Bezant Resources (LON:BZT) has confirmed its cash holdings at the end of its latest financial year were £1.7mln, which brokers say is sufficient to fund a move into Colombia.
The company revealed yesterday it had taken out an option on alluvial platinum licences in the South American country, partly because efforts to move forward its Mankayan copper porphyry project in the Philippines had stalled.
Mankayan is a huge deposit and would require over US$1bn to develop, but the situation is being further complicated by a new 50% mining tax proposal.
Ed Nealon, non-executive chairman said Bezant believes Mankayan is a tier one project, but the current capital restrictions in the mining sector and tax uncertainty have made progress on realising value from a suitable transaction in the near term extremely challenging.
The alluvial licences, in the Choco region of Colombia, offer an opportunity to create a future low cost platinum production operation outside of South Africa, he added.
Bezant posted a loss of £683,000 for the year to June.