Transcription of Finance News Network Interview with Coppermoly Limited (ASX:COY) Managing Director, Peter Swiridiuk
Rebecca Richardson: Hello, Rebecca Richardson for the Finance News Network. Joining me from PNG copper gold explorer Coppermoly (ASX:COY) is Managing Director, Peter Swiridiuk. Peter welcome back.
Peter Swiridiuk: Thank-you Rebecca.
Rebecca Richardson: Starting with your projects in New Britain, what’s the latest from your joint venture partner Barrick Exploration?
Peter Swiridiuk: Barrick are busy with two drill rigs onsite. They’ve been busy doing 1,000 metre drill holes at our Simuku project and it takes a lot longer to drill 1,000 metre holes, so results take longer to get released and compiled. So we’ve recently compiled results from two drill holes at Simuku and they’ve finished the drilling at the Nakru project. And they’re now testing drilling at the Kulu project within that Simuku tenement. So progress is going quite well.
Rebecca Richardson: You mentioned Nakru-1, how much drilling’s taken place and at what depth?
Peter Swiridiuk: Most of the drilling has been done to around 400 metres or less and there’s been, I think, about close to 7,000 metres of drilling to date. And Barrick have been quite active drilling at Nakru-1 last year and this year, and they did one hole at Nakru-2. So we’re in the process now of compiling that data and will be releasing that to the market quite shortly.
Rebecca Richardson: What do the assays reveal?
Peter Swiridiuk: Well so far, all the drilling has shown that the copper seems to be related almost perfectly with that geophysical target, that induced polarisation geophysical target. When Barrick step out to try tests for larger tonnage potential outside that target, they don’t seem to get very good grades, but they still get that. So you know there’s some hints that there’s a system nearby. So far within the confines of drilling, you’ve got an exploration target of 50 to 60 million tonnes of 0.7 to 0.9 per cent copper. What we would like to do next year, either with Barrick or without Barrick, is to test the other half of that geophysical anomaly because that could easily double our exploration target.
Rebecca Richardson: What’s happened at Simuku?
Peter Swiridiuk: This year Barrick have done deep diamond hole drilling down to 1,000 metres. Now that 1,000 metres is over 500 metres deeper than our existing Inferred Resource of 200 million tonnes at 0.47 per cent copper equivalent. So that really opens up a large body of mineralisation because they got over 1,000 metres at 0.25/0.24 per cent copper. So within that larger now target, tonnage potential target, there really are sweet spots in there that need further drill testing, and there are some more results to be released. But we have released recently the results from the last two drill holes, which basically show - yeah it is a very, very large system.
Rebecca Richardson: Now Barrick Exploration has spent $18 million of their $20 million commitment to the projects. What’s going to happen when they spend all of the $20 million and when’s a decision expected from them?
Peter Swiridiuk: Probably by the end of this year they would have spent $20 million on about 10 kilometres of drilling on all the three projects at Nakru and Simuku. When that is reached, the agreement says we form a joint venture, so two of our people will be on the joint venture committee.
And basically what Barrick are wanting to do now, is look at the results from all the drilling that will be completed by the end of December, and make a decision on what they want to do next. And that will probably happen by I’d say, the end of February. So it will be interesting times for our shareholders.
Rebecca Richardson: Now what size deposit would they require to proceed?
Peter Swiridiuk: They’re always after large tonnage systems. You know, systems that require capital expenditures, start-up capital expenditures of over half a billion dollars. And you know, their target range for deposits is well into the many hundreds of millions of tonnes, and certainly you have that at Simuku.
What well may affect their decision is how our projects stack up against other deals that they’re doing around the world, other joint ventures they’re doing around the world. So there’s no hard and fast answer as to what they would want to do next, but we certainly want to do more drilling next year in certain areas.
Rebecca Richardson: You’ve got three tenements under application on New Britain Island. Can you tell me about these tenements?
Peter Swiridiuk: Yeah, these tenements are not part of the agreement with Barrick, but they do cover roughly 10 times the area of the tenements under that Barrick application. Recently the entire island, basically most of the island, about 90 per cent, is now covered with tenements from various companies. We have one application that’s been there for about two years since the Warden’s Hearing and we expect that to be granted soon. The MRA have recently had a week-long session to try and clear out renewals and applications, so we hope ours was in that. And that’s near a goldmine up in east New Britain. Our other applications are just south of Nakru where we got over 10 per cent in copper in rock float samples. So given this new Nakru system has been defined in the last two years, we expect that there may well be more of these systems nearby within those application areas.
Rebecca Richardson: Could you prospectively have any of these tenements approved by the end of the year?
Peter Swiridiuk: Given that the MRA only had their meeting a week before last and they’ll be closing down soon for Christmas, I would expect the Nakru tenement to be renewed and the Powell tenement, and possibly the Makmak - one of the other tenements, approved early next year. There is a third tenement that will probably take longer, but that’s OK the most important ones should be approved early next year.
Rebecca Richardson: Now you’ve signed an agreement with ActivEX to farm-in the Esk Trough in south east Queensland. How much have you invested and what’s your stake?
Peter Swiridiuk: At the moment we haven’t invested anything. We were up onsite recently having a look around and excellent location, only four hours’ drive from Brisbane, and significant copper grades and gold grades, that need to be tested and evaluated further with drilling.
So what we want to do while we’re waiting for our tenement applications to be granted, and while we wait to see what Barrick are doing, is to test some of these areas where we know there’s copper mineralisation. And expand outwards to see what tonnage potential there is, because now the grades are quite good and in an excellent location. It’s only within half an hour’s drive of an existing town at Goomeri. So all our projects in Papua New Guinea and here in Queensland are excellent in terms of access. So what we want to do is spend up to $0.5 million next year and most of that will be on drilling. So to ensure that continuity of information, see if we can find another deposit.
Rebecca Richardson: What attracted Coppermoly to the project?
Peter Swiridiuk: Basically its access as mentioned first, its prospectivity. It had been looked at by a number of other large companies, as had Nakru system and it’d taken 30 years before we actually hit it. It had some existing drilling and a lot of that drilling wasn’t too deep and it’s got some secondary enrichment of copper, one to two per cent near surface. And being so close to a major capital city and port, we think with our expertise and in-house expertise, with some more drilling we could quickly find out if there are sizeable targets there.
Rebecca Richardson: Now Peter, what’s your main goal for the New Year?
Peter Swiridiuk: With these new ideas and projects and new people coming on board there’s been slight board changes, there’s been new invigoration brought into the board. Investors want to see innovation, and we have implemented that innovation and we’re looking forward to seeing the fruits of our work. And for three years now, every year we’ve been doing drilling, and we’ll continue to be doing drilling next year. We’re excited about what Barrick will do in the immediate next few months and we’re looking forward to improving these projects.
Rebecca Richardson: Peter Swiridiuk thanks for joining us.
Peter Swiridiuk: Okay Rebecca thanks.
Ends
COY Price at posting:
4.9¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
