Some takeaways below that I got of Paul’s interview with Trevor Hall. Please hear the entire interview for better context as also some points could be incorrect below -
What we often see in former Yugoslav republics is that they originally often tested only for base metals as that is what they were looking for. We identified straight away that there is huge amount of silver and gold.
Recent drilling shows very strong precious metals component
Drilled 20,000 metres since scoping study. Very close to putting out whole raft of drill hole results. Updated resource and PFS end of September
Things getting back to normal (with regards to covid)
Silver and gold more than half our revenue. Silver biggest contributor to revenue. Zinc, lead and copper taking bit of backseat. Zinc prices coming up nicely as well. Balance is there between precious and base but leaning towards precious right now
With regards to peer review, we are high grade silver project. When zinc, lead, gold, copper factored and converted to silver equivalent, then very high grade silver project. We don’t trade at multiples of pure silver companies (they aren’t pure silver but market themselves as such). Happy to market ourselves as what we are - as polymetallic with silver dominant with gold, lead, copper, zinc, barite
Met work done by Graham hill on PFS has been maximizing the value of precious metals including higher recovery of gold and additional payabality of gold resources.
Working on first draft of PFS later this month. PFS should be end of September
Based on drilling results, there should be reasonable expansion of resource
Scoping study and PFS similar but addional tonnes and slightly lower costs
Updated resource only Rupice as Rupice is main high grade project. Veovaca is for longer mine life at end of Rupice
Throughput similar to scoping study roughly 800,000 tonnes per year
Dont want to prempt updated mineral resource estimate but safe to assume reasonable increase in tonnage
Vares project very large cash free cash in early years.
Strategy was to look for projects in Balkans with some exploration done and not fully greenfield, but similar characteristics like not drilled deep enough, not assayed for precious metals, not drilled as extensively, etc. Tethyan ticked boxes.
Tetyan needed 2 core licenses of Kizevak and Sastavci to bring together whole package. After done, we went and agreed on deal
Confirmation drilling is complete and results coming shortly. We are pleased. We think large scale open pit project with very clean metallurgy and very low cost. Area has great infrastructure.
Synergy of our team from Bosnia who can go to Serbia after building Vares to build Kizevak
Tethyan is first of several opportunities we are looking at in Balkans, and same team can be used again.
Trevor Hall – Rupice looking to be a monster
Kizevak not as high grade as Rupice but shallow and pristine metallurgy. Know from historical results that good grade lead and zinc, silver and little gold as well.
2 very clean and marketable concentrates at low cost Mining cost below $2 per tonne at similar project at Montenegro. So good margin. Got to prove with drill bit that there is going to be scale. Ultimately, we’ll see this as larger project.
New shareholders from Tethyan – think we’ll see some large ones involved. Richard Warke sees value of combination of 2 companies. Richard has strong track record in seeing value. Tethyan projects potential not even scratched yet.
Asset like Rupice draws attention. Polite discussions with number of groups. They came and had deeper look at assets. Very clear that we can take this forward and build on our own. We have low capex, cash flow profile and don’t want to give it too early or through poor financing structures. Making equity go as far as we can. Detailed discussions on financing.
Opportunities for JV as we pick up new land, etc. but core Rupice asset does not require 3rd party to build. We can do on our own.
Frugal with cash. Saved 2 million GBP as at end of June by using in- country experts. No need for capital raise and no need to rush. We have 9 milion GBP. Get offered money all the time but want to protect shareholders (from poor capital raises). Delivering message to instos that we have liquidity and they can buy on market instead of waiting for capital raises that might not be needed.
Lot of news flow in coming months which should be interesting.
ADT Price at posting:
$2.53 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)