News: MIL moving to define JORC resource

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Transcription of Finance News Network Interview with MIL Resources Limited (ASX:MGK) CEO, Mike Palmer



Lelde Smits: Hello I’m Lelde Smits for the Finance News Network and joining me today at the Resources and Energy Symposium in Broken Hill, is CEO of mineral explorer MIL Resources (ASX:MGK) Mike Palmer. Mike welcome.



Mike Palmer: Thank you.



Lelde Smits: Could you start by introducing MIL Resources and outlining your corporate strategy?



Mike Palmer: MIL is a listed company; it’s been around for more than 20 years. The name MIL actually comes from Magnesium International Limited. It was a company that 10 years ago was focused on the new metal at that stage, which was magnesium. That turned out not to be successful and over the last two years, a number of tenements and opportunities in Papua New Guinea have been farmed into the Company. And it’s those opportunities that we are now pursuing. The strategy for the Company is to assess all that portfolio of opportunities, determine which ones we need to focus on immediately and which ones, we can look for other investment from outside the Company.



Lelde Smits: And you’re just about to change names. Could you tell us what your new name will be and why you chose it?



Mike Palmer: The Company has been tied through that MIL name to the magnesium industry for some time, which is now not relevant; we’re in the process of selling all those tenements. The new name is Foyson Resources. Foyson is an old English word meaning abundant harvest and we thought that that was an appropriate name for a company with many, many resources in New Guinea.



Lelde Smits: As you mentioned, your primary focus is Papua New Guinea. Why choose PNG and what’s your footprint in the country?



Mike Palmer: PNG is very much a country that’s embraced the mining industry. A large part of the GDP is generated from the mining industry. Politically it supports mining - very important to deal with the local land owners and have their support with mining projects, but we’ve been able to that successfully to date. Our footprint where Amazon Bay project is to the southeast of Port Moresby, about 200 kilometres and our gold and copper tenements are primarily on New Ireland and New Britain, which are the two islands in the northern part of the New Guinea Archipelago.



Lelde Smits: Let’s look closer at your most advanced asset, the Amazon Bay iron sands project. When did you acquire it and what’s your stake in it now?



Mike Palmer: Amazon Bay was acquired about four years ago and the Company was earning an interest in that up to 90 per cent. We’ve recently concluded an arrangement, where our 50 per cent current ownership is being added to by an option over the other 50 per cent of the project. So when we’re talking to potential investors-offtaker of the product, we can talk on behalf of 100 per cent of the project. So that’s a very important step forward in terms of being able to deal with investors.



Lelde Smits: What does it contain and at what stage is the project?



Mike Palmer: So it’s an iron sands project, essentially a weathered magnetite, so it contains iron, vanadium and titanium, three very valuable products all used in steel manufacture. The status of the project at the moment is that we’re just moving into a large drilling program to define a JORC resource there. And that’ll be completed by the end of this year.



Lelde Smits: And what progress have you made in securing partners for the project’s development?



Mike Palmer: It’s early days in terms of that process; I’ve only been at the Company a few weeks. But we’ve instigated talks with a number of very interested Chinese investors in particular, who are both interested in the project and interested in the offtake from the project. So it’ll be a process which I think we’ll work on over the next six to 12 months, as to find the right partners to work with us on the project.



Lelde Smits: So what will be Amazon Bay’s next key milestone?



Mike Palmer: The next key milestone at Amazon Bay will be the JORC resource, which we’ll have by Christmas time this year. Now we’re drilling out the Threadfin area where we believe there’s over six million tonnes of iron sands, and we hope to have all of that in a JORC resource by Christmas of this year.



Lelde Smits: Now Mike, you also have a number of wholly owned projects across PNG. Could you detail the highlights and plans for each?



Mike Palmer: MIL has an exceptional portfolio of gold and copper tenements, particularly on New Britain and New Ireland, and the three islands to the north of New Ireland which are on the same geological structure as Lihir. The islands are epithermal projects where on the mainland of New Ireland and New Britain, they’re porphyry copper projects. So they’ve all had some exploration done in the past by majors, who left New Guinea in the Eighties when it became independent from Australia.



Lelde Smits: Finally Mike. Where would you like to see the Company by year’s end?



Mike Palmer: By the end of the year, we hope to have a JORC resource defined at Amazon Bay and also a potential investor defined, and working with us on advancing that project. And we also hope to have one or two of the gold/copper tenements on New Britain or New Ireland farmed out to a major resources company. So that’ll help us move closer to being a producer rather than an explorer.



Lelde Smits: Mike Palmer, thanks for introducing us to the Company.



Ends