Probably 200 people at the Sydney Mining lunch today. What I took from Ron’s commentary as he was presenting slides. Most of these comments were NOT on the slides:
·All employees at Hillgrove will be shareholders (the performance rights mentioned on the slide).
·A solar panel typically has $2.50 worth of Antimony in it, so if the price of Antimony increases, it’s not a massive increase to the panel. Compared with say Lithium, where 60% of an EV relates to the cost of Lithium.
·New law in UK and some other countries where if a building higher than 5 stories has cladding, it must contain Antimony for fire retardation.
·The replacement value of the Hillgrove infrastructure, including underground, isA$300m.
·In1904 the English Cricket team toured underground at Hillgrove
·The decision to shift from the wet tailings to dry stack caused about 2 weeks extra engineering and has been the cause of the delay to the DFS. Then with April having Easter/Anzac Day close together (most people taking that whole week off), then the DFS may drop just before Easter or just after Anzac Day.
·The capital cost of the dry tailings approach is practically identical to the wet approach.
oIt allows rehabilitation as you mine and gives a reduced requirement for an environmental bond.
oThe dry approach requires the same capital, but spent earlier in the program compared to the wet approach.
·Finance discussion for extending plant and further exploration etc is wellunderway.7 of the top 10 financiers in this space are in the data room. The required amount is lower than these financiers would usually get involved in, but they’d like to be involved in financing a rare earth project
oThey already have term sheets. Equity raising not in the plan.
oWithoutconfirming, sounded like they were going for $100m in finance.
·Thestockpile will be prepared in parallel with the plant build/extension, so thatthey can get straight to production when plant is ready.
·Nogold offtake set up yet, but that will be easy enough when required.
·Agreementwith Wogen for Antimony offtake is 7 years.
·Willrun an aggressive exploration program at same time as mining.
·Thereare really 3 layers to the depth of drilling/mining.The focus to date (and historically in most Antimony geology) has been on the combined Antimony/Gold layer “in the middle”.But there is typically higher-grade Antimony at shallower depth and typically higher grade gold at deeper depth.
·Previouslyno one was really interested in Antimony only, so there is thought to be “lowhanging fruit” of Antimony at shallower depth, which should be easier to get atthan lower depths.This has typically been the case in Chinese mines, and Ron suspects that most of the Chinese supply has been from shallow depths, and therefore may now be on the way to depletion in China.
·Therewill also be “huge upside” to drill deeper (for the gold).They haven’t drilled anywhere near the depths of Southern Cross Gold (ASX:SX2) in Victoria, who have had some very good results. (A representative from SX2 was in the room).
·Thedrill results from the last 30 years ARE being taken into account.
·LRVacquired $10m value of farm land when they bought the RVR holding for $3m (plusthe $5m bond).
·Currently4 drill rigs on site.1 more to come. Going to spend $4m per month drilling, with 35 people in those teams combined.
·Realisticallyonly 3 months into the drilling program.Ron alluded to hits of 100g/t and 180g/t in the past weeks without going into detail.
·LRVwill be the 8th largest Antimony producer in the world, but probablybetter than that, given suspicion of Chinese depletion.
·Iasked 2 questions.
oWhat’sgoing on with the 3 other sites (Mt Isa, WA/Norseman area, NZ) if anything, orare they now on the back-burner
§Mt Isa
·It’sa swimming pool up there at the moment, and therefore probably better to have undergroundapproach rather than open-cut.
·Butthere is definitely something that will proceed up there in the near term, andvery exciting.
§The WA/Norseman area site
·Veryinteresting, more of a slow burn (say 18 months), but definitely some news tocome from there.
·Alsolooking at some new technology to assess site potential.
§NZ
·Ronsays he is between 2 million and 5 million years too early for this site.I assume it will be mothballed/divested.
oWhatdo you reckon the mine life will be?20, 30, 40 years?
§Ron and the Chairman looked at eachother, big smile -> definitely at least 20 years.I got the feeling way more than 20 years.
·TheAntimony is Wogen’s problem once it leaves the front date.The gold is more likely needed to be transported by LRV arrangement to wherever it gets processed.
·Aquestion was asked about Tungsten at Hillgrove.“Stay tuned.We can’t discuss”.Sounded like imminent news.
·Reexisting Tailings dam, historically it was not well planned/constructed.Comment from a recent EPA officer visit -> “Best thing is for you guys to get back into production asap”.
oThereis 1.6g/t of gold in the dam, so LRV will make money while also fixing anenvironmental problem.Win/Win.
·ReAntimony processing (smelting), China is the king of processing.USA has 2 small smelters.
·USArequires 40% of all global annual production.
·Inrecent days/weeks they have met with various NSW ministers.No roadblocks forecast.
·CarolineKennedy (when she was US Ambassador) was interested in what LRV was going to dowith their Antimony, as was Kevin Rudd.Both reached out to speak with Ron.
·Supportfrom Liberal Senator (SA) David Fawcett who spoke in the Senate about LRV andhas been to the Pentagon to push the case.He’s ex-military and ex Scientist and “gets it”.
·Moneyin bank – slide says $28m.Ron said closer to $35m.
The grogand silver service meal was also top notch
(20min delay)