News: Indochine unlocking Mt Kare opportunity , page-2

Interesting interview. Perhaps my memory is fauly, but I had thought development progress might be a little faster...:

(Partial) Transcription of Finance News Network Interview with Indochine Mining Limited (ASX:IDC) CEO, Stephen Promnitz
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Stephen Promnitz: Well it’s going to be a fairly standard bankable feasibility study; we hope to get the first draft out perhaps by towards the year end and the full bankable feasibility study, by the end of the first half of next year, or thereabouts. It’s going to be fairly standard, we’ll focus on all the key things, but the idea of getting a bankable feasibility study is really for two things. One, we can trigger the application for mining leases. Two, we can lock in an agreement with the government, with local people. And three, we can also then look at how we could finance the project as well.
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Stephen Promnitz: Well the key plan that we have to deliver is this bankable feasibility study in the first half of 2014. That’s so that we can get mining leases approved, we get our environmental permits as well because we’re putting through an environmental impact study. That’s a key thing; you can’t do any mining until you have a mining lease approved. As soon as that occurs, presumably at the same time, we will be discussing financing issues and how to put that together; actually construct the mine and then, you know somewhere in 2015. We’re not absolutely certain when that timing would be; perhaps it’s going to be mid-2015, perhaps a little bit later. But that’ll depend a little bit on some of the outcomes of the feasibility study.
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Lelde Smits: So Stephen as you move into production, could you talk us through your funding model?

Stephen Promnitz: We’ve actually had a fairly long list of investment banks and major financiers come and talk to us about it. And we’re quite happy to enter into preliminary discussions, make sure that they’re comfortable with lending in Papua New Guinea and make sure that they’re looking at this style of project. But the flip side is its early days and we won’t really be able to crystalize any of those discussions, until we complete a bankable feasibility study.
But reasonably, we would expect that we’re going to see a balance of equity debt, perhaps something in between. Our prefeasibility study indicated about $200 million to construct this mine, maybe a little bit more. And I think given our market cap and the interest we’ve had to date, that’s probably entirely reasonable, even in this current market.

Lelde Smits: Finally Stephen, what are the major milestones Indochine Mining will be aiming to reach this year, and what should investors be keeping an eye on?

Stephen Promnitz: Well in the short term, we expect to be putting out more results about bonanza zone drilling. Then we’ll incorporate that into a new resource model, hopefully that new resource model will be out somewhere around June this year. We’ll be kicking off our bankable feasibility study as well, so there should continue to be more drill results, some of the outcomes there. We’ll complete final study with our land owners, probably around midyear and then perhaps, the first draft of our feasibility study internally come year-end.