Notes from GGPHelp Interview with Callum Baxter - 06 Feb 2023
Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2023 12:14 pm
Notes from GGPHelp Interview with Callum Baxter - 06 Feb 2023
Interview:
https://youtu.be/tyjDRNi0D58
RNS:
https://greatlandgold.com/wp-content/up ... Update.pdf
Created from a software transcript export
00:00:15:04 - 00:00:25:17
Liam
And good morning welcome back to Brew with Bottle, I’m Liam as always and I'm pleased to say that I am here today with Callum Baxter, fellow shareholder. Callum, welcome back to the show. How are you?
00:00:26:15 - 00:00:31:14
Callum
I'm well, Liam, great to catch up again. Thanks for inviting me to have another chat.
00:00:31:14 - 00:00:39:02
Liam
Ah, not a problem at all. I see that your background has drastically changed since the last time I saw you. Where are you at the moment?
00:00:41:00 - 00:00:46:13
Callum
I'm on my boat in a marina in the town where we live called Albany in Western Australia.
00:00:47:20 - 00:00:53:02
Liam
Oh, it's fantastic. What? What kind of boat you got? Last time I spoke to you, we would be discussing that you might be getting one.
00:00:54:18 - 00:01:20:03
Callum
Yeah, I've been looking for a long time and I found this boat late last year. I purchased it in November. It's an Incat monohull, 52 foot long aluminium hull, Incat are global, they make high speed ferries and a naval patrol boats. So, this is well constructed and has a cruise speed of about 30 knots.
00:01:20:05 - 00:01:27:18
Liam
Oh, wonderful. But also presume it's happy enough just bobbing around whilst you throw the line out and catch yourself some dinner.
00:01:28:19 - 00:01:36:20
Callum
That's right. Catch a few fish and snorkelling and yeah, just generally exploring beaches and coves around here, which is fantastic.
00:01:37:01 - 00:02:00:19
Liam
Oh, that's wonderful. I'm. I'm really pleased for you. Now, I wanted to talk to you today because on Thursday the 2nd (Feb) Greatland released the JURI exploration program update. And there were things in there that I kind of didn't understand and thought I really could do with this being explained a bit better. So, I thought, Who better to talk to than yourself?
Because if anybody knows exactly what's how this is all happened, it's going to be yourself. So, I just wondered. Greatland have seemed to have focused prior to prior preliminary. I can't even say that word… Greatland have focused on the bismuth that they have found. So, I just wondered if you could sort of explain the process of how… om terms of how the bismuth and the gold and copper and stuff end up where they end up, please.
00:02:31:14 - 00:03:02:11
Callum
MM Yeah, sure. Okay. So, when a mineral deposit forms is basically because there's been fluids traveling through the rocks and the fluids are often high pressure and high temperature and they've got a certain chemistry about them that if they're carrying metals effectively and they also carrying a whole load of other elements and in relatively higher concentrations than you would normally find.
So that's what makes an ore deposit is a high concentration of a certain type of material such as gold, for example. Then and quite often within these ore fluids, there'll be other elements that are enriched as well. So, if and so quite often there'll be several elements which co-exist with the ore mineral. So, and for example, at Havieron we've got an enrichment in bismuth which is not super high, but it is sort of above normal levels that you would find in the natural environment.
So, if you're wandering around out there and you take samples of the sands, let's say 100 or 200 meters apart, and then you're starting to detect slightly elevated levels of bismuth, then you're, you know, you're sort of in a zone where the ore fluids have potentially been traveling not far away from you. So, it helps you hone in on the deposits and ah Havieron you know, we recognized the bismuth association fairly early and it's more associated with the high-grade mineralization at Havieron so Greatland’s update from last week saying that you know elevated levels of bismuth found in the hole at Black Hills.
It well it suggests that there's the higher-grade ore fluids have been traveling within those rocks there at black hills. So, there's only one drill hole in that particular area of Black Hills from Greatland . So definitely worth following up because it's a clue that there's high grade gold in that particular area.
00:04:53:06 - 00:05:01:16
Liam
So, Bismuth and gold, because I was looking at the period, the table period, I can't even speak of this so early.
00:05:01:21 - 00:05:05:02
Callum
The periodic table elements! Yeah.
00:05:05:11 - 00:05:20:21
Liam
Yeah. So, I noticed that they're not actually they, they're in line aren't they. So is that how that kind of all comes together Is, is that they're all part of that. They're not part of the same family are they, because copper and gold are part of that same family. So yeah.
00:05:20:21 - 00:05:57:21
Callum
Well, it's quite often it's, it's all to do with the chemistry of the ore fluids, you get elevations of sulphur as well, of course. And sometimes arsenic, but not in the case of Havieron, but yes Bismuth gets tagged along as well with these ore fluids. And so yeah, we actually worked out a proxy early on at Havieron for the high-grade crescent mineralization where we were seeing a specific ratio.
And because we were using the portable XRF guns on the core, which are notoriously difficult to detect gold with. However, we could see the bismuth with the XRF. So, when we saw the bismuth we go, okay, we're on the money. You can see visually the sulphides and then use the XRF gun and we could see sulphur and arsenic and bismuth as well.
00:06:27:21 - 00:06:54:04
Callum
And so, we roughly knew what level of gold was in it. And when the proper wet samples came back from the laboratory after crushing and dissolving the drill core through the machines, we were getting very close to what we… our calculations were telling us from the bismuth levels. Now at Havieron there's actually several different sizes of mineralization.
There's the high-grade gold with the high-grade copper, and then there's the lower grade gold. It's still very good grades, but it's not in the hundreds of grams per tonne. It's in the tens. That's got a slightly different bismuth association. And that sort of suggests to us that it may be slightly different ore chemistry because this system was alive for a long, long time.
Multiple pulses of ore fluids depositing different types of mineralization or different grades of mineralization in the system. So yeah, quite interesting. And it's a good sign for Greatland that Bismuth is there at Black Hills because it means that the really good ore fluids have been traveling through that area.
00:07:34:15 - 00:07:49:06
Liam
Is it possible that it's all coming from the same place kilometres below the earth, that it sort of sort of funnels out? Is that something how this sort of thing would happen?
00:07:49:06 - 00:08:44:02
Callum
Well, yeah. The it's… postulated that the source of the mineralization seen at Telfer is from a granite that's located approximately ten kilometres to the south east of Telfer. And, and it, it's highly likely that that is the same source for the ore fluids for Havieron as well. Right now, people could argue either way whether it is or whether it isn't, but is pretty important that because these granites are the heat source and generating the fluids which have then deposited the metals at Telfer and Havieron so as we're looking for these reduced hot granites which are around in the Paterson, that's what makes the Paterson so fertile is the amount of these granites that have actually intruded into the rock system there.
And it's also basically generated that Winu deposit for… well these granites have generated the Winu deposit for Rio Tinto which is about 100 kilometres to the north west of Havieron, it would be a different granite up there creating the fluids but nonetheless there's a number of these granites around which are the important key to creation of the deposits.
00:09:13:09 - 00:09:19:17
Liam
And the granite. Is that a harder type rock? I'm really digging deep here and what I do know about geology is that a harder type of rock?
00:09:21:09 - 00:09:41:08
Callum
Granite is harder than the country rock. Yes, it is. Okay. It's a magma that never actually pops out at the surface. So, it's called a pluton. And the fluid sort of might get to say within five kilometres of the surface and it just sits there red hot, and then eventually cools off to create a solid lump of rock. Which is much harder than the surrounding country rock, which is sedimentary rocks.
00:09:48:15 - 00:09:54:19
Liam
Right. Okay. And I'm guessing that's kind of under pressure with the fact it’s being pushed up from the Earth's crust.
00:09:54:19 - 00:10:32:01
Callum
Um hmm. Exactly. And so, you get the pressure differentials, particularly when the granites and the magma from the Pluton hit natural faults or sort of breaks in the sedimentary sequence. And so, then, then you start to invoke the structural controls, which are the pathways for the ore fluids, and then they'll find a ‘trap site’, so it appears to be what's happening at Havieron is that a large portion of the country rocks is, is sandstone which is a high proportion of silica and it's not very reactive.
That's pretty hard to, to melt and react with silica like silica glass, you know, it's pretty much inert, whereas there's other sedimentary layers there in the Paterson, which are higher in carbonates, which effectively seabed deposits of, of shells and limestone. And it's got a high carbonate or calcium content and that is very reactive. So, if you've ever seen someone drop some acid on some limestone, you see how it freezes.
So, these ore fluids are basically wandered through all the, all the sandstone faults and cracks and then hit a more limestone or carbonate rich layer. And then the ore fluids then start to react with the limestone and then dump out all the goodies, such as the gold and the copper.
00:11:23:16 - 00:11:38:22
Liam
Super. Yeah. That it's almost like you've, you've read my script this morning because that i… what is a trap site is literally my next question. So, thank you for attaching that. Now, how many years ago are we talking I mean, this is hundreds of thousands of years ago, isn't it?
00:11:40:00 - 00:12:07:02
Callum
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. If people sort of have a look at the papers that have been published on Telfer and there's been some recent ones which are easily accessible that gives an age date for Telfer and it also gives an age date for the host rocks. So, you know, you could, you could read across it Havieron’s about the same age.
00:12:07:12 - 00:12:18:18
Liam
Okay. And is it possible and this just the question just popped out of my head that the new deposits can still be formed in the modern day as the Earth kind of goes through its thing?
00:12:19:19 - 00:12:41:17
Callum
Of course. Yeah. Every earthquake I always go, well, there's a new ore deposit somewhere or the start of one. So yeah, a lot of, you know, to create the cracks in the rocks and stuff, which are the pathways for the fluid. Quite often you need a bit of seismic activity and it happens over a long period of time with like continents crashing into each other and things like that.
So, it's sort of a, you know, it's 100, 200,000-year process, but in multiple pulses of seismic activity, you know, allowing the fluids to move around and hit the trap sites.
00:12:56:18 - 00:13:18:09
Liam
Thank you. That really that that makes sense. The… I'm going to quote Greatland now the strong bi tenor of results at the drill site is particularly encouraging given that Havieron is strongly demarcated with their bismuth halo and the strong direct link between the bismuth and the gold in the ore system. And I'm about to ask, can you elaborate what this means?
But you've already elaborated on that because you've talked about the correlations that you guys came up with on that. So, I think we've even answered that question.
00:13:27:10 - 00:13:50:18
Callum
Yeah, Yeah. There's, yeah, there's, there'll be this is, as I said, if you, if you took samples of the sand every 100 meters or so in a, in a grid style fashion over the top of the deposit, you would end up with this big bismuth sort of bullseye that you see that you know if you can understand that.
So, you'd have to start from several kilometres out where presumably you get no bismuth and then all of a sudden when you're sitting on top, you get higher readings of bismuth. And if you just join the dots on the contours, then it would effectively map out where the deposit is. There are also other elements which are quite instructive as well.
We did notice there's a fairly high level of zinc associated with certain parts of Havieron deposit. So along with Bismuth, you can also use zinc as a what we call a pathfinder element. So, you can't directly detect gold then if you've got, say, four or five of the other associated Pathfinder elements and you know you're getting close to an ore system.
00:14:36:22 - 00:14:57:02
Liam
Yeah, I noted that they reported that there was and I'm sorry if I say any of these incorrectly gold, arsenic, bismuth, copper, nickel, lead, rubidium, antimony, samarium, tin, tungsten and zinc that's quite a range of the metals, isn't it?
00:14:58:06 - 00:15:27:15
Callum
Yeah, it sure is. It sure is. We were seeing ore grades, zinc intercepts in some of the Havieron core and also the, the chrome content was also coming up, which is… some of the nickel levels in the certainly the low parts of the deposit are getting quite high and it just shows how fertile these ore fluids were because they're carrying a basket of metals.
And which then we try and extrapolate. Well what was the actual... how do you generate those kind of elements by what kind of rock do you have to melt to have high levels of gold, copper and nickel and zinc, etc... So, you know, it's we probably don't need to answer those questions, but, you know, quest of science, you always try and answer, you know how we work it out, how it's working.
But definitely a fertile system and there's a lot of tungsten around as well in other parts of the Paterson. So, they use those elements to help you hone in on ore systems. But of course, you've got to see through the cover at Havieron, it's several hundred meters but where deposits are closer to the surface, they're easy to see with basic geochemistry, which is quite a cheap and fast tool to use.
00:16:23:15 - 00:16:35:13
Liam
Okay, so it's restrictive in some ways having those 400 meters of cover. I suppose in some ways that makes the challenge all the more rewarding when you when you find it, isn't it?
00:16:37:05 - 00:17:06:07
Callum
Oh, definitely. Yeah. Well, we were we were fairly convinced we could use mobile metal ion technology to see Havieron through the 400 meters of cover. And a lot of the other deposits in the Paterson are much more shallow. For example, Winu and some of the deposits bit further north from Havieron and of course, Telfer pops out of the ground and that's how actually how Newmont found it in the first place.
Yeah, so yeah, we're getting quite good at exploring under cover now. And of course, all the deposits that pop out of the ground have all been found, so you have to get a bit smarter about detecting these things when you can't see them at the surface.
00:17:24:18 - 00:17:42:07
Liam
And I'm guessing once you've, you've done all this and all this hard work has gone in, you can then transfer all this new knowledge to places such as Ernest Giles and you think that's a very different story. There isn't. It's a very different kind of rock down there. I was reading over the weekend.
00:17:44:01 - 00:18:24:10
Callum
Yeah. Ernest Giles has different segments of rocks in terms of just general age. The rocks in the Paterson are Proterozoic age and the rocks in Ernest Giles are Archean age, so they're much older and... but all the rocks in the goldfields in Western Australia are of Archean age. So now nearly every single greenstone belt within the Archean of Western Australia post gold to some level of concentration, Kalgoorlie actually in particular is a Super Giant and at Ernest Giles it's the last unexplored Greenstone Belt in Western Australia and it's under a plus 100 meters of cover. And Greatland has a large landholding out there, which is just a matter of finding the deposit.
00:18:42:00 - 00:19:09:10
Liam
Yeah. And I was looking through some of the historical data that's, that's, that's been released and how you systematically went through various parts of it and it was suggested in one of RNS’s that you released that there's a at least a 5 million plus ore body there. Have you, how close do you think you got to it, if that's a fair question to ask?
00:19:10:09 - 00:19:18:14
Callum
Yeah, I suppose I should slightly rephrase what you said in that we're looking for a plus 5-million-ounce deposit. Because really, we know with Greatland’s dynamic, it was always about not just finding 100,000 ounces or even a million ounces. It was always about finding deposits that were actually going to shift the needle for even a major player on the planet. So, we're always striving to find big deposits in fertile areas. And that that's the logic behind exploration in the Paterson and exploration at Ernest Giles.
So, we're looking for plus 5-million-ounce deposits and they have a certain fingerprint and using certain exploration techniques, you should be able to detect whether they, whether you whether they're present in that terrain or not. And I believe the work that Greatland’s done to date have ticked that box to show that there's a high probability that there's plus 5Moz worth of gold in that area.
00:20:19:01 - 00:20:43:22
Callum
And it's just a matter of carrying out further exploration to hone in on it. Now we've had plus one gram per tonne intercepts in the basement. That's at Ernest Giles already, and that is just from some very, very broad spaced vertical RC drill holes. So, it's just a matter of latching onto the, the main system now, which just means more drilling effectively.
00:20:45:01 - 00:20:59:14
Liam
So, there's the possibility, I guess that both Black Hills and Ernest Giles a bit more equally, but you know, within the range of possibility of finding even more, that's quite exciting.
00:20:59:14 - 00:21:32:22
Callum
Yeah, very much so. And, and also in the same exploration update from last week, Greatland were mentioning the fine fraction soil sample results from the Patterson Range East tenement. Mm hmm. And that's very exciting as well because you can clearly see two anomalies there, basically the fine fraction soils have returned elevated levels of gold in two areas.
And they're not small, those areas. So that is definitely something to hone in on. And I'm sure that will be part of this year's work program for the company, because you just can't ignore that, that that's actually the meat and potatoes there. It to me, that looks very, very exciting along with the Black Hills results.
00:21:56:11 - 00:22:11:07
Liam
Yes. And so that's because I'm just looking at it now. Um, what sorts of test is that? Is that just sort of where they've, they've taken a sample of the soil. Is that what you mean by that. Sorry.
00:22:11:07 - 00:22:43:20
Callum
That's right, yeah. They've, they've travelled along the existing access tracks and, and taken samples a predetermined distance apart and I'm not quite sure what the distance is in that case, but I think it may have been 50 or 50 meters or maybe 100 meters apar. And they take it really as it says, a fine fraction really. They know finer than a flour sieve kind of material and then detects how much gold is there.
And effectively looking through a cover sequence of plus maybe 20 meters of sand there. So, you're looking for very small responses of gold and there's definitely two sizable responses in separate areas there, which is quite exciting really. So, now the next step is to take further samples to try and contour it out and then potentially work out what the next strategy is from there, whether it's some ground geophysics or whether you just go straight to drilling.
00:23:21:04 - 00:23:45:10
Liam
Right. Okay. Speaking of that, in terms of the process, let's go back to Black Hills. What would you as geologist, what would your next move be for your drilling? Would you then be looking at your data to work out a series of sequences or what? What would your next move be for a better future… maybe you try as I stumble through it?
00:23:46:21 - 00:24:30:01
Callum
Mmm Yeah, I think with the rocks poke out of the ground quite a bit at Black Hills. So, I think some geological mapping and then also I'm pretty sure we've carried out three D.I.P over that area, which gives you a good handle on subsurface structure and then further drilling, potentially some electromagnetics as well that may help to try and pick up sulphide response and then further drilling.
00:24:30:21 - 00:24:49:05
Liam
Okay. And so, it really is just a question of we've we think we found the haystack and now we've just got to find the needle and we kind of know which part of the haystack to look in as well. Is. Is that being fair?
00:24:50:06 - 00:25:16:20
Callum
Yeah. Yeah. Well, as you can see in that picture, in the Greatland announcement saddle reefs area is just to the south and we picked up gold nuggets off the surface there. And so, we know there's mineralization there and we know this one of these reduced granites in the very north west corner of that license block as well. So really where they've drilled the hole and got the gold response with the bismuth is the right location.
So, you know, your description of we've found the haystack. Yep, it's there and so forth. So, the probably geophysics and drilling to locate where the biggest system is.
00:25:29:18 - 00:25:30:20
Liam
Brilliant and now we've had.
00:25:30:21 - 00:25:31:15
Callum
So, it’s not far away.
00:25:32:08 - 00:25:45:07
Liam
No, it's not. We've actually picked up the tenement directly adjacent to us as well, to the north. So, if we know the granites in that top corner that there could be more prospectivity of more haystacks.
00:25:45:07 - 00:25:47:00
Callum
Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. It's great.
00:25:47:17 - 00:26:14:06
Liam
Super. And now I would get hauled over the coals if I didn't bring up this next subject, over the weekend and now we have the information. It's been, uh, noted that Newmont has made an offer or two to Newcrest. I just wondered if you had a comment on, on that and how things stand from your point of view.
00:26:14:06 - 00:27:00:18
Callum
Yeah, exciting news over the weekend. And Newcrest has publicly announced that Newmont have made a bid for Newcrest, just looking at a few notes here that Newmont's offered 16.9 billion USD, and obviously Newmont's the world's largest gold miner, both by market capitalization and number of ounces produced every year. So, Newmont have obviously recognized that Newcrest is slightly undervalued at the moment and they like the look of their assets which includes Telfer and Havieron.
Yeah, it's a bit ironic that Newmont actually found Telfer in the first place back in the seventies and for various reasons, the company Newcrest was born when Newmont moved on. Well, they actually were a major shareholder in Newcrest after Newmont moved out of that area in Australia. So, for Newmont to come back in, they know the terrain very well and they know the opportunities in the Paterson as well.
But the Newcrest tie up is not all about Telfer, it's also about other assets that Newcrest have, such as Cadia. So, it's very exciting because in my 30 plus 30 years in the industry, everything that I've seen Newmont do is exceptional. They're brilliant explorers, they're fantastic at production and they're very focused on their shareholders, and management is always focused on running an efficient, safe operation.
And as for them to buy Newcrest and come under the Newmont banner would be transformational for the Newcrest management team and their workers and their assets. So, for Greatland to be part of that process is very exciting, very positive news. Um, I was also looking at some comments by trying to understand why Newmont made this bid at this particular point in time and you can sort of see that potentially there's a bit of a softening in the US dollar coming through this year and that means, you know, it's all good news for gold price.
So, I think Newmont's looking at it as, you know, there's a bit of a tailwind here. If we can get these assets at these prices now, then you know, we're going to turn them around and make them worth a lot more in the future. So, but, you know, Morgan Stanley is forecasting a $2160 US gold during the course of this year.
So, Newmont's just trying to get in front of that and I think it's great. Now if Newmont, Newmont, hang on, want to hang onto Telfer and the Paterson assets. That's fantastic. And potentially that want to buy Greatland’s or Greatland’s portion of Havieron in that process. So that's a win for Greatland. Alternatively, if Newcrest sorry, if Newmont don't want to pursue the Paterson assets and that's an unlikely scenario, but nonetheless I'd say Greatland would throw its hat in the ring to try and purchase those assets.
Well, a scenario is that Greatland would purchase those assets from Newmont and Telfer would become a central processing hub for Greatland and it would make Greatland a mid-tier gold and copper producer. So, a much larger entity which is again a win for Greatland. So really for Greatland, the scenario at the moment is win win.
00:30:09:21 - 00:30:23:13
Liam
Yes. I mean if you're if, if you're shown there and the team and you there's an opportunity that you could end up owning a 100% of Havieron, you'd probably bite the hands off of that wouldn't you?
00:30:23:13 - 00:30:45:09
Callum
Definitely. That's right. Yeah. Smaller companies can often run an operation much more efficiently than a larger company. But that said, Newmont is still fantastic at running their operations. They run the Boddington goldmine here in Western Australia and they ran the Jundee operation in Western Australia for many years and they're just renowned as being the premier operators.
00:30:46:17 - 00:31:19:18
Liam
Which is, which is awesome. The… I just had a question and it absolutely just disappeared out of my mind then I'm not sure you even saw it go. No, I genuinely have gone completely blank, doesn’t happen very often.
So, when we've got a joint venture agreement like we do with Greatland Gold and Newcrest, is there ever any kind of planning that goes in in case parties change or anything like that? Is that sort of thing ever spoken about? I appreciate you may or may not be able to even speak about this kind of stuff, but just thought I'd ask that kind of question.
00:31:30:18 - 00:32:05:06
Callum
Yeah. So, in general terms, quite often when a joint venture agreement is put together, if one party wants to move on, then the other party has a right of first refusal. So for example, if Newcrest wanted to sell, let's say if Greatland wanted to sell its current proportion of Havieron to a third party. Yeah. Then Newcrest may have the ability to match the offer from the third party as of right of first refusal.
00:32:05:16 - 00:32:06:02
Liam
Okay.
00:32:06:13 - 00:32:07:01
Callum
Does that make sense.
00:32:07:01 - 00:32:08:09
Liam
That does make sense, yes.
00:32:08:21 - 00:32:10:10
Callum
Did I explain it okay. Yeah, yeah.
00:32:10:17 - 00:32:30:00
Liam
Yeah. Now, I think since last time we spoke, Andrew Forrest has waded into the ring with Wyloo and his investment companies. Do you think he's going to have something to say about the Paterson region? And if Newmont turn up?
00:32:30:00 - 00:33:15:18
Callum
Yeah, well, Andrew Forrest, again, a very good operator. And as you can see with his track record of Fortescue Metals Group, which has been very successful and he invests in operations that can definitely be scaled up. And if you look at Greatland as a 30% producer from Havieron, there's a significant prize there, particularly when it goes into production, because generally when companies are going through this development phase, their share prices are somewhat depressed, but when production kicks in, you get a significantly high uplift in the share price.
You know, from that initial investment point of view for Andrew Forrest, that's very, be very rewarding for him, however, is a several bigger pictures here where if for whatever reason Newcrest may decide not to continue in the Paterson, then there's nothing holding Greatland back from purchasing all the Paterson assets from Newcrest and becoming a standalone 100% producer from Telfer and Havieron itself.
And now that that's a much bigger prize for the likes of Andrew Forrest and those shareholders looking for a dividend return on an annual basis. So, you know, there's a lot of good scenarios. Also, everyone may have noticed Rio Tinto's ambivalence about the Winu deposit over the past couple of years. It was fantastic asset, but now they need a bit more time to think about it.
Maybe it's not of a scale that suits Rio Tinto to shift the needle on their underlying performance. So maybe Rio Tinto would be happy to sell that asset as well. And then Telfer becomes a central processing hub for multiple deposits on a very large scale, with infrastructure heading back to a deep-water port at Port Hedland. And for Andrew Forrest, that is what's happening with Fortescue Metals Group in the iron ore space.
Now that can be happening in the Paterson in the gold and copper space as well, and that's a potential scenario that could play out over the next few years. So, if that happens, then the dividends are going to be orders of magnitude higher, but still there'll be very nice in the near future for Greatland shareholders. But yeah, it could go big time and it'll be very exciting.
00:35:16:17 - 00:35:21:18
Liam
You could then have an armada of boats down there on the in the marina.
00:35:23:06 - 00:35:30:12
Callum
That's right. Well probably yeah. One boat's enough at the moment.
00:35:30:13 - 00:35:50:06
Liam
I'm sure the whole cleaning process takes long enough as it is and that and that's amazing because Telfer has got two huge trains able to process millions of ounces of ore. But I mean, when you look at the starter plan for Greatland, it's no more than 3 million tonnes a year of ore that can be processed. So, as you say, to become a central processing plant for multiple deposits, it kind of makes sense in that in that way.
00:35:59:08 - 00:36:33:18
Callum
Yes. So, you start bringing in bulk tonnes. Telfers rated at just over 20 million tonnes per annum. So, if it, if you push Havieron into a sublevel cave scenario where it's producing plus 5 million tonnes per annum and then you put Telfer ore on top of that plus Winu ore then yeah, you could be easily pushing the 20 million tonnes which is the existing capacity of Telfer and that becomes a major producer.
And also, you know, the important thing that everyone should remember is that Telfer is running now. It's already been built. Yeah, the money's been spent. It's not going to take years for permitting and engineering and getting it on site and building it. It's already there operating with multiple power plants. Gas pipeline to the coast. It is ready built, turn key, off it goes.
00:37:01:20 - 00:37:18:03
Liam
And that's what makes having Havieron such a great prospect is the fact that it's happened so quickly from you discovering it through to the fact that we're almost approaching the ore body and getting ready to mine it. It's something.
00:37:18:15 - 00:37:21:02
Callum
That's right. Yeah. Fantastic.
00:37:21:20 - 00:37:48:14
Liam
Brilliant. Well, I have actually run out of questions for you, Callum. Um, because the last part on there was us talking about when NCM, this is a brief question but NCM If they said no to Newmont, for whatever reason, their shareholders say no to Newmont. If between Wyloo and Greatland, they could actually make quite an attractive offer for Telfer and Havieron that then puts Newcrest into a cash positive situation. Is that possible?
00:37:57:18 - 00:38:02:20
Callum
Yeah, definitely. Now vice versa. Now Newmont might want to buy Greatland and take the lot or, or, you know, Greatland could potentially take the Paterson assets of Newmont. Yeah. It's really a win win whichever way it goes.
00:38:13:01 - 00:38:23:04
Liam
Do you think now is the time to get out a new mineral resource estimate (MRE) or do you sit on the one that you've got knowing that it's not making your ore body as big as it really is?
00:38:24:21 - 00:38:56:11
Callum
Yeah, well again, this is where the Newmont bid works for Greatland shareholders in that if Newcrest are obviously going to have to defend the valuation and get the share price up. And the way you do that is by making your deposits look fantastic. I think there may have been, you know, may have been less information in the public domain rather than more of for Havieron over a period of time.
And you know, everyone really knows the true scale of the system there, really a mineral resource estimate is just a snapshot in time. And it doesn't really take it doesn't really encapsulate the greater potential And but when obviously the data is shown to the likes of Andrew Forrest and he goes yep I’m in… you know and it doesn’t... again you look at today's announcement from Greatland of the extra executive appointments that have been made… when you really show people the data and the opportunity it's very easy to convince people that Havieron is a very significant asset and it's very large and it contains a lot of metal.
00:39:43:17 - 00:39:52:19
Liam
Including a, we’ve briefly touched upon it including nickel. There's a.. there's an underlying nickel story. You know much about this underlying nickel story?
00:39:52:19 - 00:40:00:20
Callum
I do, I've seen I've seen the data up to when I was present at Greatland up to the end of August in ‘21.
00:40:00:23 - 00:40:06:22
Liam
Okay. And does it make you really smile?
00:40:06:22 - 00:40:35:18
Callum
Well, yes, it does, because no, there's but it's definitely not... it's exciting because it's a multi-metal system. And as I mentioned before, there's some zinc in there. There's some nickel in there. But obviously the metallurgy at Telfer is slightly different. So, if you did want to pull out the extra metals there'd be some plant modifications required, but you know that's, that's achievable in this day and age.
00:40:40:01 - 00:41:05:01
Liam
Especially when you've got somebody like Mr. Forrest backing you that can that can lend you a couple of hundred to build a plant that will then make that happen. Wonderful, well, I think that is probably a great place to leave our conversation today. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your, um, I'm going to say busy day to and to spend some time with me and the rest of the Greatland shareholders. Is there anything else that you'd like to add just to sort of close out any comments or anything?
00:41:11:15 - 00:41:41:20
Callum
Again, thanks to the great Island shareholders that supported us in the early days and we would never have made this discovery without your support. And I'm really heartened by all the support we got over the years.
And I know it has been slightly more difficult times for Greatland shareholders in the past couple of years, the market hasn't been fantastic, but certainly everything's still going in the right direction for Havieron and Greatland and closer to production.
So, you know, I’m still a major shareholder and I'm looking forward to the rewards in the coming months.
00:41:49:09 - 00:42:01:14
Liam
Fantastic. Callum Baxter, thank you so much for spending time with me today. I really do appreciate it. And everybody else, thank you for tuning in and watching, my names Liam and you've been watching Brew with Bottle.
Download link:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/ktd3mnf6 ... 3.pdf/file
Interview:
https://youtu.be/tyjDRNi0D58
RNS:
https://greatlandgold.com/wp-content/up ... Update.pdf
Created from a software transcript export
00:00:15:04 - 00:00:25:17
Liam
And good morning welcome back to Brew with Bottle, I’m Liam as always and I'm pleased to say that I am here today with Callum Baxter, fellow shareholder. Callum, welcome back to the show. How are you?
00:00:26:15 - 00:00:31:14
Callum
I'm well, Liam, great to catch up again. Thanks for inviting me to have another chat.
00:00:31:14 - 00:00:39:02
Liam
Ah, not a problem at all. I see that your background has drastically changed since the last time I saw you. Where are you at the moment?
00:00:41:00 - 00:00:46:13
Callum
I'm on my boat in a marina in the town where we live called Albany in Western Australia.
00:00:47:20 - 00:00:53:02
Liam
Oh, it's fantastic. What? What kind of boat you got? Last time I spoke to you, we would be discussing that you might be getting one.
00:00:54:18 - 00:01:20:03
Callum
Yeah, I've been looking for a long time and I found this boat late last year. I purchased it in November. It's an Incat monohull, 52 foot long aluminium hull, Incat are global, they make high speed ferries and a naval patrol boats. So, this is well constructed and has a cruise speed of about 30 knots.
00:01:20:05 - 00:01:27:18
Liam
Oh, wonderful. But also presume it's happy enough just bobbing around whilst you throw the line out and catch yourself some dinner.
00:01:28:19 - 00:01:36:20
Callum
That's right. Catch a few fish and snorkelling and yeah, just generally exploring beaches and coves around here, which is fantastic.
00:01:37:01 - 00:02:00:19
Liam
Oh, that's wonderful. I'm. I'm really pleased for you. Now, I wanted to talk to you today because on Thursday the 2nd (Feb) Greatland released the JURI exploration program update. And there were things in there that I kind of didn't understand and thought I really could do with this being explained a bit better. So, I thought, Who better to talk to than yourself?
Because if anybody knows exactly what's how this is all happened, it's going to be yourself. So, I just wondered. Greatland have seemed to have focused prior to prior preliminary. I can't even say that word… Greatland have focused on the bismuth that they have found. So, I just wondered if you could sort of explain the process of how… om terms of how the bismuth and the gold and copper and stuff end up where they end up, please.
00:02:31:14 - 00:03:02:11
Callum
MM Yeah, sure. Okay. So, when a mineral deposit forms is basically because there's been fluids traveling through the rocks and the fluids are often high pressure and high temperature and they've got a certain chemistry about them that if they're carrying metals effectively and they also carrying a whole load of other elements and in relatively higher concentrations than you would normally find.
So that's what makes an ore deposit is a high concentration of a certain type of material such as gold, for example. Then and quite often within these ore fluids, there'll be other elements that are enriched as well. So, if and so quite often there'll be several elements which co-exist with the ore mineral. So, and for example, at Havieron we've got an enrichment in bismuth which is not super high, but it is sort of above normal levels that you would find in the natural environment.
So, if you're wandering around out there and you take samples of the sands, let's say 100 or 200 meters apart, and then you're starting to detect slightly elevated levels of bismuth, then you're, you know, you're sort of in a zone where the ore fluids have potentially been traveling not far away from you. So, it helps you hone in on the deposits and ah Havieron you know, we recognized the bismuth association fairly early and it's more associated with the high-grade mineralization at Havieron so Greatland’s update from last week saying that you know elevated levels of bismuth found in the hole at Black Hills.
It well it suggests that there's the higher-grade ore fluids have been traveling within those rocks there at black hills. So, there's only one drill hole in that particular area of Black Hills from Greatland . So definitely worth following up because it's a clue that there's high grade gold in that particular area.
00:04:53:06 - 00:05:01:16
Liam
So, Bismuth and gold, because I was looking at the period, the table period, I can't even speak of this so early.
00:05:01:21 - 00:05:05:02
Callum
The periodic table elements! Yeah.
00:05:05:11 - 00:05:20:21
Liam
Yeah. So, I noticed that they're not actually they, they're in line aren't they. So is that how that kind of all comes together Is, is that they're all part of that. They're not part of the same family are they, because copper and gold are part of that same family. So yeah.
00:05:20:21 - 00:05:57:21
Callum
Well, it's quite often it's, it's all to do with the chemistry of the ore fluids, you get elevations of sulphur as well, of course. And sometimes arsenic, but not in the case of Havieron, but yes Bismuth gets tagged along as well with these ore fluids. And so yeah, we actually worked out a proxy early on at Havieron for the high-grade crescent mineralization where we were seeing a specific ratio.
And because we were using the portable XRF guns on the core, which are notoriously difficult to detect gold with. However, we could see the bismuth with the XRF. So, when we saw the bismuth we go, okay, we're on the money. You can see visually the sulphides and then use the XRF gun and we could see sulphur and arsenic and bismuth as well.
00:06:27:21 - 00:06:54:04
Callum
And so, we roughly knew what level of gold was in it. And when the proper wet samples came back from the laboratory after crushing and dissolving the drill core through the machines, we were getting very close to what we… our calculations were telling us from the bismuth levels. Now at Havieron there's actually several different sizes of mineralization.
There's the high-grade gold with the high-grade copper, and then there's the lower grade gold. It's still very good grades, but it's not in the hundreds of grams per tonne. It's in the tens. That's got a slightly different bismuth association. And that sort of suggests to us that it may be slightly different ore chemistry because this system was alive for a long, long time.
Multiple pulses of ore fluids depositing different types of mineralization or different grades of mineralization in the system. So yeah, quite interesting. And it's a good sign for Greatland that Bismuth is there at Black Hills because it means that the really good ore fluids have been traveling through that area.
00:07:34:15 - 00:07:49:06
Liam
Is it possible that it's all coming from the same place kilometres below the earth, that it sort of sort of funnels out? Is that something how this sort of thing would happen?
00:07:49:06 - 00:08:44:02
Callum
Well, yeah. The it's… postulated that the source of the mineralization seen at Telfer is from a granite that's located approximately ten kilometres to the south east of Telfer. And, and it, it's highly likely that that is the same source for the ore fluids for Havieron as well. Right now, people could argue either way whether it is or whether it isn't, but is pretty important that because these granites are the heat source and generating the fluids which have then deposited the metals at Telfer and Havieron so as we're looking for these reduced hot granites which are around in the Paterson, that's what makes the Paterson so fertile is the amount of these granites that have actually intruded into the rock system there.
And it's also basically generated that Winu deposit for… well these granites have generated the Winu deposit for Rio Tinto which is about 100 kilometres to the north west of Havieron, it would be a different granite up there creating the fluids but nonetheless there's a number of these granites around which are the important key to creation of the deposits.
00:09:13:09 - 00:09:19:17
Liam
And the granite. Is that a harder type rock? I'm really digging deep here and what I do know about geology is that a harder type of rock?
00:09:21:09 - 00:09:41:08
Callum
Granite is harder than the country rock. Yes, it is. Okay. It's a magma that never actually pops out at the surface. So, it's called a pluton. And the fluid sort of might get to say within five kilometres of the surface and it just sits there red hot, and then eventually cools off to create a solid lump of rock. Which is much harder than the surrounding country rock, which is sedimentary rocks.
00:09:48:15 - 00:09:54:19
Liam
Right. Okay. And I'm guessing that's kind of under pressure with the fact it’s being pushed up from the Earth's crust.
00:09:54:19 - 00:10:32:01
Callum
Um hmm. Exactly. And so, you get the pressure differentials, particularly when the granites and the magma from the Pluton hit natural faults or sort of breaks in the sedimentary sequence. And so, then, then you start to invoke the structural controls, which are the pathways for the ore fluids, and then they'll find a ‘trap site’, so it appears to be what's happening at Havieron is that a large portion of the country rocks is, is sandstone which is a high proportion of silica and it's not very reactive.
That's pretty hard to, to melt and react with silica like silica glass, you know, it's pretty much inert, whereas there's other sedimentary layers there in the Paterson, which are higher in carbonates, which effectively seabed deposits of, of shells and limestone. And it's got a high carbonate or calcium content and that is very reactive. So, if you've ever seen someone drop some acid on some limestone, you see how it freezes.
So, these ore fluids are basically wandered through all the, all the sandstone faults and cracks and then hit a more limestone or carbonate rich layer. And then the ore fluids then start to react with the limestone and then dump out all the goodies, such as the gold and the copper.
00:11:23:16 - 00:11:38:22
Liam
Super. Yeah. That it's almost like you've, you've read my script this morning because that i… what is a trap site is literally my next question. So, thank you for attaching that. Now, how many years ago are we talking I mean, this is hundreds of thousands of years ago, isn't it?
00:11:40:00 - 00:12:07:02
Callum
Yeah. Yeah, that's right. If people sort of have a look at the papers that have been published on Telfer and there's been some recent ones which are easily accessible that gives an age date for Telfer and it also gives an age date for the host rocks. So, you know, you could, you could read across it Havieron’s about the same age.
00:12:07:12 - 00:12:18:18
Liam
Okay. And is it possible and this just the question just popped out of my head that the new deposits can still be formed in the modern day as the Earth kind of goes through its thing?
00:12:19:19 - 00:12:41:17
Callum
Of course. Yeah. Every earthquake I always go, well, there's a new ore deposit somewhere or the start of one. So yeah, a lot of, you know, to create the cracks in the rocks and stuff, which are the pathways for the fluid. Quite often you need a bit of seismic activity and it happens over a long period of time with like continents crashing into each other and things like that.
So, it's sort of a, you know, it's 100, 200,000-year process, but in multiple pulses of seismic activity, you know, allowing the fluids to move around and hit the trap sites.
00:12:56:18 - 00:13:18:09
Liam
Thank you. That really that that makes sense. The… I'm going to quote Greatland now the strong bi tenor of results at the drill site is particularly encouraging given that Havieron is strongly demarcated with their bismuth halo and the strong direct link between the bismuth and the gold in the ore system. And I'm about to ask, can you elaborate what this means?
But you've already elaborated on that because you've talked about the correlations that you guys came up with on that. So, I think we've even answered that question.
00:13:27:10 - 00:13:50:18
Callum
Yeah, Yeah. There's, yeah, there's, there'll be this is, as I said, if you, if you took samples of the sand every 100 meters or so in a, in a grid style fashion over the top of the deposit, you would end up with this big bismuth sort of bullseye that you see that you know if you can understand that.
So, you'd have to start from several kilometres out where presumably you get no bismuth and then all of a sudden when you're sitting on top, you get higher readings of bismuth. And if you just join the dots on the contours, then it would effectively map out where the deposit is. There are also other elements which are quite instructive as well.
We did notice there's a fairly high level of zinc associated with certain parts of Havieron deposit. So along with Bismuth, you can also use zinc as a what we call a pathfinder element. So, you can't directly detect gold then if you've got, say, four or five of the other associated Pathfinder elements and you know you're getting close to an ore system.
00:14:36:22 - 00:14:57:02
Liam
Yeah, I noted that they reported that there was and I'm sorry if I say any of these incorrectly gold, arsenic, bismuth, copper, nickel, lead, rubidium, antimony, samarium, tin, tungsten and zinc that's quite a range of the metals, isn't it?
00:14:58:06 - 00:15:27:15
Callum
Yeah, it sure is. It sure is. We were seeing ore grades, zinc intercepts in some of the Havieron core and also the, the chrome content was also coming up, which is… some of the nickel levels in the certainly the low parts of the deposit are getting quite high and it just shows how fertile these ore fluids were because they're carrying a basket of metals.
And which then we try and extrapolate. Well what was the actual... how do you generate those kind of elements by what kind of rock do you have to melt to have high levels of gold, copper and nickel and zinc, etc... So, you know, it's we probably don't need to answer those questions, but, you know, quest of science, you always try and answer, you know how we work it out, how it's working.
But definitely a fertile system and there's a lot of tungsten around as well in other parts of the Paterson. So, they use those elements to help you hone in on ore systems. But of course, you've got to see through the cover at Havieron, it's several hundred meters but where deposits are closer to the surface, they're easy to see with basic geochemistry, which is quite a cheap and fast tool to use.
00:16:23:15 - 00:16:35:13
Liam
Okay, so it's restrictive in some ways having those 400 meters of cover. I suppose in some ways that makes the challenge all the more rewarding when you when you find it, isn't it?
00:16:37:05 - 00:17:06:07
Callum
Oh, definitely. Yeah. Well, we were we were fairly convinced we could use mobile metal ion technology to see Havieron through the 400 meters of cover. And a lot of the other deposits in the Paterson are much more shallow. For example, Winu and some of the deposits bit further north from Havieron and of course, Telfer pops out of the ground and that's how actually how Newmont found it in the first place.
Yeah, so yeah, we're getting quite good at exploring under cover now. And of course, all the deposits that pop out of the ground have all been found, so you have to get a bit smarter about detecting these things when you can't see them at the surface.
00:17:24:18 - 00:17:42:07
Liam
And I'm guessing once you've, you've done all this and all this hard work has gone in, you can then transfer all this new knowledge to places such as Ernest Giles and you think that's a very different story. There isn't. It's a very different kind of rock down there. I was reading over the weekend.
00:17:44:01 - 00:18:24:10
Callum
Yeah. Ernest Giles has different segments of rocks in terms of just general age. The rocks in the Paterson are Proterozoic age and the rocks in Ernest Giles are Archean age, so they're much older and... but all the rocks in the goldfields in Western Australia are of Archean age. So now nearly every single greenstone belt within the Archean of Western Australia post gold to some level of concentration, Kalgoorlie actually in particular is a Super Giant and at Ernest Giles it's the last unexplored Greenstone Belt in Western Australia and it's under a plus 100 meters of cover. And Greatland has a large landholding out there, which is just a matter of finding the deposit.
00:18:42:00 - 00:19:09:10
Liam
Yeah. And I was looking through some of the historical data that's, that's, that's been released and how you systematically went through various parts of it and it was suggested in one of RNS’s that you released that there's a at least a 5 million plus ore body there. Have you, how close do you think you got to it, if that's a fair question to ask?
00:19:10:09 - 00:19:18:14
Callum
Yeah, I suppose I should slightly rephrase what you said in that we're looking for a plus 5-million-ounce deposit. Because really, we know with Greatland’s dynamic, it was always about not just finding 100,000 ounces or even a million ounces. It was always about finding deposits that were actually going to shift the needle for even a major player on the planet. So, we're always striving to find big deposits in fertile areas. And that that's the logic behind exploration in the Paterson and exploration at Ernest Giles.
So, we're looking for plus 5-million-ounce deposits and they have a certain fingerprint and using certain exploration techniques, you should be able to detect whether they, whether you whether they're present in that terrain or not. And I believe the work that Greatland’s done to date have ticked that box to show that there's a high probability that there's plus 5Moz worth of gold in that area.
00:20:19:01 - 00:20:43:22
Callum
And it's just a matter of carrying out further exploration to hone in on it. Now we've had plus one gram per tonne intercepts in the basement. That's at Ernest Giles already, and that is just from some very, very broad spaced vertical RC drill holes. So, it's just a matter of latching onto the, the main system now, which just means more drilling effectively.
00:20:45:01 - 00:20:59:14
Liam
So, there's the possibility, I guess that both Black Hills and Ernest Giles a bit more equally, but you know, within the range of possibility of finding even more, that's quite exciting.
00:20:59:14 - 00:21:32:22
Callum
Yeah, very much so. And, and also in the same exploration update from last week, Greatland were mentioning the fine fraction soil sample results from the Patterson Range East tenement. Mm hmm. And that's very exciting as well because you can clearly see two anomalies there, basically the fine fraction soils have returned elevated levels of gold in two areas.
And they're not small, those areas. So that is definitely something to hone in on. And I'm sure that will be part of this year's work program for the company, because you just can't ignore that, that that's actually the meat and potatoes there. It to me, that looks very, very exciting along with the Black Hills results.
00:21:56:11 - 00:22:11:07
Liam
Yes. And so that's because I'm just looking at it now. Um, what sorts of test is that? Is that just sort of where they've, they've taken a sample of the soil. Is that what you mean by that. Sorry.
00:22:11:07 - 00:22:43:20
Callum
That's right, yeah. They've, they've travelled along the existing access tracks and, and taken samples a predetermined distance apart and I'm not quite sure what the distance is in that case, but I think it may have been 50 or 50 meters or maybe 100 meters apar. And they take it really as it says, a fine fraction really. They know finer than a flour sieve kind of material and then detects how much gold is there.
And effectively looking through a cover sequence of plus maybe 20 meters of sand there. So, you're looking for very small responses of gold and there's definitely two sizable responses in separate areas there, which is quite exciting really. So, now the next step is to take further samples to try and contour it out and then potentially work out what the next strategy is from there, whether it's some ground geophysics or whether you just go straight to drilling.
00:23:21:04 - 00:23:45:10
Liam
Right. Okay. Speaking of that, in terms of the process, let's go back to Black Hills. What would you as geologist, what would your next move be for your drilling? Would you then be looking at your data to work out a series of sequences or what? What would your next move be for a better future… maybe you try as I stumble through it?
00:23:46:21 - 00:24:30:01
Callum
Mmm Yeah, I think with the rocks poke out of the ground quite a bit at Black Hills. So, I think some geological mapping and then also I'm pretty sure we've carried out three D.I.P over that area, which gives you a good handle on subsurface structure and then further drilling, potentially some electromagnetics as well that may help to try and pick up sulphide response and then further drilling.
00:24:30:21 - 00:24:49:05
Liam
Okay. And so, it really is just a question of we've we think we found the haystack and now we've just got to find the needle and we kind of know which part of the haystack to look in as well. Is. Is that being fair?
00:24:50:06 - 00:25:16:20
Callum
Yeah. Yeah. Well, as you can see in that picture, in the Greatland announcement saddle reefs area is just to the south and we picked up gold nuggets off the surface there. And so, we know there's mineralization there and we know this one of these reduced granites in the very north west corner of that license block as well. So really where they've drilled the hole and got the gold response with the bismuth is the right location.
So, you know, your description of we've found the haystack. Yep, it's there and so forth. So, the probably geophysics and drilling to locate where the biggest system is.
00:25:29:18 - 00:25:30:20
Liam
Brilliant and now we've had.
00:25:30:21 - 00:25:31:15
Callum
So, it’s not far away.
00:25:32:08 - 00:25:45:07
Liam
No, it's not. We've actually picked up the tenement directly adjacent to us as well, to the north. So, if we know the granites in that top corner that there could be more prospectivity of more haystacks.
00:25:45:07 - 00:25:47:00
Callum
Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. It's great.
00:25:47:17 - 00:26:14:06
Liam
Super. And now I would get hauled over the coals if I didn't bring up this next subject, over the weekend and now we have the information. It's been, uh, noted that Newmont has made an offer or two to Newcrest. I just wondered if you had a comment on, on that and how things stand from your point of view.
00:26:14:06 - 00:27:00:18
Callum
Yeah, exciting news over the weekend. And Newcrest has publicly announced that Newmont have made a bid for Newcrest, just looking at a few notes here that Newmont's offered 16.9 billion USD, and obviously Newmont's the world's largest gold miner, both by market capitalization and number of ounces produced every year. So, Newmont have obviously recognized that Newcrest is slightly undervalued at the moment and they like the look of their assets which includes Telfer and Havieron.
Yeah, it's a bit ironic that Newmont actually found Telfer in the first place back in the seventies and for various reasons, the company Newcrest was born when Newmont moved on. Well, they actually were a major shareholder in Newcrest after Newmont moved out of that area in Australia. So, for Newmont to come back in, they know the terrain very well and they know the opportunities in the Paterson as well.
But the Newcrest tie up is not all about Telfer, it's also about other assets that Newcrest have, such as Cadia. So, it's very exciting because in my 30 plus 30 years in the industry, everything that I've seen Newmont do is exceptional. They're brilliant explorers, they're fantastic at production and they're very focused on their shareholders, and management is always focused on running an efficient, safe operation.
And as for them to buy Newcrest and come under the Newmont banner would be transformational for the Newcrest management team and their workers and their assets. So, for Greatland to be part of that process is very exciting, very positive news. Um, I was also looking at some comments by trying to understand why Newmont made this bid at this particular point in time and you can sort of see that potentially there's a bit of a softening in the US dollar coming through this year and that means, you know, it's all good news for gold price.
So, I think Newmont's looking at it as, you know, there's a bit of a tailwind here. If we can get these assets at these prices now, then you know, we're going to turn them around and make them worth a lot more in the future. So, but, you know, Morgan Stanley is forecasting a $2160 US gold during the course of this year.
So, Newmont's just trying to get in front of that and I think it's great. Now if Newmont, Newmont, hang on, want to hang onto Telfer and the Paterson assets. That's fantastic. And potentially that want to buy Greatland’s or Greatland’s portion of Havieron in that process. So that's a win for Greatland. Alternatively, if Newcrest sorry, if Newmont don't want to pursue the Paterson assets and that's an unlikely scenario, but nonetheless I'd say Greatland would throw its hat in the ring to try and purchase those assets.
Well, a scenario is that Greatland would purchase those assets from Newmont and Telfer would become a central processing hub for Greatland and it would make Greatland a mid-tier gold and copper producer. So, a much larger entity which is again a win for Greatland. So really for Greatland, the scenario at the moment is win win.
00:30:09:21 - 00:30:23:13
Liam
Yes. I mean if you're if, if you're shown there and the team and you there's an opportunity that you could end up owning a 100% of Havieron, you'd probably bite the hands off of that wouldn't you?
00:30:23:13 - 00:30:45:09
Callum
Definitely. That's right. Yeah. Smaller companies can often run an operation much more efficiently than a larger company. But that said, Newmont is still fantastic at running their operations. They run the Boddington goldmine here in Western Australia and they ran the Jundee operation in Western Australia for many years and they're just renowned as being the premier operators.
00:30:46:17 - 00:31:19:18
Liam
Which is, which is awesome. The… I just had a question and it absolutely just disappeared out of my mind then I'm not sure you even saw it go. No, I genuinely have gone completely blank, doesn’t happen very often.
So, when we've got a joint venture agreement like we do with Greatland Gold and Newcrest, is there ever any kind of planning that goes in in case parties change or anything like that? Is that sort of thing ever spoken about? I appreciate you may or may not be able to even speak about this kind of stuff, but just thought I'd ask that kind of question.
00:31:30:18 - 00:32:05:06
Callum
Yeah. So, in general terms, quite often when a joint venture agreement is put together, if one party wants to move on, then the other party has a right of first refusal. So for example, if Newcrest wanted to sell, let's say if Greatland wanted to sell its current proportion of Havieron to a third party. Yeah. Then Newcrest may have the ability to match the offer from the third party as of right of first refusal.
00:32:05:16 - 00:32:06:02
Liam
Okay.
00:32:06:13 - 00:32:07:01
Callum
Does that make sense.
00:32:07:01 - 00:32:08:09
Liam
That does make sense, yes.
00:32:08:21 - 00:32:10:10
Callum
Did I explain it okay. Yeah, yeah.
00:32:10:17 - 00:32:30:00
Liam
Yeah. Now, I think since last time we spoke, Andrew Forrest has waded into the ring with Wyloo and his investment companies. Do you think he's going to have something to say about the Paterson region? And if Newmont turn up?
00:32:30:00 - 00:33:15:18
Callum
Yeah, well, Andrew Forrest, again, a very good operator. And as you can see with his track record of Fortescue Metals Group, which has been very successful and he invests in operations that can definitely be scaled up. And if you look at Greatland as a 30% producer from Havieron, there's a significant prize there, particularly when it goes into production, because generally when companies are going through this development phase, their share prices are somewhat depressed, but when production kicks in, you get a significantly high uplift in the share price.
You know, from that initial investment point of view for Andrew Forrest, that's very, be very rewarding for him, however, is a several bigger pictures here where if for whatever reason Newcrest may decide not to continue in the Paterson, then there's nothing holding Greatland back from purchasing all the Paterson assets from Newcrest and becoming a standalone 100% producer from Telfer and Havieron itself.
And now that that's a much bigger prize for the likes of Andrew Forrest and those shareholders looking for a dividend return on an annual basis. So, you know, there's a lot of good scenarios. Also, everyone may have noticed Rio Tinto's ambivalence about the Winu deposit over the past couple of years. It was fantastic asset, but now they need a bit more time to think about it.
Maybe it's not of a scale that suits Rio Tinto to shift the needle on their underlying performance. So maybe Rio Tinto would be happy to sell that asset as well. And then Telfer becomes a central processing hub for multiple deposits on a very large scale, with infrastructure heading back to a deep-water port at Port Hedland. And for Andrew Forrest, that is what's happening with Fortescue Metals Group in the iron ore space.
Now that can be happening in the Paterson in the gold and copper space as well, and that's a potential scenario that could play out over the next few years. So, if that happens, then the dividends are going to be orders of magnitude higher, but still there'll be very nice in the near future for Greatland shareholders. But yeah, it could go big time and it'll be very exciting.
00:35:16:17 - 00:35:21:18
Liam
You could then have an armada of boats down there on the in the marina.
00:35:23:06 - 00:35:30:12
Callum
That's right. Well probably yeah. One boat's enough at the moment.
00:35:30:13 - 00:35:50:06
Liam
I'm sure the whole cleaning process takes long enough as it is and that and that's amazing because Telfer has got two huge trains able to process millions of ounces of ore. But I mean, when you look at the starter plan for Greatland, it's no more than 3 million tonnes a year of ore that can be processed. So, as you say, to become a central processing plant for multiple deposits, it kind of makes sense in that in that way.
00:35:59:08 - 00:36:33:18
Callum
Yes. So, you start bringing in bulk tonnes. Telfers rated at just over 20 million tonnes per annum. So, if it, if you push Havieron into a sublevel cave scenario where it's producing plus 5 million tonnes per annum and then you put Telfer ore on top of that plus Winu ore then yeah, you could be easily pushing the 20 million tonnes which is the existing capacity of Telfer and that becomes a major producer.
And also, you know, the important thing that everyone should remember is that Telfer is running now. It's already been built. Yeah, the money's been spent. It's not going to take years for permitting and engineering and getting it on site and building it. It's already there operating with multiple power plants. Gas pipeline to the coast. It is ready built, turn key, off it goes.
00:37:01:20 - 00:37:18:03
Liam
And that's what makes having Havieron such a great prospect is the fact that it's happened so quickly from you discovering it through to the fact that we're almost approaching the ore body and getting ready to mine it. It's something.
00:37:18:15 - 00:37:21:02
Callum
That's right. Yeah. Fantastic.
00:37:21:20 - 00:37:48:14
Liam
Brilliant. Well, I have actually run out of questions for you, Callum. Um, because the last part on there was us talking about when NCM, this is a brief question but NCM If they said no to Newmont, for whatever reason, their shareholders say no to Newmont. If between Wyloo and Greatland, they could actually make quite an attractive offer for Telfer and Havieron that then puts Newcrest into a cash positive situation. Is that possible?
00:37:57:18 - 00:38:02:20
Callum
Yeah, definitely. Now vice versa. Now Newmont might want to buy Greatland and take the lot or, or, you know, Greatland could potentially take the Paterson assets of Newmont. Yeah. It's really a win win whichever way it goes.
00:38:13:01 - 00:38:23:04
Liam
Do you think now is the time to get out a new mineral resource estimate (MRE) or do you sit on the one that you've got knowing that it's not making your ore body as big as it really is?
00:38:24:21 - 00:38:56:11
Callum
Yeah, well again, this is where the Newmont bid works for Greatland shareholders in that if Newcrest are obviously going to have to defend the valuation and get the share price up. And the way you do that is by making your deposits look fantastic. I think there may have been, you know, may have been less information in the public domain rather than more of for Havieron over a period of time.
And you know, everyone really knows the true scale of the system there, really a mineral resource estimate is just a snapshot in time. And it doesn't really take it doesn't really encapsulate the greater potential And but when obviously the data is shown to the likes of Andrew Forrest and he goes yep I’m in… you know and it doesn’t... again you look at today's announcement from Greatland of the extra executive appointments that have been made… when you really show people the data and the opportunity it's very easy to convince people that Havieron is a very significant asset and it's very large and it contains a lot of metal.
00:39:43:17 - 00:39:52:19
Liam
Including a, we’ve briefly touched upon it including nickel. There's a.. there's an underlying nickel story. You know much about this underlying nickel story?
00:39:52:19 - 00:40:00:20
Callum
I do, I've seen I've seen the data up to when I was present at Greatland up to the end of August in ‘21.
00:40:00:23 - 00:40:06:22
Liam
Okay. And does it make you really smile?
00:40:06:22 - 00:40:35:18
Callum
Well, yes, it does, because no, there's but it's definitely not... it's exciting because it's a multi-metal system. And as I mentioned before, there's some zinc in there. There's some nickel in there. But obviously the metallurgy at Telfer is slightly different. So, if you did want to pull out the extra metals there'd be some plant modifications required, but you know that's, that's achievable in this day and age.
00:40:40:01 - 00:41:05:01
Liam
Especially when you've got somebody like Mr. Forrest backing you that can that can lend you a couple of hundred to build a plant that will then make that happen. Wonderful, well, I think that is probably a great place to leave our conversation today. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your, um, I'm going to say busy day to and to spend some time with me and the rest of the Greatland shareholders. Is there anything else that you'd like to add just to sort of close out any comments or anything?
00:41:11:15 - 00:41:41:20
Callum
Again, thanks to the great Island shareholders that supported us in the early days and we would never have made this discovery without your support. And I'm really heartened by all the support we got over the years.
And I know it has been slightly more difficult times for Greatland shareholders in the past couple of years, the market hasn't been fantastic, but certainly everything's still going in the right direction for Havieron and Greatland and closer to production.
So, you know, I’m still a major shareholder and I'm looking forward to the rewards in the coming months.
00:41:49:09 - 00:42:01:14
Liam
Fantastic. Callum Baxter, thank you so much for spending time with me today. I really do appreciate it. And everybody else, thank you for tuning in and watching, my names Liam and you've been watching Brew with Bottle.
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