Mining stalwarts return with new project
THE CONFERENCE CALLER: The upcoming IPO and listing of Stavely Mining has reunited some very familiar resources industry identities.
The team of Chris Cairns, Peter Ironside and Jennifer Murphy was a long-time staple on the mining industry conference front when they were the collective face of Integra Mining.
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After the company was taken over by its next door neighbour Silver Lake Resources (ASX: SLR) the three amigos determined to come back bigger and better.
“We felt that we really wanted to keep the team together, so we pretty much, immediately started looking for a new project,” Stavely Mining director Chris Cairns told The Roadhouse at the Brisbane Mining 2013 Conference.
“It was a deliberate choice not to go back into gold as we felt the covenant of trust – if you will – between investors and gold producers had been damaged to the point where it was unlikely to recover in a couple of years.
“So we just felt that gold producers will probably struggle for a couple of years and exploration would be a tough space for gold.
“The alternate view that we did hold was that with China going back to trend growth and the US coming into a recovery phase that copper, as a bellwether, should do pretty well.
“So we went looking for a copper project.”
Stavely picked up a copper project located in western Victoria, which Cairns said was thought to be a little bit unusual as it is in an area not really known for porphyry or epithermal deposits.
“The geology is considered to be an extension to the Mt Read volcanics in Tasmania,” he explained.
“Recent seismic data from the Geological Survey of Victoria indicate it to be an Andean-style convergent margin, which is an ideal porphyry setting.”
The company purchased two copper-gold projects, both of which have had scoping studies completed:
The Ararat project is hosted in Besshi-style VMS and comes with a Mineral Resource of 1.2 million tonnes at 2 per cent copper, 0.5 grams per tonne gold, 0.4 per cent zinc, and 6g/t silver for 30,000 tonnes of contained copper.
The Stavely project is hosted in a secondary chalcocite enriched blanket with a Mineral Resource of 28 million tonnes at 0.4 per cent copper for 110,000 tonnes of contained copper.
“We picked up the project from BCD Resources and had a few consultants come and have a look at it,” Cairns said.
“They all agreed with us that there is potential for porphyry at depth, so we are now looking at bringing the project to market, raising some money and drilling some deep holes.”
The new projects see Cairns and his team not only change their commodity focus from copper to gold, they also take them from the well-populated, in exploration terms, state of Western Australia to Victoria.
“Victoria is probably not a destination of choice for many explorers, but we did see the potential there,” Cairns said.
“Some of the recent work done there by the Geological Survey of Victoria has been outstanding.
“They have completed some regional seismic that has changed a few ideas in the area and looking at the potential for porphyry systems in that part of the world.”
Stavely hopes to complete its IPO and subsequent ASX-listing in the New Year.
The company is looking to raise in the order of $12 million and launch straight into some committed drilling programs.
“Typically, for what we like to do, it is a very technical story, so it appeals to investors and funds with a technical background,” Cairns said.
“We are also hopeful of some heavy parochial support from our new Victorian fan-base.”