en.Wedoany.com Reported - Lake Victoria Gold Ltd. has strengthened its local leadership team in Tanzania to advance its fully permitted Imwelo Gold Project toward construction, development, and production readiness. As a strategic move, the company has appointed Joseph Ntiga as Acting Chief Financial Officer for Tanzania and Cosmas Tungaraza as Compliance Officer.
Ntiga brings extensive experience in mining finance, offering skills in mine-level financial controls, statutory reporting, budgeting, tax compliance, internal controls, and board-level reporting. Cosmas Tungaraza enhances the team with direct experience in Tanzanian mining compliance, including expertise in localization content planning and reporting, submissions to the Mining Commission, mineral rights management, and corporate social responsibility planning.
As Imwelo advances detailed planning, procurement, site preparation, and development activities, the expanded local team is expected to support LVG's growing operational needs. These appointments reinforce the company's commitment to building local management capacity and ensuring development activities comply with Tanzanian regulatory and localization content requirements. The expanded team will strengthen financial governance, improve cost control, oversee procurement, and ensure compliance reporting, while coordinating closely with Tanzanian authorities. President and CEO Marc Cernovitch stated that the team's strength is becoming increasingly important as LVG moves Imwelo toward construction, development, and production.
Located in northwestern Tanzania, Imwelo is a fully permitted gold project that LVG is prioritizing as a near-term production platform. The project is currently in the engineering, financing, procurement, site access, infrastructure planning, and development preparation stages. In addition to Imwelo, LVG continues to develop the Tembo Project, which is adjacent to Barrick's Bulyanhulu mine in the Lake Victoria Goldfields. The Tembo Project has extensive historical drilling data and multiple priority targets.
Lake Victoria Gold recently announced the closing of the second tranche of a non-brokered private placement of unsecured convertible debentures, raising CAD 300,000, bringing the total gross proceeds of the financing plan to CAD 3,834,200. LVG is considering expanding the private placement, potentially up to CAD 5 million. The proceeds are designated for the continued development of Imwelo, including engineering, mine planning, infrastructure preparation, and field programs.
On the financial strategy front, the company also announced a USD 25 million gold loan facility from Monetary Metals. Additionally, LVG is implementing a mandatory conversion right on its 2024 debentures, converting the remaining CAD 217,000 of outstanding debt into shares at a price of CAD 0.18 per share. These initiatives aim to strengthen the balance sheet and increase flexibility.
In a May 6 analysis, Atrium analyst Ben Pirie highlighted the importance of LVG's ongoing sterilization drilling. He noted that the results of this three-week drilling campaign would significantly impact the site's final layout, engineering design, and development sequence. Beyond drilling, LVG is actively engaged in other key pre-construction activities, including finalizing pit design, mine planning and scheduling, conducting geotechnical and engineering assessments, analyzing slope stability, and advancing road works and site preparation. Pirie identified key catalysts for LVG, including continued progress and drilling results from the Tembo Project in partnership with Barrick, and the expected start of construction at Imwelo between Q2 and Q3 2026.
Red Cloud Securities analyst Alina Islam discussed the financial strategy behind the Imwelo project, aimed at minimizing shareholder dilution. Imwelo is expected to produce 24,000 ounces of gold annually at steady state, located in the Lake Victoria Goldfields. The company is in negotiations with Nyati Resources regarding potential toll processing opportunities at Nyati's CIP plant. The Imwelo project is located just 12 kilometers from AngloGold Ashanti's Geita mine, holds a 10-year mining license, and uses a standard gravity + CIL processing circuit with gold recovery rates of up to 97%.
In the gold market, as of June 16, spot gold was trading at approximately USD 4,343.20 per ounce, up 0.81%; spot silver was at USD 70.47, up 0.86%. Central bank demand has significantly boosted the gold market. The 2026 Central Bank Gold Reserves Survey released by the World Gold Council shows that 89% of reserve managers expect global central bank gold holdings to increase over the next 12 months, with a record 45% of respondents expecting their own institutions to increase gold reserves. Shaokai Fan, Global Head of Central Banks at the World Gold Council, stated that the proportion of respondents planning to increase gold reserves has climbed to a record 45% this year, up from 43% in 2025. The survey shows that 84% of respondents believe gold's share of global reserves will be larger in five years.
LVG is approximately 28% held by management and insiders, 15% by institutions, and 23% by strategic corporate investors (including Barrick Gold Corporation and TAIFA Group). The remainder is held by retail investors. Major shareholders include AIMS Asset Management (9.5%), Rostam Aziz (8.02%), Simon Charles Benstead (7.21%), Concept Capital Management Ltd. (5.71%), and Walter David Scott (3.01%). The company has a market capitalization of CAD 56.86 million, with 199.5 million shares outstanding, and a 52-week trading range of CAD 0.16 to CAD 0.36.
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