Clive Tompkins: Hello Clive Tompkins reporting for the Finance News Network. Joining me for the first time from GBM Resources is managing director Peter Thompson. Peter welcome to FNN. Can you start by introducing the company, how long have you been going? What do you do? And when did you list?
Peter Thompson: GBM Resources is an exploration company and we listed in October 07, and we’ve been operating for about 16 – 17 months. We focused on targeting gold and copper gold deposit’s, we have a three member board of the disciplines of banking and corporate finance, geology and business development. We don’t have a head office, we have an exploration office and we outsource our accounting and public company requirements. Our strategy is, like all exploration companies, that new discovery. That can be commercially developed – that’s our key strategy. And that’s the exchange in value for an exploration company.
Clive Tompkins: The last six months has seen an unraveling of the mining boom, what affect has this had on your plans?
Peter Thompson: Fundamentally our exploration strategy hasn’t changed. We have implemented cost savings, $400,000 annually, and that has come in at January this year in response. We’re looking at ways to project enhance from field work, low cost field work. I guess the key impact for exploration companies, and certainly us, is that the value add to your project is not recognized because there’s no cash, there’s no liquidity in your stock, so the value add is not recognised. So very tough to improve your market capitalisation.
Clive Tompkins: Ok, so how much cash do you have left, what’s your burn rate, and will you need to tap the market later this year?
Peter Thompson: Clive, our current cash balance is about $1.2 million in the bank. Our exploration is fully funded for this year. Like all exploration companies we’re looking at opportunities in the equity market, monitor those. We see joint venture partners as a key source of backing and funding, and we’re also looking corporately at what we can do corporately. So to answer your question, we’re looking at opportunities on a daily, monthly basis, and we will probably look to tap the market sometime in the next 12 months.
Clive Tompkins: Turning to your projects now, where are your tenements?
Peter Thompson: Our sweep of tenements on the east coast. We’re in central Victoria, our lead gold project Malmsbury is in central Victoria. Our next sweep of tenements we acquired last year is the copper gold in the Mount Isa region, which is a prolific metal producer. We also have a consolidation of tenements around Mount Morgan, which is just outside Rockhampton in Queensland. And our fourth of projects is Alize and Mount Stavely in Western Victoria, which is copper gold. Our key focus, certainly in the next 12 months, is on Mount Isa and specifically the Brightlands project. The Brightlands project has a multiple of targets, copper gold targets. It hasn’t been drilled. It lies a little bit west of Cloncurry, the project is in the same structural zone as Cudeco’s Rocklands copper discovery. There’s a number of targets on Brightlands, and just to give you an example of some of the targets, we have the Tiger prospect, which chip samples come back over 2 grams a tonne and 70 per cent copper. We have The Range prospect that sits in the Brightlands, that’s come back between half and 21 grams a tonne on rock chip samples, and it also has - of the 50 samples taken - half of those have come back with 50 per cent copper. Now we have recently been up on a prospect and focused on our Milo prospect. Milo is very heavily altered. We think it (has the) potential for a very large copper gold deposit. We have completed a soil sampling program there, there were 300 samples taken, and we will have that information back in a few weeks time. But they are just a couple of the key prospects on the Brightlands. It’s divided by the Barkley Highway and it’s near the Cloncurry township. We think the Brightlands project is potentially a company maker. The next key target is the Malmsbury gold target, we have 104,000 ounces. The Malmsbury gold project, it’s very similar to the Phosphul project. We have mineralization, gold mineralization over four kilometers. We drilled a target last year. We have 104,000 ounces, that is 800,000 tonnes grading four grams with a cut off at two and a half grams. And we are really excited about this project, we think it’s a major gold discovery that’s happening. Potentially it’s a million ounce type deposit, or over a million ounces, and there hasn’t been a new gold discovery in that order in the last 10 years. And our third focus is the Phosphate discovery that we recently announced. Again it’s a sweep of tenements in the Mount Isa region that we acquired last year. Phosphate’s not our main target, but these three projects lie in the Beetle formation, so we went up there last year on the Bungalien tenement, soil sample got over 10 per cent. Went back before the wet season drilled 1000 meters and we got results of two holes greater than 22 per cent, and these are a kilometer apart, another five holes greater than 10 per cent. And the Bungalien project it lies with Rowlan Road corridor, so certainly we have added value, again it’s not our main focus, and we will look later in this year for a joint venture partner to continually develop that project.
Clive Tompkins: And have you had any interest from potential partners?
Peter Thompson: We’re at the stage that where our projects, our key projects, at a level of project readiness. That will meet the parameters of potential joint venture parties and also project investors that like to leverage their position, and get into commodities that they think have a growth future. And certainly we are starting that process now.
Clive Tompkins: And last question, what makes GBM Resources different from other junior explorers?
Peter Thompson: We have excellent prospects in gold and copper and those two commodities are key growth assets in the next 10 years for Australia.For Australia to keep its market position in copper it needs to double its production in the next 10 years. To keep its market position in gold production it needs to increase it by 30 per cent. So we think we’ve got the right commodity, in the right location. And certainly the work we have done over the last six months demonstrates that we are on the way to a new discovery.
Clive Tompkins: Peter Thompson thanks for coming in and introducing GBM Resources, we look forward to an update later in the year.
Peter Thompson: Thanks Clive, I appreciate it, and appreciate the opportunity to get my story out there. Thank you.
