Les Davis – Silver Lake Resources
ONE OFF THE WOOD: Silver Lake Resources was presented with the Craig Oliver Award at the 2012 RIU Explorers conference in Fremantle.
Now in its second year, the Craig Oliver Award is bestowed upon an ‘all round’ small to mid-cap Australian Mining Company which has excelled in several of the following areas over the past 12 months:
Exploration; Mining; Corporate; Market results; Environmental; and Community.
The award is in memory of Craig Oliver who passed away on the Sundance Resources plane that crashed in the Congo with the loss of all people on board and is sponsore by Patersons Securities, Atlas Iron and Western Areas.
The Resources Roadhouse spoke to Silver Lake Resources managing director Les Davis after the presentation.
Winning the Craig Oliver Award: what does it mean to you personally and to Silver Lake?
On a personal level; I knew Craig reasonably well through the mining circle.
He certainly was an industry icon, because he fought many political battles to make sure mining is what it is today. That it can be sustainable well into the future.
It is also a very special award for us, because Craig’s sister, Janie Jones, who presented the award today along with Craig’s daughter Georgia; her family owns the pastoral station that we mine on at Mount Monger.
Janie and her Husband, Brendan used to be my neighbours in Kalgoorlie and they are very special friends of mine and my family.
It was very emotional for me today, but very special at the same time.
You were in pretty special company as far as the other nominees were concerned, which probably made the win even more significant.
The other names up on the board included companies, the likes of Regis Resources and BC Iron.
Here we are Silver Lake Resources. The win was totally unexpected, and full credit must go to the judges and to the crew from Vertical Events who were able to keep the result a secret right to the end.
I did not have a clue. When I got up there to accept the award I was speechless, which is not the norm for Les Davis when he gets up on stage, let me tell you.
I think that may have surprised a large percentage of the people in the room.
I was humbled, very honoured and this is a very special award for Silver Lake Resources to win.
It’s probably not totally unexpected that you should pick up such an award given the fact the Silver Lake story, especially over the last 12 months has been a good one to tell and to listen to.
It certainly has, Wally and I think it’s getting better.
We still have a long way to go, but I think our growth targets are becoming more transparent with each drill hole.
Throw in Philips River, to have that in advanced exploration is good for us, bearing in mind that we now have three project areas.
Mount Monger, which is in production; Murchison, which is under construction and the third area now with the Philips River assets being merged into Silver Lake really gives us transparent growth.
Is there a point where Silver Lake might consider stopping this growth spurt?
I don’t think we should, not while we have the momentum we presently have.
If you were to have asked me back in November 2007 did I think Silver Lake would be an $800 million market cap company from its $30 million IPO, I would have said no.
But back then we did commit to the exploration, that’s where it all starts. It all starts with the geology, without that the rest doesn’t matter.
Our team has done a fantastic job. Not only have they been able to fund our exploration requirements but they have used the money wisely and have got the desired results.
Timing has been on your side as well. You were able to get a lot of that work done before the GFC hit and you had a lot of stuff in place, which allowed you to ride out that storm.
Absolutely. Having money in the bank today is a key, but form day one our strategy hasn’t changed and the assets haven’t changed, apart from the recent introduction of the Philips River assets.
In my presentation today I mentioned that if you wanted a model for what direction Silver Lake could possibly take, I held up Regis Resources in a glowing light.
I have the utmost respect for Mark Clarke and Nick Giorgetta. They have built a $2 billion market cap gold mining enterprise based in Western Australia.
They’re targeting three hundred thousand ounces per annum; we’re also targeting three hundred thousand ounces per annum and their market cap is double ours.
It’s a really good model to aspire to and we’re not going to stop here. We’re on the trail and I’d like to think that our market cap will be north of one billion dollars by the end of the year.
We’re sitting at $800 million but if we can keep getting the runs on the board we could get there.
It’s all about execution and deliverability and, to date, we’ve been able to do that.