Explorers explore and miners attend mining conferences
THE CONFERENCE CALLER: An advantage to attending mining conferences, where junior exploration and mining companies are in also in attendance, is that you get to find out which ones are out on the ground doing what they do best…exploring.
A recent Explorer Quarterly Cash Update report from BDO identified 1 in 10 ASX-listed exploration companies did not carry out any exploration during the recently-completed June quarter.
“This is a very telling statistic, showing that a material portion of the ASX-listed explorers are not doing what their ‘mum and dad investors’ would be expecting them to do,” the BDO report noted.
“Investing in exploration companies has always been a more risky use of capital than investing in more stable businesses, but for companies that are not exploring at all, there is no possibility of any reward to investors for that risk.
“If this situation continues, finding investors for companies classified as ‘explorers’ will become more and more difficult.”
At the RIU Melbourne Resources Roundup there were not exploration-shy companies to be found with the exhibition booths and presentation auditorium offering investors the opportunity to mix it with the managing directors of these companies and to ask them all they questions they wanted answers to personally.
The Roadhouse managed to catch up with just a few to grab a quick snapshot of what they are currently up to.
Blackham Resources (ASX: BLK) is continuing to work towards production at the Matilda gold project, having picked up the plant and infrastructure to get into production we have moved from being a successful explorer to being a near-term producer.
“We have ticked most of the boxes we need to get into production with that plant and infrastructure and now we are focusing on getting the first five…six…seven hundred thousand ounces into the mine plan so we can turn it back on,” Blackham Resources managing director Bryan Dixon said.
“We’re doing that as quickly as we can and we are very keen to be ready for this to go into production when the world economy starts to improve.”
“The issue around the Board has been resolved – and was in pretty quick time – during that time our operational staff were still focusing on what they had to do and now the corporate staff can get back to focusing on the main game as well.”
Pioneer Resources (ASX: PIO) has commenced aircore drilling and EM surveys at three of its projects, the Accra project for gold, the Jugla Dome project for copper-lead-zinc, and the Golden Ridge project for a nickel target.
“Everything is on track for the granting of the key Fairwater tenement in the Fraser Range and we still anticipate drilling there before Christmas,” Pioneer Resources managing director David Crook said.
“There is 5,000 metres of aircore drilling, there is another 1500m of RC drilling to immediately follow that, and we have EM surveys around the Blair mine and on a, brand new, copper-gold gossan at Jugla Dome.
“We’ve just raised $1 million and it’s time to spend it.”
The main focus of Flinders Mines (ASX: FMS) is at the company’s Pilbara iron ore project (PIOP) where it is feverishly working to complete a feasibility study.
“We have just finished a really significant drilling program, and that has been designed to bring all of the Inferred ore into the Indicated and Measured category, from that we can develop a mining Reserve,” Flinders Mines managing director Ian Gordon said.
“So that’s been done, now we are currently working on the new Resource models, and once that’s done we can do all the mine planning
“By the end of the year we expect to complete all the mine planning and have, effectively, a mining Reserve for the project.
“We still need to get all our updated environmental approvals in place – we expect that to take until June 30 next year.
“At the same time a feasibility document will be completed in the end of the June quarter as well.
“Our project is a very good iron ore project – we would expect that we will end up with a grade of around 59 per cent iron, which will position us between the Rio Tintos of the world and Fortescue Metals Group in terms of grade.
“We think that project is going to be very attractive to partners and financiers going forward and come the middle of next year, hopefully all the bad news in the iron ore sector has washed through and we will have a stable base from which to move forward.
“We are well-funded at the moment, we have a lot of work to get on with, and probably the best thing of all is actually not to be producing right now as a junior.”
St George Mining (ASX: SGQ) is now at the point where it has a number of advanced nickel-sulphide targets where it is about to commence its next drilling program.
“We have just raised $1.75 million in fresh capital, so we are fully-cashed up and we are also expecting to receive a further $800,000 from a Research and Development rebate, giving us a total of $2.55 million of fresh money,” St George Mining managing director John Prineas said.
“We have actually had a few brokers congratulate us on achieving something that other junior explorers have been unable to do at the moment – in terms of our improved cash position.
“We are pleased with that, but we are even more pleased that we have a number of high-quality targets that we are about to go and drill.
“All of our targets are advanced and they just may be the ones that bring about a major discovery.”