Notes from Aim On-Air RNS:Havieron Mineral Resource Estimate Update 22/12/23

[Bottle Rocket - Liam]

https://youtu.be/lE9ly_RF7mk

00:00:07 Liam
Good morning, you're watching Aim On-Air, where specialising in connecting companies with its shareholders is what we do best.

00:00:24 Liam
Hello and welcome back to Aim On-Air. Shaun Day, Managing Director from Greatland, joins me today. Welcome back, Shaun. Hi, Liam, and thanks for having me on Aim On-Air again. Not a problem. Always a pleasure. Hey, we've got you on today because Greatland has released their new independently reviewed resource estimate guidance, and it's increased the indicated and inferred tonnage by 29 % to 8.4 million ounces equivalent from the 2022 indications you must be pleased to update the market with this information finally.

00:00:54 Shaun
yeah look really pleased we we undertook to update the market uh in the in the december quarter i appreciate we left it you know a little bit later you know it was always going to be late in the december quarter and remember this was in a reaction to Newcrest for whatever confluence of reasons not being able to get their intended update there was some 80 ,000 meters of drilling that had been performed we thought it was important to get that out to shareholders and we're pleased we're able to do it within the time frame we had and complete an independent review of that with SRK we engaged with Newmont importantly as well just in terms of letting them know what we're doing and that relationship's really important to us. So it's been a busy time and the team led by Michael Thompson, a competent person, did an amazing job to achieve that.

00:01:55 Liam
Absolutely. One of your favourite slides in the investor deck is the one that includes the ounces per vertical metre. This has been updated now and it's filling out as you suggested it would. Can you talk us through it and what is the average ounces per vertical metre now?

00:02:10 Shaun
So I think in the last update, there was an average of 8 ,000 ounces through the top 400 metres of the ore body and then it started to walk in and look, one of my narratives was we had on the y -axis of that chart how many metres we drilled at each vertical level and you could see the correlation between the more we drilled at a level the more ounces we had delineated so there's a really strong correlation between meters drilled and ounces delineated at a jork standard and what i was saying is even though it comes in at at depth we actually feel the ore body is very consistent through we see continuation of good grade continuation of good mineralization and what i was delighted about in this update is is that's That's exactly what it's showing. We now average over 7 ,900 ounces per vertical metre over a full kilometre or 1 ,000 metres vertical extent. This ore body is a beast. It's a great result. There is some natural variation, but actually you can see it actually gets better as you go deeper again. So this is a really strong ore body and we'll continue to do more drilling at each of those lateral levels so yeah this is a plus 8 ,000 ounces per vertical meter or body particularly important this is over a relatively compact strike length 650 by 600 meters so single decline access means the amount of capital to access 8 ,000 meters so every vertical meter is very low so really low capital intensity but also you you liberate so much gold for every part of development it also delivers this lowest quartile all in sustaining cost it it's a great metric to understand underground ore bodies that um i mean you can hear it i'm almost speechless that's just amazing um there's often confusion over indicated inferred proved and probable march 22 saw a resource estimate and reserve estimate update i know this time only the resource was updated could you explain what the differences are between these please and when do you expect the indicated or reserve estimate to be updated yeah look you know we we're updating the resource and and there's always a natural sequence here you you do the update of the resource that's done effectively by a resource geologist so a geology team they then pass it across to the mine planning team that then which is mining engineers that then um update the mine plan and it's a more integrated process but fundamentally this is the passage of the information from geologists to my um to to mining engineers so i think it's worth just recapping you know at the last update we went to six and a half million ounces and that was about a two million ounce uh increase we've done that again we've actually increased it again by about 2 million ounces i think it's a 29 increase to 8 .4 million ounces so you've really got the same amount of growth again often you see all bodies tail off this continues to grow at that same rate again it just talks to the quality and the size of havron at 2 million ounce or 1 .9 million i think it was you know that's bigger than most all bodies a million ounce ore body is tremendous and that's what every mining company is looking for we've just added two million ounces to take us to 8 .4 and it continues to be open and that's important to understand this is not the end of the journey we continue to expand the in terms of indicated and inferred it's really a function of drill um drill density the more density the higher higher level of confidence you can have mathematically about the content of metal. And what we've done is managed to move 5 million ounces of that into the indicated level, to the higher level of confidence. Now, indicated can also be moved into a reserve. You can't do that with inferred material. There's not enough density to have enough certainty to put it into the reserve. Indicated, you can't. So that's moved from about 3 million ounces to 5 million ounces. So that's a huge increase. And it talks about the continued not just growth of the ore body, but the greater level of confidence. So that's really important. So really these updates not only increase the size of the ore body, but increase the confidence and gave us a platform to deliver more reserve and again i talked about ounces per vertical meter of being one of the great elements of our ore body the second great element is the conversion of indicated into reserve the last update of the mine plan 86 percent of the inferred um sorry of the indicated resource got upgraded into reserve that is stunning a normal underground ore body might be 55 to 65 percent open pits might get as high as 75 percent 86 percent is the highest number i've seen in my career it is extraordinary it talks to the quality of have run again and so we continue to think that we've got particularly around the southeast crescent and now that link zone again which i'm sure we'll talk to which is also high grade we've got high grade material sitting next to planned infrastructure with the decline you're going to put mining shapes around that and and the mining polygons are what you're going to extract but a very high proportion of that we continue to expect will convert across so this should be positive from a resource perspective going to 8 .4 million ounces at Havron, but that increase indicated lays the guidelines as to what that reserve can look like. So it's exciting. It's a huge positive of the update.

00:08:57 Liam
That's really well done there. Thank you very much for that. I really appreciate it. Being market sensitive, you'd not be able to give specifics on forward -looking statements, but you know me, I like to try my luck with these things. Are you able to offer guidance with the company's expectations, or perhaps one of a better word, what goals are when it comes to converting these resources into reserves?

00:09:22 Shaun
Look, it's a great question. It's the $64 question. I've got to be a little bit measured here. So I'll probably reference back, Liam, and sorry to do this, but to my last answer and just say, look, at the last time, we were able to convert 86%. Again, that is remarkable for an ore body and the circumstances that allowed us to do that, high grade sitting next to the decline infrastructure is what drove such a high conversion rate. And all of that applies to this ore body as we continue to add ounces at the lateral levels, but also as we continue to add ounces at debt. and particularly into that indicated category because that's the high -grade material. So, you know, it's certainly a great guide and the guide I personally use as to looking at what can be done here.

00:10:24 Liam
That's fair. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. Within the notes, I see that Newmont has not reviewed or approved this data set. Is that intentional and will it have any effect on the relationship?

00:10:36 Shaun
relationship um look it's it was absolutely intentional that we came out unilaterally with the update we felt our shareholders would like to know this information we felt you know 80 ,000 meters of drilling was was material indeed that has proven to be the case with the 8 .4 million ounce update so we we explained to our shareholders that we were when when it wasn't done in august that we would undertake to do this so it was always intended to be a great land update as you remember we did an update in March 2022 under different circumstances and then later Newcrest came out I think say three four months later with its own resource update which was virtually identical I think then the Newcrest update was one percent higher but we thought that added to the credibility of our team and this again is exactly the same process we did that we used the same you know all bodies same intercepts same methodology we brought in srk on both occasions to do an independent review uh and we shared it with our joint venture partner not not to extract contract a sign -off or consent, but because we want to be a good joint venture neighbour, and that's really the case again here. So look, we think we navigated that whilst maintaining a really positive and warm relationship with Newmont, and we're really delighted to welcome them to the joint venture. But this is a Greatland update, and indeed, Newmont are US -based, So we'll ultimately do their updates under U .S. legislation as well.

00:12:29 Liam
Okay. Thank you very much. Let's switch the focus to our own board for a moment. Are they happy to have got this delivered to market and has it met their expectations?

00:12:40 Shaun
Yeah. The answer to both those questions is yes. It's been a real focus for us to get it out. It's a really significant undertaking. taking and then we double up on that with the the peer review with the independent expert review you know it's it's really good to have achieved it and i think in terms of the outcome i to my mind this is at the high end of the of of the outcome range you know to to continue an ore body that post six and a half million ounces continues to grow at the same rate is phenomenal. We should celebrate that. So absolutely, it meets and exceeds expectations.

00:13:27 Liam
Wonderful. Thank you. Newmont are expected to update the global reserves in February. This will, in the event of Javier on being included in this, trigger Greatland to notify the market of this information. Would we as a company use that as our timeline for resources and reserve updates going forward?

00:13:44 Shaun
Well, again, just as we talked about earlier, there is a an ordinary sequence of events which will be applied by newmont just as it will be applied by greatland and and virtually any other um mining company which is they will do the resource uh they will then subsequently uh run a process to update the mine plan so theirs will also be an update to the to the resource um estimate and um you know that if if they're are able to do that in February, that's great. And we will be supportive and contribute that to the extent we can be helpful. But theirs will be exactly the same. And then I think it's probably really useful for people to understand the reserve will be updated when the feasibility study is released in 2024. That will be the opportunity for the reserve update. But you do get this sneak peek at what that will look like by looking at the indicated category and that's why I think you you were correct to ask that question about the categories and that's why I've pointed to it a little

00:14:57 Speaker 2
bit during this conversation is about you know the indicated and our historic ability to convert that is is nothing less than outstanding at Havron and to my mind at least based on the information i have right now there's a reasonable expectation that that that can continue to be the case 86 is extraordinarily high but that ballpark is is um is a great guide for something of the quality of Havieron.

00:15:25 Liam
That that's that's to me given some great clarity so thank you very much for that so hopefully that's cleared that up for a lot of people that are asking those kinds of questions and finally Shaun after some well -deserved downtime over christmas what's next on the the agenda for Shaun Day in Greatland?

00:15:42 Shaun
Yeah look it's been another you know really significant year for us we're delighted on the exploration front bringing in the Rio Tinto ground getting on to Ernest Giles I'm excited about you know being able to get assays through on that and sharing them in the in the new year so exploration has been tremendous we've we've just done the whole uh interview about resource geology uh which has been extraordinarily successful you know on a on a on a have run front uh we've we've progressed that we've made progress and i think we understand the the future opportunity there um far stronger so we feel operationally it's been a terrific year the the site closes out the year you know super busy putting in the the ventilation, the fans, the vent risers, the pipe work and really using this time as we're actively de -watering and de -pressurising that lower aquifer to set us up for success in 2024 and punch through to the top of the ore body. So we feel we're set up for a pretty exciting 2024. I think no one will celebrate more reaching the top of the ore body than I will and my colleagues here at Greatlands. so there's lots to do uh we're excited about that and and we start the new year with a brand new joint venture partner in new month they've only been with us for what about six weeks um you you should and our shareholders should be excited about having uh the largest gold miner in the world as our partner that they're a quality organization we've probably really enjoyed the last six weeks getting to know them better i did have a pre -existing relationship with them but it's it's good so look we're excited about the year ahead and and hopefully some of that uh excitement and anticipation is shared by our shareholders.

00:17:47 Liam
wonderful thanks Shaun merry christmas to you and the team at greatland

00:17:51 Shaun
merry christmas liam, thanks for very much for taking the time to to catch up today. I appreciate it. And Merry Christmas for those that listen in. And of course our shareholders, it's greatly appreciate their support over the year. And we look forward to a successful 2024.

00:18:09 Liam
Wonderful. Until next time, my name's Liam and you've been watching or yeah, watching Aim On-Air. We're specializing in connecting companies with its shareholders is what we do best. Thank you to all of my supporters over the years, especially the Silver and Gold members who make this content possible. Happy holidays to one and all. And thank you.