just came across this article, praises our MD and really makes...

just came across this article, praises our MD and really makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside.. haha

also a heads up if you haven't found it may want to join minesite.com its free and some interesting and usefull info on a spread of companies.

best of luck
Davo

heres the article; sorry its rather large but well worth the read.



Apex Scavenges It’s Way To Fame And Fortune


By Our Man In Oz



Mark Ashley probably doesn’t see himself as a scavenger, partly because there’s something offensive about the word. But, dig a little deeper and you will find that scavenging is what he does best. First, there is his history as a key-man in Kagara Zinc, a remarkably successful base metals business built on the discards of others. Today there’s Apex Minerals, an emerging goldmining business, also being built on discards. Oxiana, one of the mining world’s great success stories of the past decade, is another example of the value that can be created by acquiring cast-offs, and adding value through astute spending on exploration, and by riding the wave of demand for minerals in Asia. The ironic aspect to making a comparison between Apex and Oxiana is that the latest acquisition by Apex is from the great scavenger itself, Oxiana.

The Wiluna goldfield in central Western Australia was sold to Apex by Oxiana in June after it decided to focus on other assets which came with its purchase of Agincourt Resources. For Apex it was the fourth “scavenging” deal in as many months, and probably the best so far in a curious management policy of deliberately seeking out difficult gold projects that have befuddled others. The first three involved the purchase of gold assets rich in refractory-grade ore, stuff that requires expensive and/or polluting processes such as roasting to drive off high levels of sulphur. An alternative to roasting is biological oxidation (biox), but that also can be somewhat tricky, and has never been a favourite in Australia.

Undeterred by the past problems of other owners, Ashley restructured Apex earlier this year with the acquisition of the Gidgee project from Legend Mining, the Youanmi project from Canadian-based Goldcrest, and the Aphrodite project from Barrick Gold. All are in the “goldfields” region of Western Australia. The plan was “marry” the assortment of acquired gold processing equipment at the three different plants into a central facility. Ore would be trucked in, and blended. That core theme remains intact, but the size of the Wiluna operation and its re-development potential, has brought about a change of strategy. The main game now, possible because Oxiana closed Wiluna at the point of sale, is to throw as much effort as possible to build a three-to-five year reserve position before re-starting operations.

“We certainly didn’t want to operate on the hand-to-mouth basis that had existed at Wiluna in recent years,” Ashley told Minesite. “We need to build our reserve and resource base before re-starting, and then have the time and cash to step out with exploration on what is still highly prospective ground.” In many ways, that’s how Kagara evolved with a slow start at the Mt Garnet zinc project in north Queensland before expanding into copper and gold production, and now by using the cashflow from those starter mines to drill-out an old, but potentially massive deep zinc discovery sold to Kagara by Rio Tinto.

Following the human connections at Apex is almost as important as following the assets. Ashley remains a non-executive director at Kagara, and has been joined at Apex by Kim Robinson, who chairs both companies. At Kagara, Robinson is an executive as well as chairman. At Apex, Robinson is non-executive chairman. But, there’s another human chain to follow, and that one leads to LionOre, the very successful nickel miner gobbled up by Russia’s Norilsk Nickel earlier this year. Ashley and Robinson were also once senior LionOre men, as were many of the staff now working at Apex. In some ways, Apex has become a magnet for ex-LionOre people, though Ashley says that’s not a reflection on Norilsk gaining control. Perhaps, is the polite retort to that claim.

Whatever the reason for job swapping, and there is an awful lot of it in the hot-house environment which is Australian mining at the moment, there is little doubt that Apex is doing more than acquiring old gold assets. It is also assembling a team of seasoned professionals to make those assets perform. The latest drilling from Wiluna indicates that the combination is delivering the goods with excellent results from a number of locations. The Burgundy structure at Wiluna has returned 16.4 metres at 8.1 grams a tonne of gold, Calais has returned 5.5 metres and 6.7 g/t, and Henry 5 has produced a best assay of 13.4 metres at 13.7 g/t. Each of those results underlines the fact that the Wiluna property remains one of the better gold assets in Australia – but lacks the extensive drilling required to keep the miners ahead of the processing plant.

“The drilling at Wiluna has exceeded our expectations,” Ashley said. “We’re continuing to drill as quickly as possible and we’re continuing to find new zones of mineralisation. We’ve probably got four-or-five zones that we’ve outlined to date and we’re now infilling those.” Ashley said there were also a number of prospects that would be drilled soon. “The drilling is in a relatively small area,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is maximise the number of resource ounces within reach of development.”

Ashley said the results of the current drilling programme would be a first step towards calculating a new resource for Wiluna, and at a second orebody called Wilsons which is scheduled to provide feed to the central processing plant. “Most of the drilling we’re doing is coming up with much higher grade, and at a wider width than we expected,” he said. “That’s certainly a pointer to delivering a better result than when we acquired the asset.” Does that mean shareholders can expected a better-than-expected upgrade in the resource, asks Minesite – a question which jumps the gun somewhat? “From the information we have I would contemplate an upgrade,” is Ashley’s circumspect answer.

“We have a target of getting five years of reserve before we get back into production,” he said. “We expect to be back in production in early 2009. Looking back from that time, we expect to start commissioning the plant about this time next year. And working back even further we should be able to make a development decision about April/May of next year.” Ashley said it was unlikely that the timetable would change, but getting the reserve number was important for mine planning.

In effect, Apex has become the circuit-breaker at Wiluna which has had a series of owners over the past 20 years. “That wasn’t our initial intention,” Ashley said to the circuit-breaker observation. “The prime objective when we started was to marry the high-grade Wiluna underground ore, with high-grade Wilson, with high-grade Youanmi, and bring those three together in one plant. What we’re now seeing is that there’s a lot of unfinished business at Wiluna. That’s what has resulted in our objective being to get that five years of reserve, get back into production at 200,000 ounces a year, and then continue our regional exploration to upgrade the plant at a later date.”