TRANSCRIPTION OF FINANCE NEWS NETWORK INTERVIEW WITH POLYMETALS MINING LIMITED (ASX:PLY) CEO AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, FULTON SMITHRebecca Richardson: Hello Rebecca Richardson for the Finance News Network. Joining me for an update from base and precious metals producer Polymetals Mining Limited
(ASX:PLY) is CEO and Executive Director, Fulton Smith. Fulton welcome to FNN.
Fulton Smith: Thanks Rebecca.
Rebecca Richardson: Can you start by introducing Polymetals Mining?
Fulton Smith: Yeah sure. Polymetals has been around for about twenty-five years as a private company. We’re focused very much on precious and base metals in Australia and we’ve had successful projects, particularly in the last decade and we’ve really honed our skills there. In that time we’ve returned around $25 million in dividends and capital returns to our shareholders. And recently on the 4
th of May, we actually listed and we’re now taking that recipe to the market.
Rebecca Richardson: Thanks Fulton, so where is your share price and what’s your market cap?
Fulton Smith: Yeah share price is 85 cents; our market cap is just over $30 million. We think we’re bit of a bargain share at the moment. We’ve got $15 million in the bank at cash and we’ve got production coming out of our White Dam gold mine, and that’s very healthy for us. So we’ve got a good cash flow and are positioned well for our growth.
Rebecca Richardson: Okay what’s the Polymetals investment proposition for potential shareholders?
Fulton Smith: Yeah I think the investment proposition for shareholders is quite strong. Certainly we have great assets, great street addresses for those that follow gold would the Cobar region, the Kalgoorlie region and the Broken Hill region and we’ve got assets in all those areas. I think also our track record of twenty-five years as a private company - you have to hone your skills very, very well. You don’t necessarily access bank funding for those, so we’re self-funded which means in our projects we have to develop very, very rapidly, optimise rapidly and be very efficient in the use of capital and we’ve returned great dividends.
So I think that is a recipe for investors to look at and we can take that forward and I think thirdly, we’ve got a great Board and management team. We’ve got Jon Parker who was former MD of Felix Resources and Norton Gold Fields, Dave Sproule who’s been our Chairman and has been the founder of the Company twenty-five years ago. And also David Carland who has got a strong investment banking and commercial management background, and that capability will be very pivotal for us going forward as we move into looking for mergers and acquisitions, based on our strong balance sheet.
Rebecca Richardson: Having just raised $7 million through the IPO, what’s the Company’s strategy for the use of the funds?
Fulton Smith: Yeah we’ve got two main strategies there in terms of the use of the funds from the IPO. One is that we want to aggressively develop our current and known projects - White Dam, Boorara and Canbelego. And secondly, it gives us the opportunity now to look for project acquisitions, not only from that strong balance sheet but also allows access to capital markets and equity for future growth.
Rebecca Richardson: Now to your operating mine White Dam in South Australia. What has been the production to date and what’s the mine life?
Fulton Smith: Sure, production to date has been 90,000 ounces of gold to the end of May. That’ll continue producing to early next year and currently we’re looking to extend the life of the mine, through three near mine prospects that we’re currently drilling out to define the resources there.
Rebecca Richardson: Good and what’s the cost per ounce?
Fulton Smith: Cost per ounce is - over the length of the project will be under $500 and currently gold prices are pretty healthy, so we’re making great margins. We’ve been as low as $280 an ounce but on average, we’ll be just under $500.
Rebecca Richardson: And what’s the potential for an upgrade?
Fulton Smith: Yeah potential’s not too bad. It’s a great area; we’ve got 700 square kilometres of tenement there in a very active mining area. We have as I mentioned the three near mine prospects and we’ve got other targets on those on that tenement.
Rebecca Richardson: And onto your Mt. Boppy gold mine near Cobar in New South Wales. The operations currently on care and maintenance with the drilling programme increasing reserves before operations recommence. What’s the focus?
Fulton Smith: Yeah the current drilling programme’s focused on looking for parallel structures to the old historic Mt. Boppy mine. The Mt. Boppy gold mine’s produced over 480,000 ounces of gold in its time and our philosophy is if you’ve got a great resource in an area, there’s probably more. So our focus at the moment is looking for near mine extensions to that mine and to be able to get to production as soon as we can.
We’ve got a plant on care and maintenance and we’ve got a camp there as well, so the quicker we can add to our known resources we’ll get up and going and producing again.
Rebecca Richardson: And what are expectations?
Fulton Smith: Yeah the expectations are pretty high. You know it’s a known active area, we’ve got some great intersections from the drilling we’ve done so far and we expect that we’ll be up and producing within the next two years.
Rebecca Richardson: What about your plans for your Boorara prospect?
Fulton Smith: Yeah we’ll be drilling Boorara later this year. The focus there is to add to the known resources and then we’ll determine whether we either develop that ourselves or on sell the ore to the mills locally.
Rebecca Richardson: Okay thanks Fulton, now last question. Where would you like to see Polymetals Mining twelve months from now?
Fulton Smith: Yeah in twelve months from now we’d like to have two productions, one at White Dam, hopefully we’ll be getting started on Mt.
Boppy and as I said before, we’re actively looking for acquisitions. So it would be great to have two productions at play in a pipeline, consolidate pipeline of projects beyond that.
Rebecca Richardson: Fulton Smith thanks for the introduction.
Fulton Smith: Thanks Rebecca.
ENDS
