Transcription of Finance News Network Interview with Enterprise Metals Limited (ASX:ENT) Managing Director, Dermot RyanClive Tompkins: Hello Clive Tompkins reporting for the Finance News Network. Joining me at the Australian Uranium and Rare Earths Conference in Fremantle, Western Australia is Enterprise Metals Limited
(ASX:ENT) Managing Director, Dermot Ryan. Dermot welcome to FNN. For those not familiar with Enterprise Metals, what’s your focus and where are your projects?
Dermot Ryan: Enterprise Metals is focused in the Yilgarn Craton of Western Australia and the surrounding Proterozoic Basins and Oregenic Zones, and our commodity focus is basically iron ore, uranium, gold and base metals. We see the Yilgarn and the surrounding areas as being in our backyard, the infrastructure is good, we’ve got bitumen roads, we’ve got places to stay. And for a junior company, it’s very attractive from a prospectivity point of view and it’s relatively inexpensive and easy to operate.
Clive Tompkins: Dermot as we’re at the Australian Uranium Conference, how many uranium projects do you have?
Dermot Ryan: We have six uranium projects at various stages of development. The most advanced project is probably Yalgoo and followed by Byro, Ponton, Peranbye and Harris Lake.
Clive Tompkins: Good and at what stage is exploration and which project is the most advanced?
Dermot Ryan: The Yalgoo project is the most advanced in that it’s the only uranium project that we’ve drill tested in the recent past. It undertook an aircore drilling program in March and April this year and we intersected several metres of quite high grade uranium, between 200 and 450 ppm uranium and the maximum down hole value as I recall, is around about 850 ppm uranium. Whilst we’ve only drill tested a small area, it’s really proved the concept that there is uranium mineralisation associated with calcrete in that Yalgoo area. So it’s now encouraged us to go back and do a more extensive drilling program later in this year, to see what sort of size resource is there.
Clive Tompkins: And Dermot, what are your plans for advancing your Byro and Ponton projects?
Dermot Ryan: Byro is a very interesting project. It’s a large project; it basically covers about 190 kilometres of the Murchison River channel. We have airborne magnetic and radiometric data there. The radiometric data has identified a calcrete mineralisation, or calcrete hosted uranium mineralisation. But in particular, in the Lake Wooleen area in the southern part of that project area, we have a large inland delta which has accumulated. It’s a thick pile of sediments where there is potential for uranium at depth and we’ve just recently flown an airborne EM (electro-magnetic) survey, over this inland delta. We’ve received the data back and it’s been published today and our intention is to go back there and drill with an RC drilling rig in the next several weeks. We’re just waiting on approval from the government in terms of program of work and a radiation safety management plan.
In terms of the Ponton project, Pronton is on the other side of the Yilgarn Craton, it’s down probably 300 kilometres southeast of Kalgoorlie and we’ve recently flown airborne EM there as well, but we don’t have that data back. Once we get that airborne EM data back and the tenements are granted which should be in the next month or two, we’ll undertake an RC drilling program in that area as well. Ponton is adjacent to the Manhattan Corporation
(ASX:MHC) Double 8 uranium resource and we would hope and expect to have results if not as good, but better than Manhattan have.
Clive Tompkins: Now to base metals, you’ve just released results at your Doolgunna project. What were the highlights?
Dermot Ryan: Yes look we have a large land position immediately south of Sandfire’s
(ASX:SFR) ground at DeGrussa and about 100 kilometres north of Meekatharra. We’ve had that land for several years and we’ve done some reconnaissance drilling, but recently we’ve done a detailed soil survey and encountered a gold soil anomaly, where we’re getting plus one ppm one gram per tonne in gold. And also there’s a series of nuggets, gold nuggets that prospectors have found at surface. We recently put a costean in through that area and out of the costean, we’ve recovered about 60 ounces of gold from the top one or two metres. Within that costean we were able to see the strike and dip of the strata and we’ve undertaken some shallow drilling or relatively shallow drilling - 100 metre deep drilling, with an aircore rig that we had onsite doing a regional aircore program.
We’ve had results from one of those holes - hole 69 where we encountered gold at surface several grams per tonne in the top couple of metres. We then got a large zone of depletion and right at the bottom of the hole between about 97 metres and 101 metres, we’re starting to see gold increase again. So we think that this is some sort of a leach cap over a large gold system, but we’ve done further drilling and we haven’t got the results of that drilling. So we’re expecting those results in the next few weeks.
Clive Tompkins: And Dermot, you also have iron ore projects amongst your suite of investments. Which is the most advanced and what are your plans for the second half of 2012?
Dermot Ryan: The most advanced iron ore project we have is at the Booylgoo range. Booylgoo is a greenstone belt immediately south of the Joyners Find greenstone belt, which Golden West
(ASX:GWR) have 100 million tonnes of plus 60 per cent and it’s immediately south of Yeelirrie, which is a known uranium occurrence. It’s probably about an hour/hour and a half’s drive out of the Sandstone, halfway between the Sandstone and Leinster. So the locality is reasonably accessible, there’s a railway line at Leonora which is not too far distant and we’ve just completed an RC drilling program at Booylgoo and we’re waiting for the results of that program.
The next most advanced project is probably at Sylvania about 70 kilometres south of Newman. Here we have Brockman Iron Formation which has been fairly haematised in the Dales Gorge Member. We’ve been prevented from undertaking drilling there in the recent past because of some Native Title issues, but we believe we’re on the cusp of resolving those land access issues.
The next most advanced project would be Earaheedy which is in the Nabberu Basin. It’s about 300 kilometres northeast of Wiluna, it’s a remote area but it is potentially a large channel-iron deposit. On the basis of airborne magnetics that we’ve flown, there are large channels up to 10 kilometres long and several kilometres wide. And some gravity that we’ve already done suggests that there’s a large body of material that’s been eroded from the banded iron formations, and down into these valleys. What we don’t know is the grade, but what we can say is on the basis of the magnetics, that we expect to find several billion tonnes of material of an unknown grade. Ultimately we’ve got to drill test that to find out whether it’s ore grade or whether it’s waste.
Clive Tompkins: Now to financials. What’s your cash position and are you funded for the rest of the year?
Dermot Ryan: Yes we currently have $10.8 million in the bank which is a good position to be in. We have a major shareholder which is SinoTech Minerals and they recently exercised 10 million options at 25 cents each, whilst our share price is sitting round the 10 or 11 cent mark. And that’s put $2.5 million into the bank, so we’re well funded for the remainder of the year and the next year also, or several years ahead. But also it’s a great vote of confidence from the major shareholder to exercise shares or exercise options at 25 cents, when a share price is 10 or 11. And what that says is that they’re in this for the long haul and they see the value in the projects, and also the management team that we have at Enterprise.
Clive Tompkins: Last question Dermot. What would you like to see Enterprise Metals achieve by the end of the year?
Dermot Ryan: By the end of the year, I’d like to have a uranium resource being drilled out, which I think is achievable. Also an iron ore resource being drilled out, whether it be Booylgoo or Earaheedy. And in terms of base metals I think Doolgunna. We’ll have a fairly substantial drilling program underway at Doolgunna following up the gold results that we’ve got. And also drill testing some conceptual sediment hosted copper targets that we have at Doolgunna as well.
Clive Tompkins: Dermot Ryan, thanks for the introduction.
Dermot Ryan: Thank you very much Clive.
Ends
