TRANSCRIPTION OF FINANCE NEWS NETWORK INTERVIEW WITH EMPIRE RESOURCES LIMITED (ASX:ERL) MANAGING DIRECTOR, DAVID SARGEANTNicholas Hayes: Hello I’m Nicholas Hayes from Finance News Network. Joining me from copper and gold explorer Empire Resources Limited
(ASX:ERL) is Managing Director, David Sargeant. David welcome to FNN.
David Sargeant: Thank you.
Nicholas Hayes: Can you start by introducing us to Empire Resources?
David Sargeant: So we listed in 2007. We’ve made five discoveries since then which confirms that we had good project selection when we listed. Our projects are now moving into a rapidly evolving stage, developing quickly and we hope to be moving into production or advancing them quickly in the next year.
Nicholas Hayes: Tell us about your Board?
David Sargeant: We have three members on the Board. Tom Revy is very well known in Perth because he was in charge of Minproc in their golden years. I am best known because I was First Chief Geologist at Telfer and I’ve been involved in bringing three gold mines into production. And Adrian Jessup was the founding director of Giralia and other companies, and Giralia’s just been taken over. So we’ve all got small and big company experience and we’re dedicated professionals.
Nicholas Hayes: And where is your focus?
David Sargeant: Our focus is the copper gold space because of the projects that we have, but we also see a long term future there.
Nicholas Hayes: David where are your projects and what do they contain, and what stage are they at?
David Sargeant: All our projects are in Western Australia. We’ve moved into this copper space because we believe there is a supply and demand issue, so we think it’s a good place to be. The Yuinmery project is by far and away the best one at the moment, because it’s advancing so rapidly.
Nicholas Hayes: I see you’ve just made your first high-grade zinc intersection at the project. What is the size and grade of the intersection?
David Sargeant: We’ve got a million tonnes only at the moment but we’re drilling lots of other prospects and we expect to enhance that fairly quickly. The interesting thing is that it’s a volcanogenic massive sulphide deposit and that’s important worldwide, because they have in a small volume, a very large amount of metal content typically. And they have a lot of characteristics which are good for expansion, like Golden Grove has just made a new discovery and it’s been exploring for thirty years. So these things evolve and they get bigger and bigger as you go along.
Nicholas Hayes: And what are your further plans for drilling?
David Sargeant: Well we’ve got a drill rig on site at the moment. We’ve got sixteen targets to go for and so we’re just working our way through that. But obviously we want to get back to the zinc discovery as quickly as possible.
Nicholas Hayes: You’ve also just been awarded two separate exploration drilling grants from the WA Government. What does this mean for Empire Resources this year?
David Sargeant: Well it doesn’t really change the drilling programme, but it really gives us a nice feeling to be rewarded in this way by the Government, because they are independent people that review the projects and they say that these are very good targets. One of the things that we will be drilling will be a platinum opportunity. Its nickel and copper and platinum, so we are very happy with that and it might be something quite significant. So we are going to bring forward that drilling as quickly as we can.
Nicholas Hayes: Where will the drilling be targeted?
David Sargeant: One drill hole, one part of that programme is in quite close to Yuinmery, so it’s where we have existing infrastructure. And the other one is up north which is in the Ashburton.
Nicholas Hayes: David now you also have another copper project in the northern Gascoyne region of WA. What stage is that project and what’s the plan for the rest of 2011?
David Sargeant: Well this is a very interesting project because Anglo American had worked here in the early 1970’s. We’re aware of it; they didn’t do any drilling which we find quite strange. We’ve picked up all their data, we’ve picked up the project for nothing and we presented that to the Government and that’s one of the projects that have got co-funding.
So we’re just meeting the Aborigines next week – and everything’s been positive there. We expect to get a Heritage Agreement signed and we’ll be ready to drill in September.
Nicholas Hayes: Are you funded for the rest of 2011?
David Sargeant: We are funded adequately for the rest of this year at least. The co-funding helps us a little bit because we can now concentrate on some projects that we weren’t going to drill necessarily straight away, but we want to drill them as quickly as we can now.
Nicholas Hayes: And the funding is with?
David Sargeant: The co-funding is with the State Government. The State Government is particularly supportive of exploration, particularly in new spaces like new discoveries or new ideas and we’ve got two projects that qualify very well for those. So they give us a tick if you like, for the quality of these projects and one of them is a platinum project, and the other one is a copper project.
Nicholas Hayes: And is your model one of exploration and with the sale of stakes to producers at this stage of the Company?
David Sargeant: It is. We have had experience with mining but we wanted to develop exploration projects and move them into the mining space. So we’re just moving and increasing the value of the assets. We feel we have good assets and we’re progressing those - that is what we mean by rapidly advancing.
Nicholas Hayes: Last question David. Where would you like to see Empire Resources twelve months from now?
David Sargeant: Well I’d like to say that we’ve already prepared a timeline for development. So when we talk about rapidly maturing that’s the sort of thing we’re talking about. So we might well be in six to twelve months’ time, halfway through a feasibility study for example, but anyway that’s what we want to do. We want to move towards development as quickly as possible.
Nicholas Hayes: David Sargeant thanks for the introduction.
David Sargeant: Thank you very much.
ENDS
