be released is incomplete, does not contain all assays from any holes, and for one hole there are no assays yet available,” Thor further stated, in a letter sent to the ASX.
Most recent update on the said project was released on 8th August 2012, with initial assay results revealing up to 12 grams per tonne of gold.
Thor holds 25% equity in the said project, which has an indicated resource of 274,000 ounces of gold at 2.34 g/t average grade, extractable through open pit mining.
“The company believes it is in compliance with the listing rules,” Mr. Biling closed to dismisss some connotations on insider trading.