Transcription of Finance News Network Interview with Thundelarra Limited (ASX:THX) CEO, Tony Lofthouse Clive Tompkins:Hello I’m Clive Tompkins for the Finance News Network. Joining me from junior explorer Thundelarra Limited
(ASX:THX) is CEO, Tony Lofthouse. Tony, welcome back.
Tony Lofthouse: Thanks Clive, good to be here.
Clive Tompkins: First up, can you start with an introduction to Thundelarra?
Tony Lofthouse: Thundelarra is an exploration company with a focus on copper and gold in Australia, predominantly Western Australia. We currently have a market cap in the order of $16-17 million and have $2 million cash in the bank, at the end of March.
Clive Tompkins: Now to your Red Bore copper-gold project. Can you give us a quick recap?
Tony Lofthouse: The beauty of Red Bore is its proximity to Doolgunna, to the DeGrussa mine for Sandfire Resources NL
(ASX:SFR). We’re about 1,500 hundred metres away from the DeGrussa plant. So anything we find on the Red Bore tenement will end up going through the Sandfire plant eventually.Red Bore is two square kilometres; it’s a granted mining licence. And to date, what we have found is a small resource of about 1,740 tonnes of contained copper and close to 1,000 ounces of gold. Not much in its own right, but it’s what it means and what it indicates, and where it’s leading us to on the exploration that is the real key to the excitement for Red Bore.
Clive Tompkins: What’s been taking place?
Tony Lofthouse: In the last several months, we’ve been drilling deeper holes. Previously we drilled to about 200 metres from surface, and we had a geological model that explained everything we’d encountered to date. What the deep holes have done has changed that model slightly, but not for the poorer, for the better. It’s allowed us to now understand that we have a target at depth, at about 600 metres that is getting very exciting for us. And we look to drill that, probably commencing late June. And as we drill that, what we are hoping is that we’re going to find another VMS style ore body like Monty, or like DeGrussa, or like possibly Homer, maybe.
Clive Tompkins: Can you tell us about your two key targets Impaler and Gossan. What’s their potential?
Tony Lofthouse: Gossan is the first deposit or area that we found mineralisation at. This is where we got “seven per cent (sic)” seven metres at 28 per cent copper. We had thought and projected that it may be a pipe that led down to deeper mineralisation of big substance at depth. Impaler was another branch of that. What we’ve found with recent drilling is that model was not appearing to be correct. But what we’ve replaced it with is another model that is still valid and explains everything we’ve encountered to date.We now think we have a deep target below Gossan. Impaler is still part of the same system, but may not be the same location of mineralisation. Gossan is our real target and we have something about 150 metres to the northwest of Gossan that is looking very, very exciting.
Clive Tompkins: What’s planned for the second half?
Tony Lofthouse: We will be drilling this deep target that has been identified from gravity surveys. And in fact, there’s a small video animation that is available on our website that investors may want to watch, to give them a better understanding for something that I’ve got no hope of explaining verbally. You need to look at it;it’s worth investigating that. But what it means is that we have this big target that we hope to drill, as I say from about late June. And it may take about a month or so to reach target depth. But if we’ve got what we think we might well have, which is a repetition of the DeGrussa VSM lenses, same setting as Monty, this could be very exciting.
Clive Tompkins: What else has been taking place across the portfolio?
Tony Lofthouse: We acquired a portfolio of gold assets late last year, December they were approved by shareholders. They are focused around Meekatharra, which is the same Doolgunna region as the Red Bore assets. The model that we put together when we were acquiring these gold assets was to find deposits, or prospective deposits, that were close to existing plant and infrastructure that had spare capacity. We are not looking to reinvent the wheel by becoming another producer with a mine of its own right. Not when you’ve got so many plants that are available and nearby that have spare capacity.
So we’re looking around Meekatharra, Garden Gully is one of our targets. White Well and Mooloogool are two others in that region and they are prospective for gold. They are in areas that have proven gold production,at grades of 21 grams per tonne and are exciting areas for gold production,as a whole. Two plants nearby Andy Well of Doray Minerals Limited
(ASX:DRM) is 300,000/400,000 tonnes per annum, just to the north and Metals X Limited
(ASX:MLX) Bluebird plant is three million tonnes per annum, just to the south. So they fit the strategic model.
Clive Tompkins: Now to financials and your strategy. What’s your cash position and how much are you spending?
Tony Lofthouse: At the end of March this year, we had just under $2 million cash in the bank. Consistently over the last four years, we’ve spent about $1 million a quarter. We’re an explorer and I know myself as an investor in exploration companies, I want exploration companies to spend. I don’t want them to sit on their cash. So we spend $1 million a quarter on exploration and admin, of which two-thirds to three-quarters every quarter, goes in the ground. So if you invest in Thundelarra, you know you’re going to get exploration happening, we’re not going to sit on the cash.
That means on that basis that we possibly have two quarters of cash left, which is why we just announced a share purchase plan at five cents. So existing shareholders can choose to be part of this exciting story at Red Bore, by putting money in for the share purchase plan. So that we are in a position to continue to explore that and the exciting gold assets, that we have at Garden Gully and Paynes Find, over the course of the next six months to a year.
Clive Tompkins: Is it your plan to bring Red Bore and your other projects into production, or do you want to remain a pure play exploration company?
Tony Lofthouse: Interesting question Clive and I think my background with both banking and broking in geology means that I will push towards monetising assets and delivering value to shareholders quicker. Our Chairman, Phil Crabb has a demonstrable track record through Gascoyne Gold Mines NL and other gold companies, of taking exploration into production very very successfully. However, as I say, because our model is to provide assetsand additional feed for existing plant, our belief now and that’s across the board, is that we can deliver value for shareholders more quickly by exploring, finding something of substance and then cutting the deal with the most appropriate and nearby plant that can take that feed for additional treatment.
At Red Bore we’re surrounded by Sandfire. As I mentioned before, anything we were to find there even if it was a million tonnes of contained copper, there’s only one place that will end up. And that’s to my mind in the Sandfire plant, because it’s less than a kilometre away and it is designed to take that material. So even if we chose and somebody decided that it made sense to try and develop Red Bore as a stand-alone project, I really don’t think it makes much sense. You get quicker value for shareholders by us finding something, getting the discovery uplift and then cutting a deal with Sandfire that made sense to both parties.
Clive Tompkins: Last question Tony. Where would you like to see the company by year’s end?
Tony Lofthouse: That’s actually easy. I’m hoping that this drill holes or the holes that we’re drilling at Gossan will come up with massive sulphide intercepts that allow us to continue to pursue that. So that by the end of the year, we have the next one of the VMS cluster that is part of this unquestioned potential that is the DeGrussa, VMS camp.
Clive Tompkins: Tony Lofthouse thanks for the update.
Tony Lofthouse: Clive, thank you for the opportunity.
Ends
