Transcription of Finance News Network Interview with Peak Resources Limited (ASX:PEK) Managing Director, Richard BeazleyLelde Smits: Hello I’m Lelde Smits for the Finance News Network and joining me today at the Africa Down Under Conference in Perth, from Peak Resources Limited
(ASX:PEK) is Managing Director, Richard Beazley. Richard welcome.
Richard Beazley: It’s a pleasure.
Lelde Smits: Could you start by introducing Peak Resources, what’s your focus and where do you operate?
Richard Beazley: Peak Resources traditionally an ASX base firm, IPO back in 2006 – late 2006 and essentially a gold explorer in Australia. And a few years back, we had an introduction into the Company by a gentleman by the name of Alastair Hunter who’s now current Non-executive Chairman, and he brought with him some leases out of Tanzania. And with that is the pivotal point in our Company’s history that put us into that East African space.
Lelde Smits: Looking closer at your wholly-owned Ngualla Rare Earths Project, could you detail where it’s located?
Richard Beazley: Well Ngualla itself sits in the southwest region of Tanzania, or Tanzania, depending on what part of the world you come from. It’s located not far from Lake Rukwa and about 150 kilometres north of Mbeya, which is the main regional city for that part of the world and our transport node out of there from road, rail and air as well.
Lelde Smits: And what does the Ngualla Rare Earth Project contain?
Richard Beazley: Interesting question because as an explorer we went there about 2.5 years ago looking for phosphates, that was the purpose of the whole exercise and we targeted it for that. We started drilling for that in June 2010. And it was about two months later, when we got the assays back from some particular holes in a certain area on there that it all changed. It actually indicated that this is going to be a rare earth play. So forget the phosphates, it’s still a potential development down the track, but the rare earths - the value of this particular deposit far outweighs the phosphate. So that’s what we’re going to do, develop it further.
Lelde Smits: So Richard, what are the highlights from your latest drilling results?
Richard Beazley: The drilling results now we’re in infill stage, so the resource we put out – the first maiden resource in late February this year, so the drilling this season now is putting holes in between the current patterns. And it’s indicating that what we’ve modelled already is stacking up and the resource statement we’ve put out there before, will be very similar in terms of the head grade. And the head grade is important in this thing. As with most mining opportunities about tonnes and grade, the grade here particularly now sits at – in the total resource, at 2.24 but where we’re going to focus commercially, it’s now at 4.1 per cent. So from a rare earth play, it puts us amongst the top half dozen of the world.
Lelde Smits: And what plans does Peak Resources have for moving Ngualla to production?
Richard Beazley: Right, well those plans have already started. So once we got the maiden resource out in February, we’ve now moved on to scoping study work, we’ll have that completed this year in December. Underpinning all that is the metallurgy work in the labs, we bring everything back here into Perth for the test work and assaying. And we’ve just released last week our latest results which is actually a milestone, we’ve got our first product in the lab. And that demonstrates now from a chemistry point of view, you can take run of mine ore, run it through a series of processes and produce a product.
Lelde Smits: What timeline have you put on realising these goals?
Richard Beazley: All up, we want to be in production by early 2016. From a rare earth play that’s quite extraordinary, it’s bullish. But, this is where the competitive advantage lies in this ore body. The ore body itself where we’re focusing commercially is in relative terms, very simple. It’s just a rare earth carbonate mineral and there is little else in there that’s going to affect the chemistry. And that’s what makes it relatively easy.
Lelde Smits: Now Richard also in Tanzania you have a number of gold projects, what is their proximity to Ngualla and what are your plans for them?
Richard Beazley: Right – the gold, quite a number of leases, all up located around Lake Victoria, so they’re a fair distance away from the southwest of Tanzania. So from an operational point of view, they have very little in common. And at the moment what we’ve done is actually down-scale that somewhat, while the focus for all our resources now going into developing the Ngualla project.
Lelde Smits: Now to your financials: What was your cash position at the end of the last quarter?
Richard Beazley: Last quarter that we put out there, was just over $3 million cash position. Since then we’ve just had a capital raise and when that all washes through in September, we’ll have a position of around $9 million in the bank. And that will be quite a handy sum that’ll get us through well and truly into next year. And we’ll be able to finish off our drilling, finish off our scoping study and start our other metallurgical test work that we’re moving onto.
Lelde Smits: Finally Richard, what would you like to see Peak Resources achieve in the 2013 financial year?
Richard Beazley: Next year, well it’s a big year next year. So whilst we’ve nailed a few milestones this year and we’ll finish off the scoping study. We’ll move into pre-feasibility next year, our intention is to finish that off. We want to move into the solvent extraction side of the metallurgy test work that work wants to be completed, and also build and construct and run our pilot test work.
So by the back-end of next year, we want to be now in a position where we can move into bankable feasibility study for 2014. And we’ll be in an extremely strong position to start to nail down our customer off-takes, which will be very important for obviously the funding and everything else that needs to come through for the project financing, as we move towards construction in 2015.
Lelde Smits: Richard Beazley, thanks for introducing us to Peak Resources.
Richard Beazley: It’s a pleasure and thank you for the opportunity.
Ends
