Transcription of Finance News Network Interview with White Rock Minerals Limited (ASX:WRM) Managing Director, Geoff LoweClive Tompkins: Hello Clive Tompkins reporting for the Finance News Network. Joining me from gold and silver explorer White Rock Minerals
(ASX:WRM) is Managing Director, Geoff Lowe. Geoff welcome to FNN.
Geoff Lowe: Thank you Clive.
Clive Tompkins: First up can you start by introducing the Company?
Geoff Lowe: Yes, White Rock listed in October 2010. We formed as a demerged company out of Rex Minerals; Rex was a successful copper explorer in South Australia. We have a project in northern New South Wales called Mt Carrington, which is our primary gold/silver project.
Clive Tompkins: Good. So what is your stake in the Mt Carrington project?
Geoff Lowe: We own it 100 per cent. We demerged as I said, out of Rex Minerals and they gave that project to us 100 per cent in return for an in specie distribution of shares in White Rock, to the Rex shareholders.
Clive Tompkins: And how many ounces of resource do you have?
Geoff Lowe: We announced a new resource update in February this year. We now have 280,000 ounces of gold and roughly 23 million ounces of silver, all in inferred indicated resource and all very shallow.
Clive Tompkins: And Geoff, can you tell us about your experience and that of the Board?
Geoff Lowe: Yes. My experience is as a geologist, I’ve been in the industry for about 25 years predominantly as an exploration geologist; I spent 17 years with the Normandy Group. I’ve been with Rex and White Rock since 2007, as an exploration director with Rex and now the MD of White Rock. Our Chairman Brian Phillips is a very experienced engineer, he has about 45 years’ experience in the industry. And our Non-Executive Director Steve Olsen is a mine geo; Steve’s the MD of Rex Minerals.
Clive Tompkins: Looking at your Mt Carrington project in more detail. What’s taking place at the moment?
Geoff Lowe: Mt Carrington since our resource estimate was announced in February, we’ve continued with our expansion drilling on those resources. So we have one drilling rig there at the moment - that will continue until Easter. Then the focus for that rig will move on to the regional tenements, where we have a number of exciting targets we want to test. In tandem with that, we’re also undertaking some metallurgical test work and some conceptual pit studies, which will progress over the next six months with the aim of moving the project into scoping studies, either late this year or early 2013.
Clive Tompkins: Thanks Geoff. And what’s the situation with infrastructure?
Geoff Lowe: Mt Carrington is located near the township of Drake, which is between Tenterfield and Lismore in northern New South Wales. We’re about two hours from the east coast. We’re well located in terms of regional services. We have a bitumen highway running past the project; we’re only an hour from the rail head at Casino and an hour and a bit from the airport at Lismore. We have good local workforce, good local supplies. So we’re not in the middle of central Australia, it’s actually a great place to be exploring and developing a new project.
Clive Tompkins: And what’s taking place on the exploration front?
Geoff Lowe: The exploration side of the project is quite exciting for us. We’ve spent the last two years building up a portfolio of targets. We have now about 70 targets on our licence area and we have about 600 kilometres of tenements in the district. A lot of those targets are based on geophysics, geochemistry and assessing old mine workings, which haven’t been drilled for at least the past 20 years. We have a number of areas where we’re producing surface rock chip samples with quite high gold and quite high silver, in areas as I’ve said which have not seen a drill hole before. Out of the 70 targets, we’ve prioritized about 20 targets which we’re going to test, starting with the rig straight after Easter.
Clive Tompkins: Thanks Geoff. So when do you hope to be in production?
Geoff Lowe: The project is quite advanced. We have granted mining leases and infrastructure onsite, so that will underpin an earlier production scenario for us. Assuming that all of our metallurgy test work and our scoping studies are positive, we hope to go into feasibility sometime next year. And then fast track that through to development and production, probably within two years is our aim.
Clive Tompkins: Now to your financials and corporate strategy. How much are you spending each quarter?
Geoff Lowe: Quarterly we’re spending roughly $750,000 to $800,000, mainly on drilling. We have a unique drilling agreement with our company that does our work for us, Silverstone where they’re actually being paid part in cash, and part in shares in the Company. That reduces our cash burn and also gives them some equity, so that they’re actually very, very supportive of the project.
Clive Tompkins: So what’s your cash position now and are you funded for the rest of the year?
Geoff Lowe: Our cash position now is around about $4.5 million in the bank. We are well funded for the rest of this year with our drilling programs and our metallurgical and conceptual pit studies.
Clive Tompkins: Thanks Geoff. So is it the Company strategy to become a producer?
Geoff Lowe: Yes it is. We believe we have quite a robust project at Mt Carrington; our resource base is quite substantial. When you look at the gold and silver in terms of gold equivalent, it’s almost three quarters of a million ounces. The resource base is all shallow; it’s in the top 100 to 150 metres. So we believe, with assuming positive metallurgical test work and positive scoping studies that we can develop the project quite quickly, and get into production soon.
Clive Tompkins: Now to your stock price Geoff. Where’s it traded over the last 12 months, where’s it now and what’s your market cap?
Geoff Lowe: We’ve traded up to 70 cents in the past 12 months; we listed at 30 cents in October 2010. We’ve come down significantly since then in line with the rest of the market, late last year. We’re currently trading at about 15 to16 cents and we’re capped at about $12 million. I should add that our enterprise value per resource ounce, is about $40 per gold ounce and it’s about 40 cents per silver ounce - so very, very cheap.
Clive Tompkins: And last question. Where would you like to see White Rock Minerals by year’s end?
Geoff Lowe: By year’s end, I’d like to see us moving towards an accelerated scoping study on the resource base we have, on the main mining leases. And I believe we’ll get there based on positive metallurgical test work and positive pit optimisation work. On the regional exploration front, I would love to see a couple of really nice drill intersections on some of our high priority targets.
Clive Tompkins: Geoff Lowe thanks for the introduction.
Geoff Lowe: Thank you Clive.
Ends
