1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,680 We have the privilege of sitting down with Ed Issues, somebody 2 00:00:02,680 --> 00:00:06,320 credited with the discovery of Platonic Bronzewing and John 3 00:00:06,320 --> 00:00:08,320 Day. He's also negotiated with some 4 00:00:08,320 --> 00:00:12,440 giants of the mining industry, including Joe Goodnik, Mark 5 00:00:12,440 --> 00:00:15,560 Creasy and Robert Champion Decrepitney, just to name a few. 6 00:00:15,800 --> 00:00:21,000 Right Ed has played a a massive part in in big corporate moves 7 00:00:21,040 --> 00:00:23,080 like he's been. He's been amongst several 8 00:00:23,080 --> 00:00:25,960 takeovers, rode the highs and lows of the gold game. 9 00:00:26,360 --> 00:00:29,840 But yeah, great central well, you know Luna when it was Apex 10 00:00:29,840 --> 00:00:33,800 Minerals even having a a front row seat at the Hemi discovery 11 00:00:34,520 --> 00:00:36,680 part of the strategy that that that led to that too. 12 00:00:36,760 --> 00:00:39,800 Add to that he lived through the stories of sons of Gwalia as 13 00:00:39,800 --> 00:00:42,800 well as leading St. Barbara for a period of time. 50 14 00:00:42,800 --> 00:00:46,360 years on, Ed is still chasing discovery, right? 15 00:00:46,360 --> 00:00:50,240 He's energized by the future, hunting the next big find, a 16 00:00:50,240 --> 00:00:52,680 true giant of, of mineral discovery. 17 00:00:52,680 --> 00:00:55,920 He's got a wonderful strategy for actually finding stuff. 18 00:00:55,920 --> 00:00:59,200 And when you see serially successful people like Ed with, 19 00:00:59,240 --> 00:01:01,720 with just discovery after discovery next to their name, 20 00:01:02,160 --> 00:01:03,840 you know, at that point it's not luck. 21 00:01:04,200 --> 00:01:05,360 You must be doing something right. 22 00:01:05,560 --> 00:01:06,800 We're thrilled to share the conversation. 23 00:01:10,120 --> 00:01:14,040 And how often is it that we get to sit down next to next to 24 00:01:14,040 --> 00:01:17,760 someone that that is is regularly attributed with three 25 00:01:18,040 --> 00:01:21,440 enormous discoveries being platonic, Bronzing and Jundee. 26 00:01:21,880 --> 00:01:25,600 But not just those Ed issues has been around the footy, many, 27 00:01:25,600 --> 00:01:28,160 many other discoveries. And we're delighted to, to have 28 00:01:28,160 --> 00:01:30,280 him in the hot seat with us today. 29 00:01:30,800 --> 00:01:34,360 You've been, you've been doing a lot of research about Ed and 30 00:01:34,360 --> 00:01:37,560 I'm, I'm insanely curious to have this conversation with a 31 00:01:37,600 --> 00:01:40,200 serially successful explorationist like yourself, 32 00:01:40,200 --> 00:01:42,720 Ed. Mate, you couldn't have said it 33 00:01:42,720 --> 00:01:44,240 any better. Ed, we're very grateful that 34 00:01:44,240 --> 00:01:48,200 you've joined us here today. And I'm very curious to hear of 35 00:01:48,200 --> 00:01:51,640 those 3 discoveries that Trev just mentioned, which are often 36 00:01:51,640 --> 00:01:54,800 attributed to to you and the team you worked for there, Which 37 00:01:54,800 --> 00:01:59,440 one was the sweetest? Bronzing was the sweetest 38 00:02:01,680 --> 00:02:07,440 because by then we knew after the discovery of Platonic what 39 00:02:07,640 --> 00:02:13,640 we had to do to be very focused on achieving rapid success. 40 00:02:14,480 --> 00:02:21,640 And, and you know, there there was good science behind it and 41 00:02:21,640 --> 00:02:28,640 good geologists working with me in the team that understood that 42 00:02:28,640 --> 00:02:33,720 process and that requirement also 'cause we all know that 43 00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:38,000 capital is very impatient and risk capital even more so. 44 00:02:39,200 --> 00:02:44,840 So the the one of the driving forces in my thinking has always 45 00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:48,320 been to do things in a very timely manner. 46 00:02:49,520 --> 00:02:54,400 I think I read that bronzing was hit on the the 64th hole of a 65 47 00:02:54,760 --> 00:02:56,360 hole program. Is that is that right? 48 00:02:56,760 --> 00:03:00,880 Yeah, that that's correct. I mean, basically what we were 49 00:03:00,880 --> 00:03:06,920 doing there, we knew there was gold at Mount McClure to the 50 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:12,760 West and there was gold at Mount Joel to the east. 51 00:03:12,800 --> 00:03:17,720 And there was this area, this substantial area in between that 52 00:03:17,720 --> 00:03:21,960 was undercover. And we'd figured that the 53 00:03:21,960 --> 00:03:26,480 laterite that was exposed at Mount McClure to the West most 54 00:03:26,480 --> 00:03:30,080 probably went undercover in the area in between. 55 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:36,160 So we decided that we drill along existing roads and fence 56 00:03:36,160 --> 00:03:42,240 lines at 400 meter spacing. The reason for the spacing, that 57 00:03:42,240 --> 00:03:47,600 wide spacing was that if there's going to be this laterite under 58 00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:51,120 the cover and if there's going to be gold under the laterite, 59 00:03:51,560 --> 00:03:55,400 then there would be some, some distribution of gold in the 60 00:03:55,400 --> 00:03:59,640 laterite profile. And, and you know, obviously if 61 00:03:59,640 --> 00:04:03,760 it's going to be of any size, it could could be easily 400 meters 62 00:04:04,520 --> 00:04:06,680 in dimension. So that's what we did. 63 00:04:07,320 --> 00:04:14,120 And so not all the, the we basically drilled these holes in 64 00:04:14,120 --> 00:04:18,560 the circle, the north-south line, east, West, north-south 65 00:04:18,560 --> 00:04:23,720 and then from West to east. And as as you said, it was the 66 00:04:24,160 --> 00:04:29,720 second last hole of the program that intersected the laterite at 67 00:04:29,720 --> 00:04:34,560 about 20 meters below the surface and it had from memory 68 00:04:34,560 --> 00:04:36,760 it had about four meters of 2 grams. 69 00:04:37,600 --> 00:04:44,840 But the hole kept going and we intersected 10 meters at 1g at a 70 00:04:44,840 --> 00:04:50,360 depth of 70 meters. Critical thing was that that 71 00:04:50,360 --> 00:04:55,320 gold was associated with quartz veining in altered matrix which 72 00:04:55,320 --> 00:04:59,640 was the target. So having having got those 73 00:04:59,640 --> 00:05:04,640 results, we accepted the fact that this was pretty interesting 74 00:05:04,640 --> 00:05:10,000 and step immediately 200 meters to the north with RC drilling 75 00:05:10,600 --> 00:05:12,840 and the bronze wing discovery was made. 76 00:05:13,480 --> 00:05:18,240 As a consequence of that discovery, second last air core 77 00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:20,400 hole or was Rab drilling was cooled. 78 00:05:20,400 --> 00:05:27,080 In those days, the second last air core hole had the 4G or 2G 79 00:05:27,080 --> 00:05:32,680 at 20 meters and 1G at 70 meters, which led to the 80 00:05:33,360 --> 00:05:37,280 discovery of bronze wing. The way your approach to 81 00:05:37,280 --> 00:05:41,120 drilling has been described is it sort of puts a smile on my 82 00:05:41,120 --> 00:05:42,920 face there. I read out some of the snippets, 83 00:05:42,920 --> 00:05:45,920 but one of them was a frontal attack with the drill rig. 84 00:05:46,160 --> 00:05:49,240 Another was that you weren't afraid to drill often and drill 85 00:05:49,240 --> 00:05:52,880 deep. And thirdly that you attack the 86 00:05:52,880 --> 00:05:55,840 area with your customary go for broke enthusiasm. 87 00:05:55,880 --> 00:05:58,200 You clearly had a different approach. 88 00:05:58,640 --> 00:06:03,800 What was it that you you sort of put it most down to that enabled 89 00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:06,960 the 3 discoveries in in relatively sort of short 90 00:06:07,320 --> 00:06:13,320 succession there? We understood, we understood the 91 00:06:13,320 --> 00:06:19,040 geology, we could see the potential scale. 92 00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:27,960 And so the step from the discovery type intersections to 93 00:06:29,840 --> 00:06:33,440 next step after that was to see the scale of it. 94 00:06:33,960 --> 00:06:36,440 And once the scale of that had been established, like, you 95 00:06:36,440 --> 00:06:39,280 know, whether it was 1 kilometre in a strike or two kilometres in 96 00:06:39,280 --> 00:06:44,680 a strike, that that then determined the the next phase of 97 00:06:44,680 --> 00:06:46,600 drilling and, and the spacing of it. 98 00:06:47,160 --> 00:06:51,200 And also, of course, at what depth you had to get, always had 99 00:06:51,200 --> 00:06:55,240 to get the third dimension to get a better understanding, you 100 00:06:55,240 --> 00:06:59,040 know, of, of, of the, of the potential of the deposit. 101 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:05,400 And the concept of doing early diamond drilling was to help to 102 00:07:05,400 --> 00:07:10,200 understand the geology better because it's, and any geologist 103 00:07:10,200 --> 00:07:13,640 will tell you that trying to understand the geology from, you 104 00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:17,640 know, RC chips is difficult, particularly if they're, if 105 00:07:17,640 --> 00:07:21,520 they're with it. So stop sort of arguing with 106 00:07:21,520 --> 00:07:25,440 yourself. We'll be drilled early diamond 107 00:07:25,440 --> 00:07:27,480 holes to get a better understanding of the geology. 108 00:07:29,200 --> 00:07:31,920 What, what was the sort of emotion like in, in, in the camp 109 00:07:31,920 --> 00:07:35,000 when you made these discoveries? Like for, for geologists to make 110 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:38,320 one of these things in, in their careers a pretty exciting 111 00:07:38,760 --> 00:07:40,800 feeling. And I'm sure there would have 112 00:07:40,800 --> 00:07:45,120 been a lot of doubt around the, the market and around the, the, 113 00:07:45,200 --> 00:07:48,160 the geological community about how you guys were, were 114 00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:49,720 approaching things. So if we can sort of put 115 00:07:49,720 --> 00:07:52,640 ourselves in inside the room with you guys, what was the the 116 00:07:52,640 --> 00:07:57,400 sort of feeling? Well, it was one of it's the 117 00:07:57,400 --> 00:07:59,720 chase, right? And there was one of it was 118 00:07:59,720 --> 00:08:05,360 always one of great excitement, right from, from, you know, 119 00:08:05,360 --> 00:08:10,560 obviously the geologists on site to those were, that were working 120 00:08:10,560 --> 00:08:14,280 with me in Melbourne and, and the board, you know, including 121 00:08:14,280 --> 00:08:16,960 Joseph Gutnick in those, those days. 122 00:08:17,440 --> 00:08:22,600 He, he was always very enthusiastic and, and followed, 123 00:08:23,560 --> 00:08:26,240 followed the advice that was he was being given. 124 00:08:26,840 --> 00:08:33,559 And so, you know, you had a, you had a, a very collegiate and a 125 00:08:33,559 --> 00:08:39,000 lot of camaraderie at at on site because of the success that was 126 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:41,880 being achieved. And, and you mentioned your, 127 00:08:41,880 --> 00:08:45,920 your relationship with Joe Gutnick there it was, you know, 128 00:08:45,960 --> 00:08:49,520 one, one of the most impactful in, in the market on geology in, 129 00:08:49,520 --> 00:08:52,960 in WA through the late 80s in into the 90s. 130 00:08:52,960 --> 00:08:56,720 What what what do you sort of ascribe the the the dynamic like 131 00:08:56,720 --> 00:08:59,000 in the, the the ultimate success of that relationship to? 132 00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:03,840 What an unlikely individual to have bold exploration success in 133 00:09:03,840 --> 00:09:06,920 WA. Just it's, it's remarkable. 134 00:09:08,120 --> 00:09:18,840 Well, Joseph was smart and had access to the money and you 135 00:09:18,920 --> 00:09:25,200 know, by then I'd already had a 20 odd years experience in WA. 136 00:09:25,200 --> 00:09:27,640 Understood. I thought I understood the 137 00:09:27,640 --> 00:09:31,760 regolith and how that worked. And one of the reasons for that 138 00:09:31,760 --> 00:09:37,360 is that I as an individual and as company representatives, we 139 00:09:37,360 --> 00:09:43,720 supported the CSIRO research into laterite sampling to tell 140 00:09:43,720 --> 00:09:45,120 us what was happening underneath. 141 00:09:45,880 --> 00:09:48,920 And that was very, that was also very effective. 142 00:09:48,920 --> 00:09:51,240 So that's, that was the first leg. 143 00:09:51,760 --> 00:09:55,200 And then once, once you once you've intersected the drilling, 144 00:09:55,600 --> 00:09:58,280 once you've intersected gold in the drilling, well, then the 145 00:09:58,280 --> 00:10:04,560 only thing to do is to keep drilling rather than get sides, 146 00:10:04,840 --> 00:10:09,320 you know, sidetracked by doing more geophysics or some other, 147 00:10:09,960 --> 00:10:12,520 you know, some other exploration technique. 148 00:10:13,120 --> 00:10:16,480 We just said, no, we had the gold, we understood where where 149 00:10:16,480 --> 00:10:19,440 it's at. So let's keep going and and 150 00:10:19,440 --> 00:10:23,440 that, you know, the management team and the board, of course 151 00:10:23,440 --> 00:10:26,880 we're all in favour of that because it produced the results. 152 00:10:27,800 --> 00:10:30,240 Can you tell us more about that that relationship with the, the 153 00:10:30,240 --> 00:10:33,840 CSIRO and how that kind of unlocked some of those 154 00:10:34,200 --> 00:10:35,640 discoveries and, and your thinking? 155 00:10:36,240 --> 00:10:45,160 Well, yeah, I mean when I first went to WA in 19 early 1970, one 156 00:10:45,160 --> 00:10:50,560 of my exploration manager was of at that time as Ray Smith, who 157 00:10:50,560 --> 00:10:56,600 then went on to work from 72 onwards at the CSIRO and very 158 00:10:56,600 --> 00:11:03,520 specifically studying sampling of laterite nodules to get a 159 00:11:03,520 --> 00:11:07,200 sense as to what was happening beneath laterite cover. 160 00:11:07,840 --> 00:11:15,040 And that, I mean, basically that research started in 1972 and 161 00:11:15,760 --> 00:11:20,400 Platonic, which was a result of doing laterite nodule sampling 162 00:11:20,400 --> 00:11:26,440 in an area where there'd been no gold previously was applied, you 163 00:11:26,440 --> 00:11:29,080 know, resulted in the discovery in 1986. 164 00:11:29,400 --> 00:11:34,960 So this is, this is was a long term research project that in 165 00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:40,160 the end bore a lot of fruit, but it was it was long, a long time 166 00:11:40,160 --> 00:11:44,040 in getting to the point. And I as an individual was 167 00:11:44,040 --> 00:11:50,400 always keen on understanding the what the what the Regulus was 168 00:11:50,560 --> 00:11:54,080 likely to tell us and the companies that I was working 169 00:11:54,080 --> 00:11:55,800 for. We always supported that 170 00:11:55,960 --> 00:12:00,520 research on an ongoing basis. And, and just to, to spell it 171 00:12:00,520 --> 00:12:03,480 out, what was the like the finding from the CSIRO that 172 00:12:03,480 --> 00:12:07,840 actually helped you to, to, to make gold discoveries just by 173 00:12:07,840 --> 00:12:11,800 sampling the latter eye? Well, OK, you've got, when we 174 00:12:11,800 --> 00:12:16,680 first went to Platonic, we sampled it what was the old 175 00:12:16,800 --> 00:12:19,200 mineral claim boundaries corners. 176 00:12:19,720 --> 00:12:23,440 So that was like a one, one by two kilometre grid. 177 00:12:24,280 --> 00:12:28,640 And the first time we went there, the results generated a 178 00:12:28,640 --> 00:12:34,280 1g per ton sample. Now 1g per ton sampled in a 179 00:12:34,280 --> 00:12:39,480 laterite nodule in essence probably pick that over every 180 00:12:39,480 --> 00:12:41,680 day of the week. But this was in an area where 181 00:12:41,680 --> 00:12:45,400 there had been no, no previous gold mining, no historic gold 182 00:12:45,400 --> 00:12:49,120 mining. So we figured that was pretty 183 00:12:49,120 --> 00:12:52,240 interesting. So we went back and collected 184 00:12:52,240 --> 00:12:55,600 another round of samples. And the second time around we 185 00:12:55,600 --> 00:12:57,960 got samples with 30 grams per tonne. 186 00:12:59,040 --> 00:13:02,680 And of course then it's self-evident that the only thing 187 00:13:02,680 --> 00:13:07,800 to do was to drill and we drilled 25 holes first up. 188 00:13:09,480 --> 00:13:11,840 Sorry. We drilled 30 holes first up. 189 00:13:12,560 --> 00:13:18,240 Five of them hit gold. The other 25 in the end were all 190 00:13:18,240 --> 00:13:23,120 within the open pit, but only five of the first thirty holes 191 00:13:23,120 --> 00:13:26,640 intersected gold. But of course they were 192 00:13:26,640 --> 00:13:30,440 interesting results, so we followed them up immediately and 193 00:13:31,080 --> 00:13:36,120 and the rest was came history. And, and this played a role with 194 00:13:36,280 --> 00:13:40,560 with bronze wing as well, which was a pretty fascinating 195 00:13:40,560 --> 00:13:45,120 discovery story, as I understand it, because initially you, you 196 00:13:45,120 --> 00:13:48,880 had a the thinking in the market, it was a kind of lower 197 00:13:48,880 --> 00:13:51,600 grade or body, but that that changed once you started 198 00:13:51,600 --> 00:13:53,480 drilling it at depth. Is that right? 199 00:13:54,640 --> 00:13:56,720 Yeah. Well, I mean basically the first 200 00:13:56,720 --> 00:14:01,840 yes, the first No, the even from the outset the first RC results 201 00:14:01,840 --> 00:14:06,040 and I don't remember them exactly today, but the first RC 202 00:14:06,040 --> 00:14:10,680 results certainly at Brunswing intersected, you know 5 grams 203 00:14:10,680 --> 00:14:16,280 were done over several meters and that again changed the 204 00:14:16,280 --> 00:14:18,920 landscape. But the important thing was 205 00:14:18,920 --> 00:14:23,920 taking the step from getting 10 meters at 1g per ton at 70 206 00:14:23,920 --> 00:14:28,520 meters, which is, which is not economic by any standard, but 207 00:14:28,520 --> 00:14:31,400 understanding the geology and following that up. 208 00:14:31,400 --> 00:14:34,840 And we didn't have to go through a, you know, through a joint 209 00:14:34,840 --> 00:14:39,000 venture committee meeting or, you know, try to convince some 210 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:43,360 management who didn't understand what this really could mean. 211 00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:45,880 We didn't have to do that. Joseph. 212 00:14:45,880 --> 00:14:48,640 And I said, OK, this is a good result. 213 00:14:48,920 --> 00:14:50,760 We'll follow it up. That's what we did. 214 00:14:51,760 --> 00:14:55,360 You did at a point and you and you relayed this story to us 215 00:14:55,360 --> 00:15:00,240 when we spoke a week ago after work with Mark Creasy a bit. 216 00:15:00,240 --> 00:15:04,960 And there was a deal you did to take 51% ownership of a project 217 00:15:04,960 --> 00:15:09,080 and put up a bit of capital that everyone else in the market who 218 00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:11,320 had looked at wasn't willing to kind of take. 219 00:15:11,320 --> 00:15:12,680 Can you take us through that story? 220 00:15:13,160 --> 00:15:18,040 Yeah, sure. After the discovery of Platonic 221 00:15:18,560 --> 00:15:25,960 and the sale of Platonic cash was used to explore in part for 222 00:15:25,960 --> 00:15:30,360 diamonds in the in the Platonic area. 223 00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:36,000 And there was good, yeah, I mean, there was some, some 224 00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:40,720 humour about that. But in fact Anglo or De Beers 225 00:15:40,720 --> 00:15:43,200 were exploring for diamonds in the in the same area. 226 00:15:43,200 --> 00:15:47,920 So it, it, it, it, it was a valid, you know, there was a 227 00:15:47,920 --> 00:15:50,560 valid basis for exploring it for diamonds. 228 00:15:51,120 --> 00:15:53,840 And Joseph was keen to find diamonds. 229 00:15:55,160 --> 00:15:58,280 And so we persisted with that some time. 230 00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:04,120 But then I, I do recall that Mark Reesey approached this at 231 00:16:04,120 --> 00:16:10,480 one time to do a, he had Jundee and he had a large part of the, 232 00:16:11,680 --> 00:16:14,840 the handle belt which he joint ventured out previously. 233 00:16:14,840 --> 00:16:19,400 And people had spent money looking for base metals at one 234 00:16:19,400 --> 00:16:22,680 time. And he got the land back and he 235 00:16:22,680 --> 00:16:26,680 kept, kept this very large land package together. 236 00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:32,440 But the deal that he wanted at the time was to get a 51% 237 00:16:32,440 --> 00:16:37,000 interest in Jundee. He had to put up a nominal 238 00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:40,440 amount as an option payment. And I think it was something 239 00:16:40,440 --> 00:16:46,040 like $50,000 at the time. But the hook for Creasy was that 240 00:16:46,040 --> 00:16:52,760 he wanted $3,000,000 cash after 12 months for that option to be 241 00:16:52,760 --> 00:16:59,440 exercised. And Joseph at wasn't ready to 242 00:16:59,960 --> 00:17:02,840 take that jump away from diamonds. 243 00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:07,960 So we sort of left it for the moment and went and then as the 244 00:17:07,960 --> 00:17:12,720 diamond, in my view, as the diamond exploration wasn't being 245 00:17:12,720 --> 00:17:16,680 that successful, I said to I, I advised Joseph that maybe we 246 00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:20,640 should go back to Gracie and see if that deal was still possible. 247 00:17:20,839 --> 00:17:24,760 And it was. And he told us then and he's 248 00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:28,600 made it public himself that during that, in that 12 month 249 00:17:28,600 --> 00:17:32,880 period, he had 19 different companies come to look at the 250 00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:38,040 land, in particular at Jundee. And they all balked at this 251 00:17:38,040 --> 00:17:42,520 notion of having to pay $3,000,000 cash in 12 months 252 00:17:42,520 --> 00:17:48,520 time and so didn't proceed. Now, I, I said to Joseph at the 253 00:17:48,520 --> 00:17:53,960 time, if, if we can't work out in 12 months whether we can pay 254 00:17:53,960 --> 00:17:58,800 $3,000,000 to exercise the option to earn 51%, then we 255 00:17:58,800 --> 00:18:02,520 shouldn't be in this business. So we agreed. 256 00:18:03,160 --> 00:18:09,320 And while we're negotiating with Gracie on, on that, on Jundee, 257 00:18:09,320 --> 00:18:12,960 he said, oh, look, I've got all this other land, you know, to 258 00:18:12,960 --> 00:18:16,600 the South and I'll do a joint venture deal with you on that. 259 00:18:16,600 --> 00:18:24,280 If you like, you know, earning you can earn 7070% or 75% by 260 00:18:24,280 --> 00:18:27,720 spending all the money up to and including a feasibility study, 261 00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:31,040 bankable study, right. OK, job done. 262 00:18:31,760 --> 00:18:37,840 And we agreed then to do both Jundee and the rest of the 263 00:18:37,880 --> 00:18:43,160 annual belt at that time and there was no upfront payment for 264 00:18:43,160 --> 00:18:46,160 the joint venture on the rest of the Angel belt. 265 00:18:46,160 --> 00:18:49,760 So it was a good, it was a good deal for Great Central at the 266 00:18:49,760 --> 00:18:52,400 time. And of course, history tells us 267 00:18:52,400 --> 00:18:55,480 that he ended up being a very good deal for Mark Creasy as 268 00:18:55,480 --> 00:18:58,640 well. I mean this this sort of led to 269 00:18:58,640 --> 00:19:02,200 his his first big breakthrough success. 270 00:19:02,360 --> 00:19:03,520 What? What was it sort of like 271 00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:06,560 negotiating and and dealing? With him, oh, it was extremely 272 00:19:06,560 --> 00:19:10,800 difficult. We thought he's a hard 273 00:19:10,800 --> 00:19:16,080 bargainer. But it it was difficult, but it 274 00:19:16,480 --> 00:19:20,880 was not unreasonable. Yeah, we had many late night 275 00:19:20,880 --> 00:19:28,360 meetings, but to to, to not out what, what was fair to both 276 00:19:28,880 --> 00:19:31,720 sides. And I think in the end the deal 277 00:19:31,720 --> 00:19:36,920 that was struck looked favourable, you know, to to 278 00:19:37,440 --> 00:19:41,600 mark, but was also favourable to Great Central, ended up with 279 00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:46,560 100% of it there. The the the Jundee that we that 280 00:19:46,560 --> 00:19:51,360 we know is jundee to today, Did it always look and feel like the 281 00:19:51,560 --> 00:19:57,080 the special Jundee? Well, Jundee's in really in two 282 00:19:57,080 --> 00:19:58,800 parts. Well, there were three parts to 283 00:19:58,800 --> 00:20:02,520 Jundee, right? There's Jundee, which is the 284 00:20:02,520 --> 00:20:05,120 deal that the Great Central did with Mark. 285 00:20:05,560 --> 00:20:10,280 And then then Eagle and another company had the western part of 286 00:20:10,280 --> 00:20:13,760 Jundee and they they'd already found some gold there. 287 00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:17,040 And then there was an Eastern bloc which Creasy kept to 288 00:20:17,040 --> 00:20:25,160 himself. So when we first drilled there, 289 00:20:28,080 --> 00:20:32,160 we ended up I think in the oxide zone about 1 to one and a half 290 00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:37,320 million oz and that you know that was that happened pretty 291 00:20:37,320 --> 00:20:42,720 rapidly and then I thought, OK, So what happens at depth. 292 00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:45,480 So I thought we knew what we're doing. 293 00:20:45,480 --> 00:20:48,520 So we targeted, you know, obviously the higher grade 294 00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:53,080 results in the RC drilling in the oxide zone to see what 295 00:20:53,080 --> 00:20:55,640 happened. And, you know, the first few 296 00:20:55,640 --> 00:21:00,760 diamond holes got very little. And so I realized that we 297 00:21:00,760 --> 00:21:02,720 actually weren't that clever after all. 298 00:21:04,560 --> 00:21:08,880 So I said, OK, the only way to tackle this was, you know, we 299 00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:12,960 had a strike length by the end of about 8 kilometers was to 300 00:21:13,280 --> 00:21:19,040 drill diamond holes, you know, to about four or 500 meters deep 301 00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:23,080 at 400 meters centers along the whole strike. 302 00:21:24,160 --> 00:21:30,360 And that was the plan. The second, I think it was the 303 00:21:30,360 --> 00:21:35,640 second diamond hole and and now it's just read space. 304 00:21:35,640 --> 00:21:40,240 There was, there was the only geological impact was that we 305 00:21:40,240 --> 00:21:43,800 had this strike length and we needed to find out what was 306 00:21:43,800 --> 00:21:47,280 happening. And I think again, it was the 307 00:21:47,280 --> 00:21:52,360 2nd hole intersected Barton and it, it was a high grade result. 308 00:21:52,360 --> 00:21:54,080 And then we followed it up from there. 309 00:21:54,840 --> 00:22:01,920 So did it always look special? At the time I remember thinking 310 00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:06,880 that bronzing was pretty good, but crazy to his due told me no 311 00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:08,840 no, Jandy was always going to be better. 312 00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:13,440 So maybe he had he had a more insightful view than I did at 313 00:22:13,440 --> 00:22:17,440 that time. And and there was a view from 314 00:22:17,440 --> 00:22:20,800 you and the team at the time that this would become a massive 315 00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:22,560 pit. Yeah, right. 316 00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:25,960 Yes. You, I mean you worked through 317 00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:29,200 that 90s period in an era where the gold price was going against 318 00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:32,400 you, unlike it has for for the last 20 years, which is a 319 00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:36,320 completely different framing to to go back and think about. 320 00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:39,200 But was that sort of constantly in the back of your mind there? 321 00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:43,000 Yeah, it it did. I remember going to a, a 322 00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:48,600 conference in gold conference in New York, Maryland probably was 323 00:22:48,600 --> 00:22:53,960 the Denver Gold Show, not New York and Denver in 97. 324 00:22:54,560 --> 00:22:58,760 There was so much exploration going on at that time around the 325 00:22:58,760 --> 00:23:04,280 world, not only in Australia. I thought there's going to be so 326 00:23:04,280 --> 00:23:07,960 much gold. It's going to be found now 327 00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:09,520 whether the 2 are related or not. 328 00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:12,040 But the gold price started to fall from then on. 329 00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:18,080 So yes, the falling gold price had a had a big impact on on how 330 00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:22,520 we're thinking about it. But at Jundee, the pits, the 331 00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:26,320 pits we had, we created several pits that would, that wouldn't 332 00:23:26,320 --> 00:23:28,480 actually as much as we might have wanted. 333 00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:31,720 They didn't join up, so we just took them as they were. 334 00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:36,040 There were some pretty sort of vocal debates between Whitney 335 00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:38,560 and various Australian politicians at the time because 336 00:23:38,560 --> 00:23:42,920 I think we were, as a central bank, selling a large portion of 337 00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:45,840 our gold. That market too, which was a was 338 00:23:45,840 --> 00:23:47,800 a headache for all the gold miners across Australia. 339 00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:54,040 Yeah, well, it was at that time that Australia sold, sold its 340 00:23:54,040 --> 00:23:57,040 gold when it was already the third largest gold producer in 341 00:23:57,040 --> 00:24:00,880 the world. It actually made no, no sense. 342 00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:06,120 But you know, they obviously, the politicians were obviously 343 00:24:06,120 --> 00:24:10,680 getting other advice. JD found this this description 344 00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:14,160 somewhere. The Gutnick Gutnick issues was 345 00:24:14,160 --> 00:24:16,520 described as one of the most creative Capital Intellect 346 00:24:16,520 --> 00:24:18,840 combinations in the market. What do you think of that 347 00:24:19,040 --> 00:24:26,880 characterisation? It's very complementary comment 348 00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:30,480 of course. But look, we work well together 349 00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:33,480 for a long time, for a long period of time. 350 00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:38,280 And, and I think it was the fact that Joseph understood the risks 351 00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:44,640 that were that were involved and I, I, I guess I understood the 352 00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:48,480 geological risks and that combination worked very well. 353 00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:56,120 You reflect a lot on the, the access to capital being enabling 354 00:24:56,120 --> 00:25:00,560 the, the pace of discoveries And I I almost, I'm flashing forward 355 00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:06,240 a lot, but you know, in a lot of ways like your, your DGO was, 356 00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:10,400 was you being a financier for, for exploration kind of flip 357 00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:12,160 rolls. You were now you were now good. 358 00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:14,400 Nick, did you ever see it that way? 359 00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:21,160 Yes or no. I mean success in exploration is 360 00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:24,960 largely a function of how much capital is there is. 361 00:25:26,120 --> 00:25:28,960 If you accept the fact, yes, you've got to have strong 362 00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:33,440 technical teams and you have the environment in which you can do 363 00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:37,360 that work. But in in Australia, most 364 00:25:37,360 --> 00:25:39,160 explorers are starved for capital. 365 00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:45,240 And in my view, exploration success is improved with more 366 00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,880 capital being available. And I've had this conversation 367 00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:54,040 with this with very large institutional investors and that 368 00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:56,000 that point had never occurred to them. 369 00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:01,600 There's this concept that exploration success in, in 370 00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:07,760 Australia is it's, it's speculation, but it doesn't have 371 00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:12,280 to be, it can actually be success can be a function of 372 00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:19,160 knowledge, application of new technology and, and the smarts 373 00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:22,640 of the, of the team. And that's the one I mean, one 374 00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:27,920 of the benefits in Australia today is that, you know, modern 375 00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:32,200 day expressions been going on for 60 years or more. 376 00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:37,480 And as a function of exploration of that exploration, it's all 377 00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:41,400 been recorded at, at the Mars department, whatever it's called 378 00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:43,520 today. And that's readily accessible. 379 00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:47,280 So you can actually keep building on past exploration if 380 00:26:47,280 --> 00:26:53,600 it's for success. The the concept of drilling 381 00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:56,400 something out like Swiss cheese comes up a lot with the way 382 00:26:56,400 --> 00:26:58,160 you've approached things. I know we were speaking about it 383 00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:00,240 just before, but how do you reflect on that sort of 384 00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:05,720 statement? Well, I think I, I, I always 385 00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:10,520 regard it as a derogatory statement, but it in fact was 386 00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:17,320 necessary to get to indicated resources or at least probable 387 00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:22,000 reserves to be able to raise the capital to develop the mines. 388 00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:25,120 And that's, that was the fundamental reason. 389 00:27:25,120 --> 00:27:30,160 And the only, the only time we, we did drill holes like Swiss 390 00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:33,320 cheese was if we actually knew what we had. 391 00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:38,800 And you know, there was largely a program or always a program of 392 00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:44,600 infill drilling to make sure that we actually got understood 393 00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:47,440 the distribution of the gold as it was. 394 00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:51,880 I mean, fortunately we never made a mistake. 395 00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:57,000 We always were able to produce to the reserves that we'd 396 00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:00,640 estimated. The the turn of the the turn of 397 00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:04,280 the century, you're you're MD of new Hampton gold fields. 398 00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:07,640 What, what, what's your, what's your thinking with this, this, 399 00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:09,560 you know, new chapter in, in your career? 400 00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:20,760 Well, OK, so I thought that we could create with New Hampton a, 401 00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:30,800 a, a gold exploration company and, and basically do the same 402 00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:34,760 as what I'd been doing with Joseph and great Central Minds 403 00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:40,640 and Central. And it had, New Hampton had a, 404 00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:46,960 had a small operation. Yes, it was short of the feed. 405 00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:50,960 Well, we'd been there before. So I thought we could fix that 406 00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:55,000 by drilling appropriately. And it was, you know, close to 407 00:28:55,000 --> 00:29:00,080 Kalgoorlie. It was in the right place and 408 00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:02,360 didn't actually quite work out like that. 409 00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:08,680 And then, and then we, we, we acquired the, we acquired the 410 00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:15,160 Bell mine and that was part of giving New Hampton an 411 00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:21,920 additional, additional operation and an additional exploration 412 00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:25,520 opportunity. But with most operations, 413 00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:29,400 operations suck all the energy and all the oxygen and 414 00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:36,040 exploration tends to get put to one side and, and that's what 415 00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:40,200 happened in that case. And so it wasn't, it was and 416 00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:45,920 then it got taken over by, by Harmony, which wasn't my idea. 417 00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:51,040 But the by then the largest shareholder of New Hampton was 418 00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:56,560 was Robert Dkrepny, Robert Champion Dkrepny. 419 00:29:57,280 --> 00:30:02,760 And he, he, he didn't want, he sold out to, to Harmony to 420 00:30:03,520 --> 00:30:09,880 basically divest that interest. So that I wasn't in favour of 421 00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:13,280 the, or the price of the takeover and objected to it. 422 00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:17,480 But the rest of the board said no, no, that's that's what 423 00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:20,280 happened. How hard was that sort of 424 00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:21,880 transition? I know you'd been doing a lot of 425 00:30:21,880 --> 00:30:24,800 management in in your later years at at Great Central, but 426 00:30:24,800 --> 00:30:28,560 that transition from exploration and working within a framework 427 00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:30,600 to being a manager and running a company. 428 00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:33,520 Oh, that was yeah, that was a challenge, right? 429 00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:39,280 Because now, I mean, working with Joseph, Joseph was clearly 430 00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:41,480 responsible for raising the capital. 431 00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:45,720 I was responsible for, you know, spending the money wisely and, 432 00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:49,160 and exploring when we got to New Hampton, of course, I was 433 00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:53,120 responsible for both. And that was, even though I'd 434 00:30:53,120 --> 00:30:57,280 been in the market and people knew who I, who I, who I was and 435 00:30:57,280 --> 00:30:58,840 why I did, it was still difficult. 436 00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:02,600 And it was also a difficult time, you know, in, in the 437 00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:05,040 market full stop. So yes, it was. 438 00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:11,320 It was not easy. You then headed up after sort of 439 00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:14,640 finding your way into St. Barbara of all companies, which 440 00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:18,640 was a, well, it's a company with a fascinating history and plenty 441 00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:21,120 of ups and downs, but sort of circa 2004. 442 00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:25,080 Find your way in there and then get your hands on some Sons of 443 00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:27,720 Gwalia assets. Tell us about that sort of 444 00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:29,560 period. OK. 445 00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:33,600 The sons of Barbara, the shareholders of of Saint 446 00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:37,320 Barbara, the shareholders St. Barbara were unhappy with the 447 00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:41,800 management and they rolled, rolled the board and appointed 448 00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:48,880 myself as the MD and Colin Wise, who I brought along as the 449 00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:52,440 chairman. And this major shareholder at 450 00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:56,720 time was Resource Capital Fund and I'd worked with the 451 00:31:56,720 --> 00:32:00,760 principals of that fund in the development of, of Brunswick. 452 00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:05,040 They, they, they were the early financiers of Brunswick. 453 00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:10,320 In fact, they, they lent some money to complete the, they had 454 00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:13,080 central money to complete the feasibility study on Brunswick. 455 00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:16,880 So I had a good relationship with them. 456 00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:23,280 But prior to that I'd spent a year advising sons of Gaulia on, 457 00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:26,760 on their expiration. This was to the board rather 458 00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:30,520 than to the management. So I was very familiar with the 459 00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:37,600 assets and and in fact was advising them on what I thought 460 00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:44,720 should happen at Sons of Gulia, at the Sons of Gulia Mine and 461 00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:50,120 and elsewhere for that matter. But, and Sons of Gulia Mine was 462 00:32:50,120 --> 00:32:53,120 the was the principal asset. I mean, they had Karasu Dam and 463 00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:56,240 they also had Southern Cross operation. 464 00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:01,600 So I was quite familiar with those assets. 465 00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:04,760 And then Sons of Guli went into administration. 466 00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:09,840 They were concerned, the management were concerned about 467 00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:12,360 meeting the future hedge requirements. 468 00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:17,280 And when they approached the counterparties about that, they 469 00:33:17,280 --> 00:33:21,640 said, well, if you have concern, then what can we do? 470 00:33:22,560 --> 00:33:26,760 So they put Sons of Guli into administration when Sons of 471 00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:31,200 Gorilla had $60 million in bank. So it's the the people forget 472 00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:36,760 these sorts of things and put it into administration. 473 00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:42,520 And I thought, oh, this is now I was at Saint Barbara. 474 00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:46,040 I thought this is interesting. So it became clear that the 475 00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:49,720 administrator wanted to sell everything one package. 476 00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:57,400 And in terms of the gold and the lithium and Greenbush's 477 00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:02,080 tatellite speaks what you know, they they're treated separately. 478 00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:04,120 There are a lot of different Docker proposals that were put 479 00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:06,440 in. There were there's so many 480 00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:09,280 proposals, but was was, was the administrator just just 481 00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:10,880 favouring a clean outcome? Is that how he do? 482 00:34:11,159 --> 00:34:14,639 He was he was very much in favour of all the gold assets 483 00:34:14,639 --> 00:34:19,280 being done in one go. And the question is why do that? 484 00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:26,000 So because there was there were environmental bonds of some 30 485 00:34:26,000 --> 00:34:28,840 odd million attached to the gold assets. 486 00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:36,679 So, so OK, so Resource Capital fund was the major shareholder 487 00:34:36,679 --> 00:34:40,560 in Barbara. I put it to them that we do this 488 00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:44,480 Sons of Grilly deal. They had to figure out how to, 489 00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:48,520 how to get rid of these bonds, finance the bonds. 490 00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:51,639 When you know, when St. Barbara's a company had a market 491 00:34:51,639 --> 00:34:56,719 cap of 50, how do you finance bonds of 30 odd million? 492 00:34:56,840 --> 00:35:01,920 Well, they, they got letters of credit and sold that issue for 493 00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:06,080 us. And then we got, we bought, we 494 00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:10,880 were able to buy the assets, the whole company for $4 million 495 00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:16,800 cash plus replacing the bonds. And so the outlay was $4 496 00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:22,600 million. And then we had to sit, we had 497 00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:25,720 to work out, OK, what could, what could St. 498 00:35:25,720 --> 00:35:28,960 Barbara do now? So we decided there and then 499 00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:34,000 that we sell Karra Sudan and and the Southern Cross operations 500 00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:39,880 and focus on, on, on Leonora sons of Gulia mine. 501 00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:43,640 And of course is that a good decision? 502 00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:50,960 Well, it was all we could do at the time rather than dilute, you 503 00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:53,280 know, raise a lot of capital and dilute the existing 504 00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:56,880 shareholders. So we did sell that and of 505 00:35:56,880 --> 00:36:02,000 course tells us that Raleigh, Finland soon ended up with Kara 506 00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:04,800 Sudan. This now owns tons of gold in 507 00:36:04,800 --> 00:36:08,840 mine and that's that's interesting. 508 00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:16,120 But anyway, yeah, we, we developed, well, what we did at 509 00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:20,800 Sansaguli after we got control of it was a very simple thing. 510 00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:26,440 The previous management had, we're advising the board that to 511 00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:30,720 look to actually develop the extensions of the Sansaguli mine 512 00:36:30,720 --> 00:36:36,840 below 1000 meters depth required sinking of a shaft and then 513 00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:39,080 drilling from the base of the shaft. 514 00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:43,680 Of course, we know the shaft was going to cost 120 million. 515 00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:48,480 It would take two or more years to do and then you still had to 516 00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:52,280 do all the drilling. And my advice to the board at 517 00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:55,080 the time was no, we actually don't need to do that. 518 00:36:55,440 --> 00:37:00,920 You can drill from the surface, but that was rejected by by the 519 00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:05,720 management. So of course when we got hold of 520 00:37:05,720 --> 00:37:08,760 the assets, that's what we did. We drilled from the surface. 521 00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:14,640 Now the cost yes was $300 a metre, which was outlandish, 522 00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:19,160 outrageous, but the cost was only $30.00 an ounce and that 523 00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:23,200 was the critical component. So we're able to then after 524 00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:27,680 consultation with again with resource geologists, 525 00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:32,000 specialists, what spacing did we require for them to be able to 526 00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:37,280 sign off on indicator resources to get to reserve because we, we 527 00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:42,600 knew we had to raise capital at some stage to develop redevelop 528 00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:45,040 the mark. Anyway, the answer was if we 529 00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:50,200 drilled it at a 40 by 40 meter spacing even you know, down to 530 00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:54,560 1800 meters that would, that would most probably was the 531 00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,920 answer most probably get to indicated resources. 532 00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:10,120 And that's what we did and we did we, we generated I think 533 00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:15,000 3,000,000 ounces in resources from that drilling and 1.8 534 00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:19,040 million ounces in reserves and were able to redevelop demand. 535 00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:24,160 And it's, it's since then it has produced more than 2 million oz. 536 00:38:24,240 --> 00:38:31,960 So, but the critical thing was that we're able to do that 537 00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:35,520 relatively quickly because you could have two or three or four 538 00:38:35,520 --> 00:38:40,840 rigs on on site. The drilling results was were 539 00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:46,040 generally better than what the model had indicated. 540 00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:52,520 You had inferred resources below 1000 meters, but so you actually 541 00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:56,520 had a picture as to how much gold you would get it once you 542 00:38:56,520 --> 00:39:01,080 intersected the ore body. And in many cases the drilling 543 00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:05,360 results were better than what the model predicted, which which 544 00:39:05,360 --> 00:39:07,920 was heartening, but at the same time was necessary. 545 00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:14,680 So in the end, the we're quite confident about the about the 546 00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:18,320 resource model and particularly about the grade and the grade 547 00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:20,080 stood up very well for a long time. 548 00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:23,120 Was was was Tower Hill part of the picture back then too? 549 00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:26,720 Tower Hill, That's a good question. 550 00:39:26,720 --> 00:39:30,360 Tower Hill was. We looked at Tower Hill hard. 551 00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:36,720 It had infrastructure issues which you know which Genesis 552 00:39:36,720 --> 00:39:41,760 have resolved I think very elegantly in terms of stopping 553 00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:44,040 the railway line rather than moving the railway line. 554 00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:48,960 From an underground viewpoint. It was clear that the ground 555 00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:52,280 conditions were not favourable for underground development. 556 00:39:52,880 --> 00:39:58,400 But, and I did think at one time about driving a decline from the 557 00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:05,720 base of the Sons of Goria shaft to decline, sorry to, to, to 558 00:40:06,200 --> 00:40:08,960 Tower Hill, but we didn't didn't get around to doing that. 559 00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:12,640 But that that was that was an idea we were contemplating at 560 00:40:12,640 --> 00:40:14,880 the time. But I think what Genesis have 561 00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:17,240 come up with is very elegant solution. 562 00:40:17,720 --> 00:40:19,800 Big open pit at 2 grams. Wow. 563 00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:27,200 Isn't it remarkable, you know, 2020 years ago put a shaft in 564 00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:29,680 Gualia and like find a way to get around this railway for 565 00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:31,360 Tower Hill. The strategy hasn't changed too 566 00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:33,640 much. I mean, they have they explored 567 00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:35,880 the shaft and then they they shafted the shaft plan. 568 00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:40,040 The shafted the shaft, yeah. How do you kind of think about 569 00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:42,120 that period, that sort of five year block? 570 00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:44,040 Were you managing the company? Did you have enough time to sort 571 00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:47,120 of focus on exploration and and making discovery or were you 572 00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:51,880 constantly dragged into the the ups and downs of managing mines? 573 00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:56,600 Well, I think history tells us that you know, operations suck 574 00:40:56,600 --> 00:41:02,440 all the energy and effort and you know we did have, we did 575 00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:08,480 have an ambition to get to a 400,000 oz gold producer which 576 00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:14,800 which bent and at that stage we had Sons of Gaulia and Southern 577 00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:18,240 Cross operations. Now we're going to be producing 578 00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:24,400 about 2:50 to 300,000 oz a year. So we had to find another 579 00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:28,840 thousand ounce producer, which we didn't do, didn't, didn't 580 00:41:29,240 --> 00:41:34,280 achieve in the time frame. Well, I mean, we did do a lot of 581 00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:38,760 drilling at Tower Hill and that that was an obvious one. 582 00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:46,200 And I, I do, I do remember the time when we're drilling both at 583 00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:51,080 Sons of Gaulia mine deep holes. So standing well back, see the 584 00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:55,640 rigs from the from the highway. But when we're drilling at Tower 585 00:41:55,640 --> 00:42:01,120 Hill, we had two or three RC rigs drilling and the highway 586 00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:06,880 was quite close to Tower Hill. And when when we started doing 587 00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:11,360 that drilling, the share price of Saint Barbara went up just 588 00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:15,080 because everyone could see there was a lot of activity or I think 589 00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:19,360 that's where it was. I I really reflect now more so 590 00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:22,200 than than having read about it before on this model of having 591 00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:26,640 the exploration chief and the the sort of financing chief. 592 00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:29,720 Is that something you ever tried to to recreate later or is it 593 00:42:29,720 --> 00:42:34,360 just impractical? I think, I think that's probably 594 00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:38,560 worked with DGO if we if we look hard at it. 595 00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:44,680 Bruce Parker, my colleague and Co director, yes. 596 00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:47,960 Was he? He was a geologist, but he went, 597 00:42:48,720 --> 00:42:53,720 he went soon went into broking and ended up being head of 598 00:42:53,720 --> 00:43:01,760 Macintosh Securities, which was Australia was one of the two 599 00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:05,320 Australian brokers and they ended up being taken over by 600 00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:09,440 Merrill Lynch. And Bruce was, you know, CEO of 601 00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:15,000 Merrill Lynch for a while. So his background was he had a 602 00:43:15,000 --> 00:43:19,520 lot of experience in the market and I think that that 603 00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:23,400 combination is basically worked again. 604 00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:27,840 So the short answer is yes, I think it is. 605 00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:30,840 It is a good model. Yeah. 606 00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:34,280 And and you obviously had a lot of success there with with DGO. 607 00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:40,440 You told us a great story, which I'd love for you to share on the 608 00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:43,200 discovery of Hemi and the advice you were giving and what could 609 00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:47,200 have been, I think some six years prior to the eventual 610 00:43:47,200 --> 00:43:48,440 discovery there. Yeah. 611 00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:54,400 Well, look, if I if I can just start at the beginning perhaps 612 00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:59,880 in that when Bruce and I got together in DGODGO had a market 613 00:43:59,880 --> 00:44:05,040 cap of $2,000,000, right. So it was and, and the reason 614 00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:08,520 why I was was that because it was difficult to raise capital 615 00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:13,720 in that in that time. And we were doing, I was, I was 616 00:44:13,720 --> 00:44:18,440 basically doing a, or trying to emulate what Mark Creasy had 617 00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:20,240 done. And that was to pick up large 618 00:44:20,240 --> 00:44:23,960 areas and, and have Greenfield's exploration happening. 619 00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:28,080 When Bruce said he wanted to join with me, I said that was 620 00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:32,680 that was good. And we sat down and said OK, so 621 00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:34,440 where's the best place to look for gold? 622 00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:38,800 And the answer, the real answer was that it's probably already 623 00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:41,520 held by both large and small companies. 624 00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:46,200 So having come to that conclusion, we said OK, well 625 00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:49,840 let's have a look at all the ASX listed companies they were 626 00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:56,000 exploring for gold in Australia. And there were about 160. 627 00:44:57,240 --> 00:45:02,520 And we very quickly of course got down to about 10, of which 628 00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:11,480 de Grey was #1 and NTM was #2 and NTM being ended up being 629 00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:15,040 taken over by Dosian and #3 was Yandel. 630 00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:21,640 And the reason for picking de Grey as the number one was it 631 00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:27,120 had a large, had a large land area and gold was known 632 00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:31,320 throughout the area. And we actually did a, we did an 633 00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:36,920 estimate, a risk estimate as to how much gold we could find by 634 00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:41,040 extending the existing deposits. And we made allowance for the 635 00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:44,440 discovery of a new one. Didn't know where that would be, 636 00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:48,000 but we made because because of the prospectivity of the land, 637 00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:52,080 we thought there's likely to be another whistle or another male 638 00:45:52,080 --> 00:45:56,000 on a you know 1 to 2 million oz type deposit close by. 639 00:45:57,040 --> 00:46:02,160 And we figured out how much that would cost to drill and we did 640 00:46:02,160 --> 00:46:06,680 it on a risk weighted basis. So in other words the to extend 641 00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:11,160 with normal amount of to 1 to 2 million oz, we thought the risk 642 00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:15,920 was risk was quite low. So that was 75% success rate. 643 00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:19,600 But in terms of finding a new one, we thought, well, that had 644 00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:24,480 to be a risk rate of about 50 percent, 5050 chance finding a 645 00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:29,040 new one. Anyway, that led us to investing 646 00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:34,920 in the grey and we invested in the grey at $0.20 at a time and, 647 00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:39,120 and we're quite happy with that. And of course the share price 648 00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:44,760 went down to $0.05. So we, we, we realised we 649 00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:49,960 weren't that clever after all. But the market was sensing that 650 00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:54,200 the grey had to, had to buy out the there was a Chinese partner 651 00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:57,640 that they had an option over to buy them out and they needed to 652 00:46:57,640 --> 00:47:01,480 raise $13 million for that. So the market sensed that there 653 00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:03,160 was more money needed to be raised. 654 00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:07,360 So the share price went down. Anyway, cut a Long story short. 655 00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:12,720 We, we Bruce and I helped them raise with my son Grant helped, 656 00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:16,760 helped them raise the money at at $0.05. 657 00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:20,200 And one of the conditions was that we go on the board, Bruce 658 00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:21,800 and I would go on the board which we did. 659 00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:28,320 I did spend and the other large shareholder at that time was 660 00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:34,840 Kirkland Lake and they didn't want to contribute to any to the 661 00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:37,640 capital raise. So they, they got diluted, but 662 00:47:38,120 --> 00:47:41,120 they did want to have a look at the land position one time. 663 00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:46,880 So they came over and I as just as a a shareholder at that time, 664 00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:51,120 I went with the Kirkland Lake people and we did a 2 day 665 00:47:51,120 --> 00:47:54,240 helicopter ride looking at all the prospects. 666 00:47:54,840 --> 00:47:58,040 And the one thing that became very clear to me was that that 667 00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:01,800 this was a vast area, a vast area. 668 00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:05,560 It was 150 kilometers long and about 50 kilometers wide. 669 00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:08,880 And yes, there was gold deposits throughout. 670 00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:14,840 And you could, you could actually sort of sense that in 671 00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:20,600 the past, companies and, or individuals would be overwhelmed 672 00:48:20,600 --> 00:48:23,240 by the, by the scale of what they had. 673 00:48:23,600 --> 00:48:25,800 So they always sort of went back to what they knew. 674 00:48:26,120 --> 00:48:30,520 So there was all this concept of incrementally adding to what, 675 00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:36,080 what had been found. And well, we had to, we had to 676 00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:39,640 think differently about it. And also, mind you, you know, 677 00:48:39,640 --> 00:48:44,080 even highly respected academic geologists said no bill was 678 00:48:44,080 --> 00:48:46,960 different to the Yule gun. You're not going to find any big 679 00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:49,520 deposits. They only, they only found small 680 00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:52,640 ones. Well, of course you could 681 00:48:52,640 --> 00:48:57,560 dismiss that argument from a, a statistical viewpoint when you 682 00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:00,960 look at gold provinces. So we didn't take any notice of 683 00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:06,960 of the respected geological wisdom and figured out that, OK, 684 00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:09,600 so this thing was 150 kilometres long. 685 00:49:10,040 --> 00:49:13,960 There it became clear there were about four areas each of about 686 00:49:13,960 --> 00:49:18,160 30 kilometres long, which had been hardly explored or poorly 687 00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:21,960 tested. And we knew each of the existing 688 00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:23,920 deposits were about 1 kilometre long. 689 00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:30,000 So it worked out that you could drill air core drilling at 1 690 00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:37,280 kilometre spacing or thereabouts across the structures and it 691 00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:39,960 each area, there were four areas, each area would cost 692 00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:44,440 about $1,000,000 each to do that first Pass Air Corps drilling. 693 00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:50,560 It took us, it took us a while to convince both board and 694 00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:52,440 management that that's what they should do. 695 00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:54,680 In fact, took more than six months. 696 00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:58,880 But when they started, of course, the Hemi discovery was 697 00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:03,360 the first area they adopted this strategy and it happened within 698 00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:10,760 the first two weeks. Now the, the story of course is 699 00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:17,840 that the real story is that yes, the the geology team Andy led by 700 00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:23,960 Andy Beckworth and Phil Tamara, very competent, very competent 701 00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:26,800 people. But the strategy they had of 702 00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:32,120 finding a little bit more and building a central mill was 703 00:50:32,120 --> 00:50:35,560 always gonna not gonna really cut it from a shareholder 704 00:50:35,560 --> 00:50:37,600 viewpoint. The Gray put out ADFS on Was it 705 00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:40,960 DFS on? There was a study put on on 706 00:50:40,960 --> 00:50:44,000 Malanar in 2019 I wanna say. A 2018 like. 707 00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:45,800 Yeah. So that was that was a strategy. 708 00:50:45,800 --> 00:50:47,800 Was that, that was, that was a strategy? 709 00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:50,640 It was, yeah. And and we said, no, we, we 710 00:50:50,640 --> 00:50:53,520 haven't invested in the Gray for that strategy. 711 00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:58,120 We've invested because you've got this large land package with 712 00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:01,200 enormous potential. So let's go and see if we can 713 00:51:01,200 --> 00:51:03,200 find. And then of course, once you 714 00:51:03,200 --> 00:51:06,040 say, let's see how we can find here, they have to explain how 715 00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:08,800 you go about it. And that was the strategy bit 716 00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:15,200 that we, we, we wrote it up 4 areas, each 30 kilometres long. 717 00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:20,960 It's a drill space drill, Travis, every everyone kilometre 718 00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:24,560 holes. I can't remember the spacing was 719 00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:27,880 probably 160 meters or something along each line. 720 00:51:28,560 --> 00:51:31,760 And let's see what happens. That's the business that we're 721 00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:36,160 in, right? And, and yes, so as I said 722 00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:39,600 before, they him, he came up within virtually within the 723 00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:42,120 first two weeks of starting on that strategy. 724 00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:48,960 And then subsequently, of course, we found and and de 725 00:51:48,960 --> 00:51:51,040 Grave made this public themselves. 726 00:51:51,680 --> 00:51:56,960 They had actually drilled in the Hemi area six years earlier, the 727 00:51:57,080 --> 00:52:02,120 air core drilling the the rods that got bulked in the gravel 728 00:52:02,120 --> 00:52:07,400 layer at about 40 meters below the surface and stopped. 729 00:52:09,000 --> 00:52:11,960 And if they kept, if they'd gone another meter or two, they would 730 00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:16,000 have hit, I think it was Deusan or Eagle, one of those, which 731 00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:19,240 then would have course escalated and they would have found the 732 00:52:19,240 --> 00:52:24,200 rest of it. So the really critical point for 733 00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:29,360 explorers and for shareholders in the exploration company is to 734 00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:34,160 be absolutely clear that the drilling that's being done is 735 00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:37,440 effective. Because if it's not, then don't 736 00:52:37,880 --> 00:52:41,760 even bother starting. And if it isn't effective, then 737 00:52:41,880 --> 00:52:45,520 keep going until you have completed an effective drilling 738 00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:46,080 program. This. 739 00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:50,880 Is this is a lesson that you, you, you you've had several 740 00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:54,800 times in your in your career. And before we started recording, 741 00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:57,360 you were telling telling one of those very examples. 742 00:52:57,360 --> 00:53:00,840 Do you want to do you want to talk about Yeah, your your 743 00:53:00,840 --> 00:53:02,800 observation of the depth of drilling and. 744 00:53:03,200 --> 00:53:07,120 Yeah, it's a very, it's a, it's a beautiful example really in 745 00:53:07,120 --> 00:53:11,480 that we're at, at Mount Pleasant just, you know, north of north 746 00:53:11,480 --> 00:53:15,040 of Kalgoorlie. Mount Pleasant area in the in 747 00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:19,720 the 80s was one of the red hot gold areas to the extent where 748 00:53:19,720 --> 00:53:25,160 even Western mining got involved with Consolidated Exploration 749 00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:30,640 company at the time. And yeah, and and Elders 750 00:53:30,640 --> 00:53:34,840 resources were there. So it was it was it was one of 751 00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:38,840 the hot areas. Anyway, there was a mill there 752 00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:46,640 and Central Mining bought the land package and the mill and it 753 00:53:46,640 --> 00:53:50,880 was in the early 90s. The mill had about six months of 754 00:53:50,880 --> 00:53:54,200 reserves. So we had to had to find some 755 00:53:54,360 --> 00:54:01,200 new reserves and went there. And you could see at Mount 756 00:54:01,200 --> 00:54:06,600 Pleasant there was this corridor about 8 kilometres long, about 757 00:54:06,600 --> 00:54:09,760 two kilometres wide where there were several open pits. 758 00:54:11,480 --> 00:54:14,240 And it was, it looked like there was drilling everywhere. 759 00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:18,960 So it had been drilled. So in effect, it looked like the 760 00:54:18,960 --> 00:54:22,360 job had been done. However, when you went to the 761 00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:26,880 open pitch, you could see there was 20 meters of alluvial cover 762 00:54:26,880 --> 00:54:28,600 over the top of weathered bedrock. 763 00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:35,760 And in, in those days, in the, in the 80s, air core drawing or 764 00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:40,200 Rab drawing as it was called. Yeah, it was, it was the next 765 00:54:40,200 --> 00:54:43,000 step after soil sampling. You drill down to about 20 766 00:54:43,000 --> 00:54:46,040 meters and often it was a standard depth. 767 00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:49,840 OK, drill down to 20 meters, find out was at the bottom of 768 00:54:49,840 --> 00:54:54,360 the hole. So when we saw this in the in 769 00:54:54,360 --> 00:54:58,040 the open pit wall that there was 20 meters of cover thought, ah, 770 00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:03,080 let's go back to the maps in the office and let's remove all the 771 00:55:03,080 --> 00:55:07,960 holes from the maps that were less than 20 meters deep. 772 00:55:09,040 --> 00:55:13,600 And that created these vast gaps in what looked like an area that 773 00:55:13,600 --> 00:55:18,120 had been drilled. And so we drew up a pattern 774 00:55:19,160 --> 00:55:25,720 pattern I think was 240 meters line spacing, 80m hole spacing 775 00:55:25,720 --> 00:55:28,880 on the lines. The first gap that we drilled 776 00:55:28,880 --> 00:55:33,760 was 500 meters from the existing operating mill. 777 00:55:34,360 --> 00:55:38,960 And we found quarters again within sort of within a month of 778 00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:41,640 starting on that, on that strategy. 779 00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:44,880 And of course quarters produced about 1,000,000 oz. 780 00:55:45,440 --> 00:55:52,080 So the critical thing in all of this is, is to be absolutely 781 00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:56,800 clear that the drilling has been effective in terms of testing 782 00:55:56,800 --> 00:56:01,280 what the geologist might, might be thinking about at the time. 783 00:56:02,040 --> 00:56:05,480 And I, I see it, I mean, even, you know, in the Yandel belt for 784 00:56:05,480 --> 00:56:09,120 example, I mean explorations been going on there since we 785 00:56:09,120 --> 00:56:13,120 found bronze wing in 92. There's still large areas when 786 00:56:13,360 --> 00:56:16,880 when the geologist dragged the maps out that look like they've 787 00:56:16,880 --> 00:56:18,800 been drilled. But do you ask the question how 788 00:56:18,800 --> 00:56:23,240 much of it's effective? And most of the holes go away, 789 00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:28,440 so it's under explored. So is strategy more important 790 00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:31,840 than geological thinking? Although you have to have both. 791 00:56:31,920 --> 00:56:36,600 I mean, the success of HEMI, for example, is a function that you 792 00:56:36,640 --> 00:56:40,960 know, Andrew Beckworth and his team knew exactly what had to do 793 00:56:40,960 --> 00:56:44,480 the what they had to do and how to go about it once they got 794 00:56:44,480 --> 00:56:48,320 onto it. So you can't separate the two. 795 00:56:48,360 --> 00:56:51,360 You actually have to get the right strategy and then have the 796 00:56:51,360 --> 00:56:56,160 right right team together. If, if we look forward now, Ed, 797 00:56:56,160 --> 00:56:59,600 you're, you're doing some exciting stuff in, in SA and 798 00:56:59,880 --> 00:57:03,160 using your, your abundance of experience and and knowledge. 799 00:57:04,120 --> 00:57:07,720 How do you, I think you can sort of relay that like obviously 800 00:57:07,720 --> 00:57:09,800 you're doing that in a, in a private structure. 801 00:57:09,800 --> 00:57:13,080 What are the sort of differences you're you're bringing forward 802 00:57:13,080 --> 00:57:16,000 and how sort of excited are you are the prospects? 803 00:57:18,360 --> 00:57:22,560 Well, we're, I guess we're doing, I'm personally doing two 804 00:57:22,560 --> 00:57:25,200 things. One part of as part of a private 805 00:57:25,200 --> 00:57:29,680 syndicate we're exploring in South Australia for sediment 806 00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:34,320 hosted copper and we're exploring for Degrusa type the 807 00:57:34,320 --> 00:57:40,320 HMS deposits in in the Brier Euroder and Brier basin north of 808 00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:45,000 Megathorough. And so we're doing that and 809 00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:50,520 we're applying the logic and fortunately we have enough 810 00:57:50,520 --> 00:57:54,400 capital between us to actually follow that through. 811 00:57:55,440 --> 00:58:01,840 And as a consequence we've been exploring either as DGO or 812 00:58:02,200 --> 00:58:07,680 privately in on the Stewart shelf in SA now for probably 10 813 00:58:07,680 --> 00:58:10,680 years. And what we're looking for is 814 00:58:10,680 --> 00:58:14,320 sediment hosted copper. They're using the Zambian copper 815 00:58:14,320 --> 00:58:19,960 belt model as, as the analogue. And we've we've established that 816 00:58:19,960 --> 00:58:24,560 the concept is applicable and we found copper mineralization and 817 00:58:24,560 --> 00:58:31,400 now we're finding economic mineralization up to 20 meters 818 00:58:31,400 --> 00:58:34,320 at 1% copper within 20 meters of the surface. 819 00:58:35,200 --> 00:58:41,360 Everything's undercover. We have about 200 kilometers of 820 00:58:41,360 --> 00:58:45,040 strike of what's called the transition zone, which is where 821 00:58:45,840 --> 00:58:48,640 where you would expect the copper mineralization to be. 822 00:58:49,480 --> 00:58:54,200 And we've done, we did a very large soil sampling program last 823 00:58:54,200 --> 00:58:59,840 year and I can't remember how many samples we took, but it's, 824 00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:05,600 it's again, it's identified a number of areas of some scale. 825 00:59:06,600 --> 00:59:10,400 And we know this is reliable because we've got the source 826 00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:13,120 sampling results over where we've actually found corporate 827 00:59:13,120 --> 00:59:16,280 depth. So we're, we're very optimistic 828 00:59:16,280 --> 00:59:21,120 about the potential outcome. And of course the benefit, the 829 00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:24,080 infrastructure benefits are incredible. 830 00:59:24,080 --> 00:59:26,440 And it's only about an hour from Port Augusta. 831 00:59:27,120 --> 00:59:31,360 There's a highway to Alice Springs, there's a railway line, 832 00:59:32,480 --> 00:59:37,200 there's pipelines and there's electric transmission lines 833 00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:41,920 going to Olympic Dam, all within, you know, within one or 834 00:59:41,920 --> 00:59:43,800 two kilometres of where we're exploring. 835 00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:47,600 Yeah, it may, it may in fact be a disadvantage that they're 836 00:59:47,600 --> 00:59:51,280 there if we find copper underneath these transmission 837 00:59:51,280 --> 00:59:53,360 lines. But we'll worry about that when, 838 00:59:53,560 --> 00:59:58,400 when the time comes. But that that, that looks a part 839 00:59:58,400 --> 01:00:00,240 of, it's a joint venture with gold, right? 840 01:00:01,600 --> 01:00:08,000 And, and and part of it we own 100% or Discover Co, the company 841 01:00:08,000 --> 01:00:11,880 owns 100% off. In terms of what we're doing at 842 01:00:11,880 --> 01:00:15,440 Eurida, we're exploring there again, it's a joint venture with 843 01:00:15,440 --> 01:00:19,160 Gold right as we've joined ventured back into the land that 844 01:00:19,160 --> 01:00:25,800 DGO had and Discover Co is in the process of earning its 845 01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:29,920 equity in earning back that equity in, in, in that land. 846 01:00:29,920 --> 01:00:37,120 So it's, and we're look, it's people have been exploring for 847 01:00:37,120 --> 01:00:42,440 Degrusa type mineralisation in the Briar and Urina basin since 848 01:00:42,440 --> 01:00:47,920 the 1970s and Degrusa's the only one that's been on and Monty, 849 01:00:47,920 --> 01:00:51,160 which is a sideshow the only one that's been found. 850 01:00:51,160 --> 01:00:54,520 But the, but the geological evidence is strong that 851 01:00:54,520 --> 01:01:00,760 there'll, there'll be others. And we, we've again, we've been 852 01:01:00,760 --> 01:01:06,480 exploring there now for, for several years and we're 853 01:01:06,760 --> 01:01:10,440 encouraged by what we see. We haven't done a lot of 854 01:01:10,440 --> 01:01:14,840 drilling, We haven't done a lot of recent drilling in the area. 855 01:01:14,840 --> 01:01:19,040 So that's, so that's really the next step. 856 01:01:20,440 --> 01:01:25,720 And then the other thing that I do is I invest in, in the 857 01:01:25,720 --> 01:01:33,520 existing ASICS listed explorers and, and with, with, with the 858 01:01:33,520 --> 01:01:40,000 same lens as what we use to, to identify the HEMI prospects. 859 01:01:40,040 --> 01:01:43,440 In other words, investing companies that have land in 860 01:01:43,440 --> 01:01:50,280 scale potentially have owned 100% of the Land Management has 861 01:01:50,280 --> 01:01:57,360 got to be competent and capable. And so we've invested in the 862 01:01:57,360 --> 01:02:04,960 animal resources and and Cal gold and both of those have, you 863 01:02:04,960 --> 01:02:09,280 know, potential for are are improving gold provinces for a 864 01:02:09,280 --> 01:02:14,320 start and have potential to find decent sized discoveries. 865 01:02:17,400 --> 01:02:22,400 Like with with DGOII, you took issue with being referenced as 866 01:02:22,400 --> 01:02:24,560 an exploration company in the past. 867 01:02:24,560 --> 01:02:27,200 And we're like, we're in the business of discovery, not 868 01:02:27,200 --> 01:02:29,440 exploration. So I find it quite, quite 869 01:02:29,440 --> 01:02:32,720 intriguing that the private entity you're dealing with now, 870 01:02:32,720 --> 01:02:34,760 it's called Discover Code. It's in the name, you can't 871 01:02:34,760 --> 01:02:37,000 mistake it. Why do you feel strongly about 872 01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:39,480 the difference of being an exploration company versus a 873 01:02:39,480 --> 01:02:45,680 discovery company? Well, that's it's, it's the same 874 01:02:45,680 --> 01:02:47,760 reason why I don't like the word project. 875 01:02:51,320 --> 01:02:55,400 We're in the business of making discoveries, not exploring. 876 01:02:56,280 --> 01:03:01,480 And and yeah, is that is that being a bit pedantic? 877 01:03:01,480 --> 01:03:08,960 Well, if it is bad luck, because the purpose of drilling holes 878 01:03:11,120 --> 01:03:14,280 is, is not just to go through the process, but is to get, get 879 01:03:14,280 --> 01:03:16,760 an outcome. And yes, you've got to go 880 01:03:16,760 --> 01:03:19,640 through, you've got to go through the process and you 881 01:03:19,640 --> 01:03:23,720 know, all the, all the checks and balances that need to occur, 882 01:03:23,800 --> 01:03:27,240 either they all need to occur. But at the end of the day, 883 01:03:27,240 --> 01:03:31,360 unless, unless we're clear about why we are doing what we're 884 01:03:31,360 --> 01:03:35,160 doing, you know, you, you can lose sight of the fact. 885 01:03:35,280 --> 01:03:39,520 I mean, there are geologists who love doing geology, whether 886 01:03:39,520 --> 01:03:43,120 whether they whether they find something or not, sometimes 887 01:03:43,120 --> 01:03:45,600 there's not. Well, sometimes it's not the 888 01:03:45,600 --> 01:03:47,600 main game. They just like doing geology. 889 01:03:49,360 --> 01:03:54,200 I like being involved in making discoveries and using geological 890 01:03:54,200 --> 01:03:57,520 knowledge to do that. Is that that outcome of the 891 01:03:57,520 --> 01:04:00,680 chase, as you called it before, still as exciting as it was 50 892 01:04:00,720 --> 01:04:01,880 years ago of? Course it is. 893 01:04:02,440 --> 01:04:08,240 It's it's, you know, you know, getting a a, a drill hole result 894 01:04:09,680 --> 01:04:15,360 when that that's even when you do expect it is yeah, when you 895 01:04:15,360 --> 01:04:19,720 actually have it confirmed that this is potentially something 896 01:04:20,120 --> 01:04:26,400 new or something big or or both, you know, that's it is exciting. 897 01:04:26,760 --> 01:04:31,440 I want to I want to tap in a little bit to to how, how things 898 01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:34,280 unfolded with with DGO, you know, by virtue of DG OS 899 01:04:34,680 --> 01:04:38,280 investment in in the grade DG DG OS market cap. 900 01:04:38,280 --> 01:04:42,960 Also it it exploded, always traded at a bit of a a discount 901 01:04:42,960 --> 01:04:45,920 to to NTA. And for that reason, maybe it 902 01:04:45,920 --> 01:04:51,200 was a pretty, pretty obvious entry to pick up a a substantial 903 01:04:51,200 --> 01:04:53,360 stake into the grey. So ultimately how that 904 01:04:53,360 --> 01:04:58,240 culminated is is gold Rd. acquired DGO you're sitting on 905 01:04:58,240 --> 01:05:00,400 the board of the grey around this time. 906 01:05:00,400 --> 01:05:02,640 I'm I think. So how are you kind of 907 01:05:02,720 --> 01:05:06,760 evaluating the, the, the, the lay of the land knowing that 908 01:05:06,760 --> 01:05:10,600 you're, you know, you're sitting on a world class deposit and 909 01:05:10,600 --> 01:05:13,920 it's going to be of interest to, to, to majors and that, you 910 01:05:13,920 --> 01:05:18,160 know, you're also still at DGO, which is, which is going to have 911 01:05:18,160 --> 01:05:19,640 the stake, which is very attractive. 912 01:05:20,720 --> 01:05:25,080 But that, that's an interesting question and that it does raise 913 01:05:25,080 --> 01:05:28,120 the does raise the issue of conflict. 914 01:05:29,520 --> 01:05:36,080 And that's in the end, in the end, what Bruce and I in 915 01:05:36,080 --> 01:05:40,600 particular decided to do was to every time we invested new 916 01:05:40,600 --> 01:05:42,240 money, we're actually investing it. 917 01:05:42,360 --> 01:05:46,160 We're diluting our interest because our, our share price 918 01:05:46,160 --> 01:05:50,600 wasn't reflecting the true value of our, even our holding in, in 919 01:05:50,600 --> 01:05:54,280 the grey. And when, when we started on the 920 01:05:54,280 --> 01:06:00,640 process of selling DGO to gold, then then potential conflict 921 01:06:00,640 --> 01:06:02,440 arise. So it was best for us to step 922 01:06:03,080 --> 01:06:06,920 step down. Yeah, but do you like, do you 923 01:06:06,920 --> 01:06:11,440 remember the emotions in kind of being in the midst of of a, you 924 01:06:11,440 --> 01:06:14,000 know, a pretty, pretty meaningful. 925 01:06:14,520 --> 01:06:16,080 It was different. It's like, yes, you've been 926 01:06:16,080 --> 01:06:18,360 around discoveries before, but there was there was something 927 01:06:18,360 --> 01:06:21,040 different about Degray and the Degray was a pureplay 928 01:06:21,040 --> 01:06:24,960 exploration company with a giant discovery as opposed to being 929 01:06:25,040 --> 01:06:27,080 being in. Yeah, no, I mean, yeah, there 930 01:06:27,080 --> 01:06:34,800 were mixed emotions about about stepping away from it because I 931 01:06:34,800 --> 01:06:38,440 think, you know what I mean, apart from being involved in 932 01:06:38,440 --> 01:06:44,040 exploration in in the exploration phase, also being 933 01:06:44,040 --> 01:06:50,280 involved in in building mines and building villages. 934 01:06:50,280 --> 01:06:56,840 And when you think about that, just for a moment, we actually 935 01:06:56,840 --> 01:07:01,480 built Jandi village 30 kilometres from Luna. 936 01:07:02,480 --> 01:07:07,400 We built the Brunswing village, 40 kilometers from Leinster. 937 01:07:08,200 --> 01:07:12,640 We bought, we built the Sons of Gaulia, this Sons of Gaulia 938 01:07:12,640 --> 01:07:20,280 village in Leonora, right. And, and yet, and there's a, 939 01:07:20,440 --> 01:07:25,600 there's a debate starting now about, about the benefit of the 940 01:07:25,640 --> 01:07:28,480 all stakeholders of mining activity. 941 01:07:29,480 --> 01:07:34,920 But when I think hard about it, if you if you think about our 942 01:07:35,520 --> 01:07:39,480 our British Lioness and the Aboriginal issue that we have, 943 01:07:41,440 --> 01:07:46,360 then you have AFL footballers who are top of their game, 944 01:07:46,480 --> 01:07:47,600 right? Where do they come from? 945 01:07:47,600 --> 01:07:51,840 They usually come from the Wheatbelt towns in WA where they 946 01:07:51,840 --> 01:07:53,880 play football with the local teams. 947 01:07:54,120 --> 01:07:55,680 That's where they get their skills. 948 01:07:56,560 --> 01:08:05,680 And, and yet if we'd actually had the mindset and the 949 01:08:05,680 --> 01:08:09,720 government support and the community support to say build, 950 01:08:11,480 --> 01:08:15,520 build our facility like like they did in the 1960s when BHP 951 01:08:15,520 --> 01:08:19,040 and Rio built, you know, Port Hedland, Parabatou and, and 952 01:08:19,040 --> 01:08:22,080 Mount Newman, etcetera. We'd had that mindset. 953 01:08:22,080 --> 01:08:26,240 You would have been able to establish communities at Leonora 954 01:08:27,680 --> 01:08:33,080 and at Bullena as an example and at Leinster where you had you 955 01:08:33,080 --> 01:08:36,000 could accommodate all aspects of our society. 956 01:08:36,840 --> 01:08:40,240 And then you would have been able to dream a little bit. 957 01:08:40,680 --> 01:08:44,960 You would have been able to have football teams in Waluna and 958 01:08:44,960 --> 01:08:49,399 Leinster and Leonora where the young Aboriginal men could play 959 01:08:49,399 --> 01:08:52,000 the football and the young Aboriginal women would play 960 01:08:52,000 --> 01:08:53,880 netball and you'd have competitions. 961 01:08:54,439 --> 01:08:58,880 And you get, you know, get this community situation happening as 962 01:08:59,000 --> 01:09:02,319 as does happen in the Wheat belt towns, right? 963 01:09:03,160 --> 01:09:09,880 That's never happened. And that's, that's and and the 964 01:09:09,880 --> 01:09:12,880 reason why I raised this is that I've raised this particularly 965 01:09:12,880 --> 01:09:16,319 with with the grey when I was on the board about this same issue 966 01:09:16,840 --> 01:09:19,720 about and it's for them to decide. 967 01:09:19,720 --> 01:09:24,200 But in the end it's only an hour from Port Hedland. 968 01:09:25,399 --> 01:09:27,920 Do is it? Is it really the best in an 969 01:09:27,920 --> 01:09:31,880 overall sense when you've got a 30 year mine to actually have 970 01:09:32,960 --> 01:09:36,160 fly in, fly out from Perth when you've got Port Hedland? 971 01:09:36,439 --> 01:09:40,200 Now it requires a lot of coordination between governments 972 01:09:40,200 --> 01:09:44,000 and companies and communities for these two things to work. 973 01:09:44,000 --> 01:09:46,960 But if you don't even start on it, it's not going to happen. 974 01:09:47,720 --> 01:09:51,439 So yeah. With that all said, you, you've 975 01:09:51,439 --> 01:09:54,080 made an active decision through your career to, to focus on 976 01:09:54,080 --> 01:09:57,520 Australia, to focus on Western and Australia in particular. 977 01:09:57,520 --> 01:10:01,360 So you clearly think the the opportunity set that we have 978 01:10:01,360 --> 01:10:06,440 here sits above the the pack. Well, they do in that clearly. 979 01:10:06,800 --> 01:10:12,160 I mean, Australia, 85% of the rocks that host the, the large 980 01:10:12,160 --> 01:10:17,160 deposits are undercover. So modern day exploration is 981 01:10:17,160 --> 01:10:21,560 only just starting to unpack, unpack that in, in my view, 982 01:10:23,200 --> 01:10:27,360 obviously the infrastructure in Australia in many places is, is, 983 01:10:27,880 --> 01:10:30,920 is supportive of any potential mine development. 984 01:10:32,160 --> 01:10:37,200 The the regulatory environment, whether it's whether it's 985 01:10:37,920 --> 01:10:41,160 environmental or whether it's the traditional owners or 986 01:10:41,160 --> 01:10:45,160 whether it's with conflict of land use between farmers and, 987 01:10:45,160 --> 01:10:47,440 and miners. All of that's pretty well 988 01:10:47,440 --> 01:10:51,520 understood. And yes, it can be bureaucratic 989 01:10:51,520 --> 01:10:54,680 and it can be slow, but there usually is an answer. 990 01:10:55,960 --> 01:11:00,600 And OK, you go to Africa where you can walk up to a mine, 991 01:11:01,680 --> 01:11:07,040 Australian technology will show you where you have to drill, but 992 01:11:07,040 --> 01:11:11,480 then you have the sovereign risk and that sovereign risk keeps 993 01:11:11,480 --> 01:11:17,200 playing out to the disadvantage of, you know, of shareholders, 994 01:11:17,200 --> 01:11:22,040 Australian shareholders anyway. Let's to to our great advantage, 995 01:11:22,040 --> 01:11:25,000 Ed, that you've spent your career exploring in in Australia 996 01:11:25,000 --> 01:11:28,200 and discovering, and let's hope there's a a few more discoveries 997 01:11:28,280 --> 01:11:30,600 left in future. Thanks a lot for joining us and 998 01:11:30,960 --> 01:11:33,560 sharing all your your stories and thoughts and perspectives. 999 01:11:34,200 --> 01:11:36,840 Well, thank you. There we go mate, another 1000 01:11:36,920 --> 01:11:40,000 fantastic bit of insights, all made possible thanks to our 1001 01:11:40,000 --> 01:11:43,400 fantastic partners Sand at Ground Support Focus the 1002 01:11:43,400 --> 01:11:45,680 platform by market tech. Check it out now and get your 1003 01:11:45,680 --> 01:11:50,360 tickets to iMac October 21 to October 23 investors go free. 1004 01:11:52,640 --> 01:11:55,480 Now remember, I'm an idiot. JD is an idiot. 1005 01:11:55,800 --> 01:11:57,880 If you thought any of this was anything other than 1006 01:11:57,880 --> 01:12:00,560 entertainment, you're an idiot and you need to read out a 1007 01:12:00,560 --> 01:12:01,080 disclaimer.