Canadian gold producer Barrick Gold has bought seven million warrants to acquire shares in Hercules Silver for C$6.58m ($4.76m).

The warrants were exercised immediately at C$0.11 per share in Hercules Silver.

With this investment, Barrick’s stake in Hercules will increase from 12.33% to 15.09% on a non-diluted basis and 17.61% on a partially diluted basis, representing around 33.5 million shares and 6.8 million warrants.

Before the acquisition and exercise of the warrants, Barrick owned 26.5 million shares and 6.8 million warrants in the company, constituting a 12.33% stake.

The gold producer said it had purchased the shares for investment purposes.

It also stated that based on market conditions and other factors, it will acquire additional shares, warrants or other securities in the company or sell some or all of them.

Last week, Barrick agreed to increase its stake in Hercules to 12.33% on a non-diluted basis by investing C$23.39m.

As per the agreement, it acquired 21.2 million units at $1.10 apiece. Each unit consisted of one share and 0.32 of a share purchase warrant.

Hercules Silver owns the Hercules Silver project, a highly prospective asset in Washington County, Idaho.

This project covers 4,246 acres and is a replacement-style disseminated silver with lead, zinc and manganese system. It is characterised by shallow mineralisation open in all directions.

The developer plans to aggressively drill over a 5.5km strike to verify historical drilling and to check its suitability for the maiden resource estimate.

A November 2022 first-phase drill programme interpreted 38m of 353 grams per tonne (g/t) silver, 0.64% lead, 2.28% zinc and 0.16% copper, as well as 487g/t silver equivalent.