Notes from LSE WEBINAR & Live Q&A - 21 SEPT 2023
Posted: Fri Sep 22, 2023 2:59 pm
Notes from LSE WEBINAR & Live Q&A - 21 SEPT 2023
Interview Link:
https://youtu.be/jDvz_IPOChg?si=-iFeREtp3LSdzNU8
GGP RNS’s:
https://greatlandgold.com/investors/regulatory-news/
Link to download notes with slides:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/5yno2mth ... 3.pdf/file
Presentation
*…. and now here we are here's the main man here's Shaun with a short slide presentation followed by our live Q&A
- thanks Donald and thanks people for tuning in as Donald mentioned I'll try to keep this presentation short so we have more time for the Q&A feature, in addition I just presented a very similar slide deck to this at the Denver gold Forum earlier this week which should become available today so I'll share that on social media for those interested to listen although I will kind of unpack a couple of slides here which are new for today.
- just to begin I'd just like to recognize First Nations Partners in Australia who we have a really important relationship with as part of developing our asset base and also it’s important just to remind people that we are a gold copper company focus on gold we're 80 to 75% gold
- we really like the aspect of gold in the portfolio and the geopolitical situation globally and economic globally for gold, there's you know geopolitical uncertainty Ukraine Russia War but also with the Chinese belligerence around Taiwan that creates an environment which we think is supportive of gold and then also as you move into an environment where we're seeing the quickest ramp up of interest rates in global history arguably that could not wouldn't be supportive for gold
- now as that's Unwound it becomes a really positive gold story, copper we love having Copper at 20-25% of our portfolio and the diversification that provides but also as a way to play the electrification you know Market we think copper is the preferred metal for that
- overall I'll just remind people 8.5% Wyloo stake is our largest shareholder and you would have seen last week we really appreciate that relationship and they came in with that $50 Australian $50 million debt facility
- that's not convertible but what it did in addition to the 60 million we have in the bank gave us additional funding flexibility, this a revolver facility we perhaps never draw it down but what it does is gives the market confidence that we're fully funded out to that definitive feasibility study and that will then allow us to put in place the longer dated seven-year project debt facility
- when we look at the overall kind of investment thesis for Greatland it's principally around we've got this high-grade high quality gold copper asset sitting in a tier one jurisdiction in Western Australia coupled with it being next to existing infrastructure that Telfer mine which is coming to the end of its life so expected to wind down in 2024 and again Newcrest the owner of Telfer has really done a great job at expediting the development of Havieron to try to have a seamless transition from Telfer to Havieron ore
- we've already identified 6.5 million ounces (AU eq.) there's a further 80,000m of growth drilling on top of that which was really good intercepts which gives us an opportunity to significantly increase that
- and then coupled with that we retain the upside exploration potential we've added to that significantly over the last six months in the portfolio and of course we've invested in our team
- I do like to continue to remind people and orientate around strategy
there's three Horizons to that strategy
- deliver an expanded Havieron
- continue to invest in the drill bit which you're going to see accelerate this year
- and again we're looking at financially disciplined opportunities for acquisition
- the Rio Tinto exploration was an example of that but we'll also look at broader opportunities as well
- look given we're going to try to walk through this slide deck reasonably quickly I won't take a lot of time on this slide but it does set out what's been incredibly High Tempo corporate and operational environment for Greatland over the last two years in particular
- during that time we've bought in strategic debt, Strategic Equity holder, we've bought in a number of debt pieces to augment that
- We've resolved the joint venture issue around the 5% acquisition value and successfully so which was a part of that joint venture that did need to be resolved
- and also we you know we're really proud of what we've been able to do on the exploration side of it with that Rio Tinto transaction and very recently getting access onto the wackamura tenements of Ernest Giles
- that's been over four years to become the first group that successfully put in place a land access agreement
- the team look the team is a really important part of Greatland
- I've been very fortunate in my career to being part of three very successful organizations before joining Greatland
- certainly a huge part of that success was the team we have it in place and at a board level with Mark Barnaba as chair Elizabeth Gaines as Deputy chair that is a formidable combination together with a you know a really strong group of directors
- across to the left of screen you have the executive team Jimmy Wilson sits there as an executive director but sits on the board out of BHP widely seen as the 2nd in command of BHP and the operational strength in that environment
- and then a number of people I've worked with before over the years Simon Tirrell out of Northern Star has joined as Chief Operating Officer this year Chris Toon I had worked with before and then we've got Matt Quan who went to Oxford
- has a huge amount of joint venture and corporate legal experience as general counsel and Rowan Krasnoff leading business development team out of Fortescue
- so it's a formidable team and I think for a company of this size we are hugely fortunate but that layer of management is also backed up by an incredible Team beneath that and we think we really have the spine for a organization that can be a good owner of Havieron but also potentially expand our role
- this slide is really just to kind of put us in context we think already we're kind of recognized as an important developer but there's also compared to the ASX peers we think there's an opportunity for us to continue to walk value forward
- and turning to the asset itself that's just a shot there of the box cut that we put in place in February 2021 and then that leads into the decline ranp down to the top of the ore body
- the decline continues to Advance with over 2,800 M of development we're actually a little bit updated this this was at september but really now we are finished that third spiral and we're charging down at quite competent ground into that fourth spiral so good development activity
- and you can see the infrastructure that we want to put in place there down the side of that ore body and unlock that Reserve which principally sits within the southeast crescent
- turning to the Resource and Reserve it's a 6.5 million ounce resource and again centred around that blue with the additional inferred material sitting to the right of screen
- and really that's a function of drill density as we continue to add drill density particularly at the lower areas of the ore body there's a the opportunity to significantly upgrade and optimize that mine plant
- so and it presently has about 2.9 Million ounces of gold copper equivalent depending on your price deck for copper conversion that probably sits closer to 3 million ounces today
- again this is one of my favourite slides as people know or at least understanding ounces per vertical meter I think is hugely important to understanding a underground ore body 8.500 or over 8,000 ounces through that top 4-500m of the ore body is extraordinary and again this over a short strike length
- it's a reasonably compact ore body at 650 to 600m
- so you're putting in a single decline and for every meter of vertical development you're able to access over 8,000 ounces of gold that drives a low capex a low intensity per ounce but also given the compact nature of this ore body and just its mining shape sub-vertical and compact allows big mining stopes which then leads to a low cost of Mining and in turn a low All in sustaining cost which at the PFS was sitting at us $643 an ounce
- certainly in the lowest quartile of producers and that on the Y AXIS there you see the Stacked bar chart the grey is where we've already done drilling the green is the additional drilling we get to add to that when we update the mineral resource estimate the MRE and again you see the centre of gravity that is a little bit more this time skewed towards the lower half of the ore body so we'll get a more increasingly vertical line and a more consistent profile of ounces per vertical meter which I think reflects the reality of that mine but of course you start drilling these from the top
- again this just kind of looks down in plan at the Mine site
- a lot of the focus to date is on that Southeast Crescent that underwrites the infrastructure to get down into the ore body and then we have the opportunity to take out the bulk areas of the northern breccia and the Eastern breccia, what's great about both of these is we're really attracted to a bulk mining methodology
- remember with the installed capacity at Telfer we're really not mine constrained which minimizes the capex profile to bring a bulk mine on into production
- but also you've got these higher pods particularly through that Northern breccia whilst you've got a reasonably kind of more consistent profile through that Eastern breccia but you do see mines in Australia where they just drive into them and take out the High grade areas
- it's good to have flexibility, I'm attracted to the kind of more bulk approach but it's nice to have the flexibility that gives us multiple ways to solve the multi- decade life for Havieron
- and I mentioned earlier around our strategy which includes investing in the drill bit and continuing to do exploration
- that's the DNA of Greatland and obviously hugely successful with the discovery of Havieron
- we like to think we now hold the best underexplored tenement package in the Patterson
- great credit to Rio Tinto who's done a huge amount of geophysical work across this platform and we're really looking to as part of the partnership or the earn in with Rio Tinto now get through the business of drilling multiple targets and there are dozens and dozens of high-grade targets across this portfolio and we're really excited the geology team was hugely excited as people are aware after signing this joint venture we managed to mobilize a rig safely and efficiently within 4 weeks and I think that reflects the opportunity ahead of us and the enthusiasm the geology team has for for the task
- in keeping with having mobilized so efficiently we've already completed phase one of that earn-in, it's a standard three phase earn-in but ultimately we will own 75% of these assets within 7 years and Rio Tinto will retain a 25% stake
- we just update people we drilled the stingray and the decca targets both high quality targets confluences of magnetics, EM and changes in the gravity gradient these are very much the same confluence of geophysical features that that attracted us to Havieron so they' have been drilled
- there is a process to then get the core cut and transported back to Perth for analysis and Essay so that is underway and I expect we'll have assay coming out in certainly early in the December quarter which is close to hand
- we're excited about that but again we did a limited number of holes it's a very technically driven approach where we try to drill in compare to what we're expecting recalibrate better understand the stratigraphy and continue to refine the drilling program
- this a new slide which is Ernest Giles as I mentioned we were the first mining group to actually successfully achieve a land access agreement with the Wakamura Aboriginal Corporation since the determination that they had an interest in that land package or you know we really regard them as owners the so look really delighted to have completed that land access agreement it predates me the negotiations with the wakamura and just delighted and I think the approach that we've both taken to achieve access there is tremendous
- historically geophysical work has been undertaken across this package so we have some walk up targets that we're very keen to drill this just to remind people is an Archean greenstone the most abundant source of gold in Australia and certainly in Western Australia the super pit is Archean greenstone most famously Archean greenstones are tightly held this was undercover so not really recognized as an Archean greenstone so now we have the opportunity to come in on that site and undertake Drilling
- really excited about that and again in keeping with competitive advantage through the Patterson of looking through cover I think we have a team that's really well placed to take advantage of the Ernest Giles Holdings
- otherwise we continue to have a package there Panorama , Bromus and most recently we've added Yannarie
- very excited about Yannarie it really stood out on a heat map that our geology team had put together around opportunities within the state of Western Australia so it's a good addition and we like to be active managers of our exploration portfolio so with that I'd just like to say thank you and pass across for Donald for questions.
Q&A
* I think we should start at the start today and let's go holistic , mining giant Newmont are taking over GGP’s JV partner Newcrest what are the implications for GGP’s 30% stake they have of Havieron and indeed for Telfer (full ownership) so what are the different ways that this might play out Shaun let’s let's start you big and strategic
- Donald you have started big thank you look it is a really interesting strategic strategically interesting time for Greatland and the way I often describe this the option value around Greatland I think is really significant and perhaps not fully appreciated in the market
- look where we you know we value the relationship with Newcrest that is ongoing but what we now have is a Timetable for transaction so on the 13th of October is the Newcrest shareholder vote
- at that time the transaction for all intents and purposes is certain to complete and brings to a close that chapter
- I think the actual implementation date is the 6th of November when Newmont takes the keys so to speak but really from that 13th of October the die is cast so it's certainly expected to my mind that this transaction is recommended by Newcrest and of course Newmont that it will pass and we do celebrate that
- I think Newmont coming in is a really good opportunity for us I think they are seen globally as best of breed in the gold mining space so we think they are additive to the Havieron development and platform
- I think if we think about this more broadly and at the Denver Gold Forum I did get a chance to watch the Newmont presentation and they have a great slide where 10 of the world's 15th largest gold projects will be owned by that combined Newmont portfolio and that really is their tier one Holdings that the you know which are all top 15 gold mines on the planet
- so it is going to be you know an amazing vehicle and we celebrate that for Newmont and then it's a question as to how what is the opportunity for us
- I think our base case is you know we certainly see the attraction of Havieron lowest quartile cost sitting in a tier one jurisdiction in a country Australia where they already operate and will run you know three of the four largest Assets in Australia
- so there's a lot of reasons why they will fall in love with the asset and we think that would be an amazing reflection on the quality of Havieron if the world's largest gold miner a gold miner that says there will be some rationalization in that combined portfolio chooses to want to continue to hold Havieron
- it equally you know they may decide they are going to do some divestments it's and if they did choose to do that I think we want to present ourselves and I think hopefully successfully so as a really credible counterparty and that has been around building a team and a board to transact with a with a Newmont but also the financial credibility particularly delivered by having Wyloo as a strategic holder and the slow process of increasing the institutional holding in our share register
- and of course we also hold the last right of refusal across the asset itself so I think there's plenty of opportunity there I think all are good outcomes I think Newmont will be decisive but the development importantly of Havieron will continue unimpeded regardless of whether it's Newcrest Newmont or Greatland or what combination there is of these groups
- it's a tremendous asset and I think it will continue to process forward but there's option value around that for now
*okay on to the next question from Yvonne, if the price were right might you consider selling the 30% stake in Havieron to Newmont if they were to fall in love with it as you said and go back to being a well-funded Patterson Explorer what's your thoughts on that?
- well look we we're driven by shareholder value you know that's our focus I'll mention briefly that we as a management team we aligned ourselves with the package previously given to the board which were significantly out of the money options
- but I think that is a statement of intent a little a little bit for the company that about creation of shareholder value so that's our focus and yes of course if someone wanted to derisk the returns of running the asset for multiple decades and provide that upfront we would of course consider that
- having said that I joined and the team we've put together is really designed around delivering a operational Havieron and optimizing that project
- that is our intent you know that's what gets us excited in the morning we love the exploration as well and as you can see we've invested and we'll continue to invest and expand and optimize that portfolio but all thing all opportunities are possible but we certainly have the ability and the appetite to be operators of Havieron as well
*okay a little bit more detailed the next question from both from Chris and Tiber, do you have a view whether Newmont will want to keep Havieron and the Telfer for infrastructure so both parts which fit with one another and have you had any discussions with them? Now I can see that the line questions coming in are asking similar things so over to you Shaun on that one
- yeah look thanks Chris and others for the for the question look I probably see Havieron and Telfer as two sides of the same coin there you know there there's a lot of reasons why they really good to integrate and that was really the original concept behind the joint venture with Newcrest is you've got you know established infrastructure that happens to be in the middle of a wind down and then just as Havieron comes online I think I've talked about the almost the goldilocks zone where we weren't too early and we sat kind of sequenced behind Telfer ore and we weren't too late when Telfer had already shut down
- we've kind of just come right on time to be the replacement ore and it's not just the processing plant there's a bitumen air strip or all weather air strip, there's storage there's critical spares there's power generation you know officers and accommodation so it being able to utilize that infrastructure is hugely advantageous rather than kind of going into a green field site
- so effectively I think it makes sense to keep the two together I think that is the way Newcrest has always approached it it's the way we've always approached it my sense is that will be the way Newmont approaches it
- but we don't know the mind of Newmont I have dealt with Newmont previously in in a separate life but equally I think we all understand that Newmont's immediate task is to complete the 20 billion transaction action with Newcrest before they start kind of thinking about what to do next
- it's a little bit like a football you know catch it before you or at least receive the pass before you start working out how how you're going to spend it
* and it would be too soon to have had a brief chat with Newmont about this would it visiting other things
- it's fair to say their focus would be getting the $20 billion task done and that's a little bit my football analogy that I think they'll receive the pass before they start thinking about what they're going to do with the ball
* they want to put the ball in the back of the net perhaps Shaun before they actually decide what to do next
- I think that's true
* fair enough with Wyloo’s backing would there ever be a possibility of buying the 70% stake in Havieron you know the dream big thought if you would prefer to focus on other parts of as you've said the world class portfolio you outlined how extraordinary their portfolio is so say they weren't to go for Havieron who wouldn’t want to buy Havieron but would you go for the 70%
- well look I think when you put together two of the global Majors there's only good assets and remember Newcrest you know although it was a global major and a tremendous platform it's only five assets it's it doesn't have this huge tail of you know 42 operations it is a you know a compact company in many respects
- so there's only good assets in Newmont, I think I talked earlier in in this Q&A around we want to you know present ourselves as a credible counterparty whether that be as part of a joint venture with Newmont to optimize the Havieron Telfer development or if they chose to exit being a credible counterparty from a team from a financial and of course within the structure of the joint venture itself
- so look we think we cover both bases and we think we've been mindful of that over the last couple of years as we've built out the Greatland platform
* okay this next question comes from one of our regulars dip, it looks likely that the Havieron definitive feasibility study won't be due until early 2024, with Newmont expected to announce plans to optimize the portfolio in early February I don't know where these investors get these information from but it is extraordinary it might even be true, would you expect NCM to release DFS before or after this so
- thanks Dip, I think I think I'm confident in saying that Newcrest won't be releasing a definitive feasibility study before the completion of the transaction with Newmont so let's call that the 6th of November so I think a first half of 2024 date is sensible
- presumably you know Newmont would like to understand that review, review the optimization work that has been done before they finalized that document having said that we reach the top of the ore body or scheduled to reach that in the June quarter of 2024 and then you'd expect the feasibility study to be in the market and finalized for or if not ahead of that day so that we've agreed the mine development plan as we then start setting up the level developments and the stopes and the decline down that side of the ore body as we saw in one of the earlier slides
* okay let's give you a simpler question about the independent MRE that you said you were going to going to publish what update can you give on progress and did NCM take up your offer of being involved in the peer review
- so that we continue to work on that technically we will so at the right time once that work is we think in more of a final draft form we would share that with them and who knows that might kind of enter around that transition with the Newmont ownership
- so you this a slightly more complex period than it was in March 2022 when I think we last independently released a MRE
- that said we're committed to getting the work done we continue to walk that forward I'd like to achieve that December quarter timetable that we set for ourselves I might just you know add that you know we will be mindful of you know we value the relationship with Newcrest and Newmont
- it's always been our preference to release Resources and Reserve updates with the partner so if Newmont does come in I think we would want to continue to give them that same opportunity for peer review but that work is being undertaken both internally we'll also get it externally reviewed for confirmation and of course my expectation is our joint venture partner would also want a peer review and we would appreciate and want that to happen
* someone on the board I was reading on the on the GGP board yesterday someone described you as a superb chess player Shaun, I think that that answer is just an illustration of have you being good at chess
- well thanks it’s certainly been a really interesting strategic period really since about late 2021 to this time and it would be certainly fascinating had you told me when I joined that we were going to outlast Newcrest so it has been a you evolving environment throughout
- but it's something that we've enjoyed the challenge of and hopefully people appreciate the progress we've made over that last two years sometimes in a challenging environment but I think we've made the most of it so you we're really proud of the team that we've put together and the work that they've achieved
* yes most people most people do appreciate it and that you know all the messages that we're getting in here at the moment and a few of them take the time to say thank you, I never I never include the thanks but they all say thank you and appreciate the communications that you provide them with so anyway let's talk the delayed ASX listing, this one from Andy, James and David - there you go there's a name check for three people when might the delayed ASX listing happen do you think will the internal restructuring continue and what would a fair ASX listing price be
- yeah look when it comes to the ASX listing I think what I want to kind of say is that we our primary thought process is around what's in the interest of existing shareholders and there's a great Winston Churchill quote about when the facts change I change my mind what do you do and we just felt the circumstances in the market had moved and perhaps that's because of some you know pretty unhelpful media speculation around a capital raising which was not necessarily the intent
- so we just felt wasn't the right time to undertake an ASX listing we want to do that you around creating value and augmenting value for our existing shareholder base so really the purpose of that announcement was to give people comfort and perhaps remove a perception of an overhang
- whether that was correct or incorrect you know it was the perception that we wanted to address and again super appreciate the support of Wyloo, it's great to have a supportive strategic holder it’s even better when that's an extreme extraordinarily well-funded group so they were able to bring in what we thought was a really helpful $50 million debt facility
- there's no dilution as part of that and what that did was enabled us to articulate on the market we have $110 million available to us historically at our at our expenditure rate that gives us a burn profile you know deep well past any kind of contemplation we have around completing the decline and I think with that in place it gave the market confidence that that that an equity raising was not necessarily required
- so I think that's how we thought about it we're going to continue to work with the ASX you know finalize that option we still think in the medium to long term that's in the interest of shareholders, we've done some work we'll continue to take advantage of that and complete the process but we'll look to be opportunistic so I don't want to put a time frame at and set an expectation but I think we would continue to consider that if we felt it was in the interest of shareholders and I think the answer is when because over time and we did have that slide earlier in the presentation around the peer group over time we do think the ASX augments the platform that we have in London here and further there's a number of Australian funds that ASX mandate locked
- they buy a number of our peer group but they can't buy us because we're not on the ASX exchange that's what their mandate allows them to buy they can come and buy that stock in London as so long as we have some link to the ASX so we still believe this the right path but just deciding on that timing
* and broadly what are your thoughts on the timing very roughly
- well I think what I'm trying to do Donald if I'm open is just not create a market expectation on timing I think what I'm really trying to do is say we're preserving the option and we'll look to do that at the right time and you know going back to my Churchill quote I think it's about timing the market
- and so I don't want to put parameters and create an expectation what I want to be able to do is say we now think it's the right time and we've done our homework we're ready to go we can do this in short order from this and I think it's been important the journey we've been on I think creating that expectation being informative with shareholders around how we think of it I think sets us up to have support to execute that ASX cross listing when the opportunity arises
* okay moving on what do you think the relationship with Newmont will look like Shaun
- I think it will be a tremendous relationship
*new boss
- yeah look you know I've dealt with Newmont a couple of times previously Simon Anu Chief Operating Officer has worked with Newmont previously also you in terms of our Northern Star experience
- so I think we have a somewhat a measure for that organization it's hugely impressive as you'd expect from the world's largest Gold Miner, we have a huge respect for what they've achieved
- but also their culture and I think that's hugely important we value culture at Greatland it’s probably our driving focus about how we think about team composition how we and how we conduct ourselves and I think we share some of those same values with Newmont so we think the alignment there is really good and look I'd be delighted if we have a multi-decade partnership with Newmont
- there's different ways and different way strategically the options can play out around this but this a world-class team a world-class operator and world-class people that we're really excited about working with
- so make no mistake we're pleased
* Alan and others I've asked us to ask you about the feasibility study give us a broad outline of what will be included in the feasibility study
- look If you have a look back to the pre feasibility study we that was finalized around a 2 million and in that we talked about the preferred model moving forward ton run rate is around a 3 million ton run rate (annually)
- that would be my expectation it will be certainly north of 2 million tons and centred around a 3 million ton per annum run rate and a lot of the work around the decline is centred around creating the overtaking bays, the stockpile bays to allow a the modelling to deliver something around that 3 million ton, so when you see the overall meters developed and then you see the actual vertical distance covered the Delta there or the reason there's so much more meters developed is we are making so many overtaking bays, so many opportunities for passing Bays which allows for a more productive decline, so that's been really important part of the mine planning and then looking at optimizations around that as well
- looking at recoveries looking at what can be done to that processing plant thinking about the amount of evaporation needed to manage the water balance the size of the paste fill plant the haulage route all these things to just try to bring things forward and then optimizing the Mind plan and although we did 80,000m of growth drilling there was also a lot of infill drilling to try to give more confidence that mine plan and bring some more material into that mine plan
- but the PFS in some ways was hugely successful because from memory I think it was 1.4 million tons of reserves and that covered all the infrastructure being put in
- so this a little bit like an infrastructure asset from here you know once you've put the pipes in once you've built your highway or built your electricity grid if you can put more down that utility that marginal material just adds to the profitability and that's what you've got a little bit here
- we've already paid the cost in the PFS of putting the infrastructure in place now we have an expanded mine plan to bring into the feasibility study which just increases the efficiency and the cash profile that that infrastructure cost will can bear
- so I think it's you know I think we continue to be really pleased with how the physical ore body of Havieron evolves
* okay let me ask you a direct question Shaun, when will the decision to mine be and what are the thought what are your the thinking that goes around that
- there there's a very structured element to the joint venture agreement where within a time a short time period of finalization of the feasibility study the partners decide to make the formal investment decision, that's a catalyst if one party wanted to exit or didn't agree with the development there's an opportunity to consolidate ownership
- that's would be highly unlikely we wouldn't be that be that lucky it's fundamentally but so I think it's really just a question that will be in short order after the feasibility study which we'd expect in the first half of calendar 2024
- of course the overlay there and part of the reason why I think Newcrest is hesitant to put a data around that is they may not it may not be a Newcrest brand on the feasibility study, so Newmont will have its own pathway internally for finalizing a study I think that will be additive but fundamentally that that is the pathway but of course everyone Newmont included will want to have that study published by the time we reach the top of the actual ore body itself and have punched through that Permian zone
* wow that was a very interesting answer Shaun thank you let’s talk exploration we can roll Yannarie and Ernest Giles in together if you wish but you've always been a fan of EG you've just managed to sign the EG land agreement what's next there and John asks why do you like Ernest Giles why do you like those so much
- look I think coupled with the Patterson which is has proven success we love that location I think there's a lot of reason to really like EG as well I've mentioned this Archean greenstone that is associated with the majority of gold discoveries in Western Australia
- they have been really fertile across Western Australia where they've been located they are typically tightly held and they're drilled out like pin cushions this wasn't really understood to be an AR greenstone we managed to identify that we managed to Peg it then there's the question of getting the land access agreement
- so this has been a somewhat long journey but we really like it and much like the Patterson that's undercover and covers your friend, you know if this was outcropping at surface it would have already been picked over, people would have already looked at it it would have been drilled it would be understood but because it's undercover applying modern geophysical and geological techniques allow us to peer through that cover better than ever before and have a better probability of success and that's really what our team has been built around because of the cover sequence that you have through the PatterSon so we feel this consistent with our competitive advantage
- it's a really fertile rock type and then plus because historically we've done some geophysical targets we know it lights up like a Christmas tree we know we have some tier one targets and again I don't want to be definitive but we are we took four weeks to mobilize a rig to get onto that South Patterson Rio Tinto joint venture
- I'd expect from here it will be a similarly quick time safety will be our priority and you know we'll need to work really hard to efficiently get a rig out there but I think you'll find the geo team or the exploration team is already working very hard and has already warmed up contractors to be able to mobilize there in short order it's good ground we're excited about it
* okay an associated question from Mike, he says there's a Western Australian Grant connected with drilling Earnest Giles the deadline for which is 30th of November 2023 are you able to mobilize rigs to get the work done in time or can you apply for an extension I think the detail with which people study GGP is quite extraordinary Shaun and this another example of it
- yeah John is correct there is an EIS WA government West Australian government grant for us for part of the drilling costs on EG we do want to take advantage of that that was you know something that we were able to kind of achieve in terms of the timing with the wakamura, and we really appreciate them working with us to achieve that time frame you
- again I can't be definitive but we'd like to think and we're certainly planning to achieve the drilling in the time frame to receive the EIS funding for good order it is not unusual to be able to roll that over but I can't say that with certainty fundamentally it's a separate application each year which will be assessed on the merits and there are lots of applications so it there is even if your application had merit the year before it can be it's is where it's ranked so although we are confident it would be renewed next year we can't be certain we'd like to take the guesswork out of it and just mobilize a rig in short order and that is our intent
- I'll be more decisive on that when we when we finalize it and again although we're really driven by that we'll continue to value safety that will be our primary responsibility it is a remote area and we will work through our safety and our risk assessments in terms of mobilizing that team
* okay you talked about Wyloo providing GGP with a 50 million Aussie dollars lending facility so you've answered that part of the question do you have any significant cash calls coming up and how do you see the Wyloo relationship working going forwards I mean that really strategically is a fascinating question
- look it it's somewhat steady as it goes there's two parts to that question it's steady as it goes in terms of the joint venture so we're really comfortable around there's no surprises to our expectations around cash calls so I think that's always good and indeed the budget is prepared prior to the financial year and that gives us a certainty around cash calls
- so we're reasonably confident around that profile the relationship with Wyloo we value it it's warm they're supportive we don't think we can think of a better relationship Cornerstone investor
- we really respect them they've got a dedicated mining team with expertise around geology and mining and other skill sets within that organization so we think they're a really well-informed investor and a patient investor to help us unlock value and they want to create value for their own portfolio so we think there's lovely alignment there so you know we certainly think very highly of the Wyloo team
* okay lots of people want to know when the essays from scallywag and Patetrson South might be released and there's lots and lots of people have asked that same question so I'll just bundle them all into the one question
- yeah it's a great question look it's it was really around the Logistics of again getting the core taken back and we don't tend to take core in individual trips we tend to kind of bundle it together
- we cut it then we get it transport it the relevant portion down to Perth for cutting so you a number of those steps have been completed
- assay time frames are much improved than what they were say 12 months ago and we had that long period where there were big backlogs in assay so to my understanding assay times are become more normalized again
- so if that's the case you'd expect those to be available early in the December quarter so not particularly far away but we don't just to be clear we don't have the essays yet
- we're looking forward to receiving them but it should be a relatively short burn from here
* okay I've got I've gathered together a few share price questions there'll be no surprises to you Shaun that there's there are several and they take different forms so here we go I buried them deep into deep into the list of questions but we have to talk about share price at some point so here we are Adrien, Anthony and Chris ask why do you think there's a Havieron size gulf between the quality of your assets and the share price, one is not reflective of the other and also a different take on the same thing can you give your view on the falling share price and what's behind it
- look I'm somewhat restricted around what I can practically say around share price or future direction of share price but I think I'll make two points around that
- firstly look we think the Havieron project continues to improve and expand I think the drilling that we've done over the past 18 months continues to be you know top draw we continue to derisk Havieron in terms of you know we really pleased to get through that third spiral and indeed the second aquifer
- which is just porous Rock so when people think about Aqua they shouldn't think of you know flowing rivers or anything they should really just think of really porous rocks which have a high water content than the surrounding rock but the so we think that's an important derisking and also just the time in terms of the closer we get down to the bottom of the ore body that is clear really advantageous in terms of development
- no mining process is linear so with every meter we tick off that again is a derisking exercise
- I think also overlaying that there has been you know it's a we spoke I think the first question was around the strategic environment you know the market loves certainty that's something we probably haven't been able to provide that year in terms of for much of this year around who our joint venture partner is what is their intent
- so we I do feel this 13 October vote gives us a level of stability and you know we asked before around the ASX listing and that Wyloo facility again it was our attempt to try to add stability to the Market by saying look there's uncertainty around that the ASX let's take that off the table there's a suspicion in the newspaper that we're going to raise Equity let's take that off the table and let's do that by bringing in a Wyloo loan which is not dilutive and give people comfort on that
- so you know we like to think we've taken some steps but I'm sure 13th of October will be a red letter day in terms of the market feeling like we've closed a chapter of uncertainty
* yeah 13th of October that's all put that in the diary and while we're talking shares Eddie asks the Perennial question why have you not bought substantial shares in GGP given that they're cheap well look there's two parts I have bought shares during the journey I only buy when we're allowed that's you know been a couple of equity raisings where I've been able to participate
- you know there are long close periods and then even within once the close period we have a certain cooling off period and then also there are statutory close periods in the UK a little bit different to Australia where I think it's 30 days before financial statements you're not allowed to buy or sell so you know they are tight Windows that said you know I think you know there are people within the organization who I think would be interested if an opportunity arises but to be clear I have invested my own money over the journey
* James asks the question he says Alex had 14 million share options that 0.28 due to expire on the 18th of July this year is there an ongoing blackout period or did Alex decide not to exercise as options
- there was an ongoing blackout period and my understanding of I'm not sure if these are LSE rules or just common rules to all option schemes up here is that if the company is in a blackout period rather than simply losing those options there rolled forward until the expiry of that blackout period
- that's a little bit different to Australia in Australia there are carve outs around issuing equity and disposing of equity around kind of blackout periods and but London is a more structured in terms of some of these things
- so I think what I can say is those options have not expired I think some of those options are the end of those you know old series that were done obviously at really attractive pricing
* okay the employee share incentives were announced recently and it's fair to say that not everyone was happy here's Dip who takes a balanced view says the recent employee share incentives are well deserved given the challenges faced to date so will you be setting specific KPI’s for staff such as how much institutional share ownership increases for example, that said I think just matching her exceeding gdxj Performance is perhaps a bit of a soft target so a lesser weighting might have been more apt perhaps 5% and that was backed up by David who concurs saying have you misread the mood of long-term shareholders in offering over generous incentives given the very poor share price performance, there you go that's one for you Shaun
- look there's a little bit time pack I'm glad you raised because I did I did want to talk about the so
- I think firstly let me talk about well let's talk about the target against the n in the specific questions and then I'll move to the well no I might I might start at the broad and then we'll move to the specifity of the question so look we felt an incentive plan was really important we didn't provide an incentive plan for all of FY 23 which was not our intent you know be open we you it's meant to be an annual plan or be it you know it's a there are only periods when we can issue them but there is a really big one off component
- most of this which is the options are one off in nature and what we've done there is there's really four elements of that planning
- you know one it's a super competitive environment in Australia but particularly in West Australian mining it's difficult to attract good people and I think we've been able to do so I like to think that reflects our culture it certainly extends it reflects the quality of the asset but make no mistake it is a really competitive environment
- secondly the out of the money options and it's meaningfully out of the money gives us alignment with shareholders we also aligned it with the previous board issue so effectively you've got alignment with management and those directors that came in
- thirdly it’s non-cash consideration which we think is important and to some extent safe the company money in terms of the packages we were able to put to people
- and finally we wanted to anchor people in we wanted to effectively lock people in to deliver Havieron and that's really important like that that is the Cornerstone of our value and we think this something that we need that the right team to do who knows how the environment evolves but I think locking in that team for a period of time and giving us stability is a really important element
- and the final element I would say is we do have you know five billion shares on issue so you do the number of shares as opposed to the percentage of the company does look a bit larger than if we were I think a more usual number of shares in the Australian Market would be say sub 500 million so you'd kind of take a zero off the number and I think that does colour perception even though the percentages are the same based on the denominator being the number of shares on issue
- if I go into the specificality of that question I actually really have some sympathy for that view, there is different ways of governance
- previously and historically what I've what I saw early in my career is that things were based on absolute return if the share price goes up shareholders win you win it's there's alignment
- where governance has evolved rightly or wrongly is to put in benchmarks and this means that if the gold price goes up and all your peer group goes up you may not actually get a tick in your share price Improvement because you actually need to outperform your peer group
- similarly though and I think this was the nub of the question if the gold price goes down and your peer group goes down but you outperform your peer group that outperformance is recognized
- now beauty is a little bit in the eye of the beholder on that but I probably have some sympathy for that view expressed that they'd rather on absolute returns although the intent of modern governance and I certainly understand it is to incentivize and reward outperformance compared to the sector average so almost normalizing for your underlying commodity price
- I think each person can have a different view on that I certainly understand both have a little bit of sympathy truth be said for the views expressed there but I'm I equally I'm really comfortable with the approach the board and the renumeration committee with the engagement and supportive management ultimately took
- but I believe that is if you have a look at a Glass Lewis or a ISC who write governments reports on us this a structure that they prefer this relative to peer group
* okay moving on H back to more general questions James asks can you please provide an update on the Environmental Protection Authority public consultation which closed in May or give indicative time scales on this process
- James good question he's correct it was submitted I'm always hesitant to put time frames on government departments I suspect the UK is not dissimilar to Australia in in that regard they do a heck of a job I think we're justifiably really proud of the governance in Australia, the Westminster system I think the EPA and our Environmental Protection standards in Australia are First Rate
- and that is admirable and something certainly the company wants to achieve and indeed exceed those benchmarks having said that it takes the time takes it's not on the critical path
- I am a little bit optimistic about kind of the time frame when that comes out but we've kind of made a point on not trying to create an expectation on a date in in the market
- if it became on the critical path I think that's when we'd have to start communicating it but we're not close to that so we feel the application was lodged in time to have the contingency for the EPA to work through it
- we understand they've done some work we've seen some questions we've and the well the Q&A iterative process kind of play out we believe it's substantially or is rather on track and substantially on track from a timetable but certainly not in the critical path where it starts holding things up so positive but we will wait patiently for the ultimate determination process
* Shaun we find ourselves out of time do you want to do you want to squeeze in another question or two before we say goodbye
- look I think the shareholders really value the Q&A it's certainly the focus for me so if you've got a couple more questions certainly from my perspective
* I've got far more than a couple let's try this one from Jackie in the recent GGP environmental submission an electric winder and/or Haul lifting shaft were mentioned at Havieron, can you elaborate on what these imply so what lies behind those two things
- so look if if we hark back to the PFS we looked at three forms of ore transport which was that the decline ramp a conveyor and a shaft haulage mechanism
- all three were considered they continue to be in consideration and I don't want to be pre-empt the feasibility study where that's going
- I'm not although I equally don't want to create an expectation where there shouldn't be, I think it would be natural to at least explore all three with the EPA as whilst you're finalizing the definitive feasibility study and provide optionality but I think prima facie (at first sight) people should Centre on that the decline the truck haulage decline but you would always preserve optionality and if at a future date or indeed at the date of the DFS if you decided you could improve you'd obviously want to be able to do that and anticipate that in your EPA
- but I don't think people should be reading into that other than it's just good practice to maintain optionality through these processes
* okay I thought we'd asked all the possible permutations of the Newmont takeover but Colin has come up with a good one Shaun if Newmont were to renew its interest in Ernest Giles and propose a JV with Greatland prior to it making any decision regarding the future of it for Havieron would you go for it
- well look we you know we really prize the EG ground I think Never Say Never I spoke at length about how we value the relationship with Newmont and the quality of that organization so of course we would be open to discussions but I think my instinctive answer is we now have a capability and a platform that can unlock the value there at EG so prima facie we would like to do that and keep the benefit for our shareholders
- albeit if Newmont could articulate an information approach a methodology that we thought increased the probability of success for both Partners we'd obviously consider it so it's prima facie I think people should you know think should see our thought process as wanting to keep all of it but we're always open to good ideas
* okay I think this makes a well let's go let’s Stuart Rudall tenement let's quickly answer this one given that the drilling intercepted great mineralization are you retaining the land at Rudall and if so why given that it's so deep
- yeah look good question that's right that's right the Australian names are not always self-evident the so I you know Stuart I think you know is based out there in the Patterson so I see his work on LinkedIn oh sorry and Twitter or X so look the 800 meter deep hole we thought was a really interesting intercept
- you know at the bottom of that hole really came the high grade intercept as is typical with that Havieron with that Patterson ore you can't necessarily tell just by looking at it so it was really only the assays that we really understood the grade we were seeing
- I think what's interesting there is where that structure goes from so we'd like to do some more geophysics on that particularly to the extent we've got that hole is open and if that structure was trending towards surface I think that would be great more interesting to us than if that structure was heading further at further depth
- so I think that's the way we think about it for now again I've talked about our technical approach to drilling we like to close out targets before closing the book on them so we would probably still like to understand whether that structure and those high grades actually do go towards surface because if they do go towards surface that's when Rudall will become would become certainly of interest to us
* okay so time for our last question and just before then it's time to say that we did a brief poll at the on zoom and of those watching on Zoom which is about 300 people currently 97% are shareholders I remember someone in in GGP said to us once so are these you know who's actually watching here are these people actually shareholders 97% of the people watching on Zoom today are shareholders and I just thought what a great last question from Steven, where do you see GGP in 10 years Shaun last question
- so Donald thanks for those statistics obviously the you know we're focused on the 97% of who are shareholders but hopefully we've converted another 3% of the audience to become shareholders of Greatland |
- Stephen was a great question around the vision and I think about it in the context of my own experience Sakari, Straits, Northern Star really were single asset platforms and we grew them over a period of years to being multi asset multi-billion dollar platforms
- that's what we want to achieve here we think Havieron gives us a tremendous platform a tremendous base to grow and I think the people we've bought in are tremendous and in a market where it's really difficult to get good people I really think we've picked the eyes out of it the board is as good as any in Australia literally
- and I think that creates options for us particularly with the share register we've built and continue to build out so you I'm really optimistic about what we can do with this platform that's why I joined and you know we're excited about that
-pound-for-pound I think our management team in terms of the size of company we are really is exceptional so I love to think we can leverage that human capital we can leverage the asset base we have the exploration we have to achieve something great here no pun intended with Greatland
* okay that that's it for today I just like to thank Shaun Day,managing director at Greatland Gold for joining us, as ever it's been a terrific day, hundreds of hundreds of shareholders have joined us, I have to say thank you individually to each and every one of you the questions have been great as ever it's been a terrific session and that's it and if you are lucky enough to be going along tonight we shall see you look forward to seeing you at six o'clock and if not have a good evening - thank you so much.
Link to download notes with slides:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/5yno2mth ... 3.pdf/file
Interview Link:
https://youtu.be/jDvz_IPOChg?si=-iFeREtp3LSdzNU8
GGP RNS’s:
https://greatlandgold.com/investors/regulatory-news/
Link to download notes with slides:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/5yno2mth ... 3.pdf/file
Presentation
*…. and now here we are here's the main man here's Shaun with a short slide presentation followed by our live Q&A
- thanks Donald and thanks people for tuning in as Donald mentioned I'll try to keep this presentation short so we have more time for the Q&A feature, in addition I just presented a very similar slide deck to this at the Denver gold Forum earlier this week which should become available today so I'll share that on social media for those interested to listen although I will kind of unpack a couple of slides here which are new for today.
- just to begin I'd just like to recognize First Nations Partners in Australia who we have a really important relationship with as part of developing our asset base and also it’s important just to remind people that we are a gold copper company focus on gold we're 80 to 75% gold
- we really like the aspect of gold in the portfolio and the geopolitical situation globally and economic globally for gold, there's you know geopolitical uncertainty Ukraine Russia War but also with the Chinese belligerence around Taiwan that creates an environment which we think is supportive of gold and then also as you move into an environment where we're seeing the quickest ramp up of interest rates in global history arguably that could not wouldn't be supportive for gold
- now as that's Unwound it becomes a really positive gold story, copper we love having Copper at 20-25% of our portfolio and the diversification that provides but also as a way to play the electrification you know Market we think copper is the preferred metal for that
- overall I'll just remind people 8.5% Wyloo stake is our largest shareholder and you would have seen last week we really appreciate that relationship and they came in with that $50 Australian $50 million debt facility
- that's not convertible but what it did in addition to the 60 million we have in the bank gave us additional funding flexibility, this a revolver facility we perhaps never draw it down but what it does is gives the market confidence that we're fully funded out to that definitive feasibility study and that will then allow us to put in place the longer dated seven-year project debt facility
- when we look at the overall kind of investment thesis for Greatland it's principally around we've got this high-grade high quality gold copper asset sitting in a tier one jurisdiction in Western Australia coupled with it being next to existing infrastructure that Telfer mine which is coming to the end of its life so expected to wind down in 2024 and again Newcrest the owner of Telfer has really done a great job at expediting the development of Havieron to try to have a seamless transition from Telfer to Havieron ore
- we've already identified 6.5 million ounces (AU eq.) there's a further 80,000m of growth drilling on top of that which was really good intercepts which gives us an opportunity to significantly increase that
- and then coupled with that we retain the upside exploration potential we've added to that significantly over the last six months in the portfolio and of course we've invested in our team
- I do like to continue to remind people and orientate around strategy
there's three Horizons to that strategy
- deliver an expanded Havieron
- continue to invest in the drill bit which you're going to see accelerate this year
- and again we're looking at financially disciplined opportunities for acquisition
- the Rio Tinto exploration was an example of that but we'll also look at broader opportunities as well
- look given we're going to try to walk through this slide deck reasonably quickly I won't take a lot of time on this slide but it does set out what's been incredibly High Tempo corporate and operational environment for Greatland over the last two years in particular
- during that time we've bought in strategic debt, Strategic Equity holder, we've bought in a number of debt pieces to augment that
- We've resolved the joint venture issue around the 5% acquisition value and successfully so which was a part of that joint venture that did need to be resolved
- and also we you know we're really proud of what we've been able to do on the exploration side of it with that Rio Tinto transaction and very recently getting access onto the wackamura tenements of Ernest Giles
- that's been over four years to become the first group that successfully put in place a land access agreement
- the team look the team is a really important part of Greatland
- I've been very fortunate in my career to being part of three very successful organizations before joining Greatland
- certainly a huge part of that success was the team we have it in place and at a board level with Mark Barnaba as chair Elizabeth Gaines as Deputy chair that is a formidable combination together with a you know a really strong group of directors
- across to the left of screen you have the executive team Jimmy Wilson sits there as an executive director but sits on the board out of BHP widely seen as the 2nd in command of BHP and the operational strength in that environment
- and then a number of people I've worked with before over the years Simon Tirrell out of Northern Star has joined as Chief Operating Officer this year Chris Toon I had worked with before and then we've got Matt Quan who went to Oxford
- has a huge amount of joint venture and corporate legal experience as general counsel and Rowan Krasnoff leading business development team out of Fortescue
- so it's a formidable team and I think for a company of this size we are hugely fortunate but that layer of management is also backed up by an incredible Team beneath that and we think we really have the spine for a organization that can be a good owner of Havieron but also potentially expand our role
- this slide is really just to kind of put us in context we think already we're kind of recognized as an important developer but there's also compared to the ASX peers we think there's an opportunity for us to continue to walk value forward
- and turning to the asset itself that's just a shot there of the box cut that we put in place in February 2021 and then that leads into the decline ranp down to the top of the ore body
- the decline continues to Advance with over 2,800 M of development we're actually a little bit updated this this was at september but really now we are finished that third spiral and we're charging down at quite competent ground into that fourth spiral so good development activity
- and you can see the infrastructure that we want to put in place there down the side of that ore body and unlock that Reserve which principally sits within the southeast crescent
- turning to the Resource and Reserve it's a 6.5 million ounce resource and again centred around that blue with the additional inferred material sitting to the right of screen
- and really that's a function of drill density as we continue to add drill density particularly at the lower areas of the ore body there's a the opportunity to significantly upgrade and optimize that mine plant
- so and it presently has about 2.9 Million ounces of gold copper equivalent depending on your price deck for copper conversion that probably sits closer to 3 million ounces today
- again this is one of my favourite slides as people know or at least understanding ounces per vertical meter I think is hugely important to understanding a underground ore body 8.500 or over 8,000 ounces through that top 4-500m of the ore body is extraordinary and again this over a short strike length
- it's a reasonably compact ore body at 650 to 600m
- so you're putting in a single decline and for every meter of vertical development you're able to access over 8,000 ounces of gold that drives a low capex a low intensity per ounce but also given the compact nature of this ore body and just its mining shape sub-vertical and compact allows big mining stopes which then leads to a low cost of Mining and in turn a low All in sustaining cost which at the PFS was sitting at us $643 an ounce
- certainly in the lowest quartile of producers and that on the Y AXIS there you see the Stacked bar chart the grey is where we've already done drilling the green is the additional drilling we get to add to that when we update the mineral resource estimate the MRE and again you see the centre of gravity that is a little bit more this time skewed towards the lower half of the ore body so we'll get a more increasingly vertical line and a more consistent profile of ounces per vertical meter which I think reflects the reality of that mine but of course you start drilling these from the top
- again this just kind of looks down in plan at the Mine site
- a lot of the focus to date is on that Southeast Crescent that underwrites the infrastructure to get down into the ore body and then we have the opportunity to take out the bulk areas of the northern breccia and the Eastern breccia, what's great about both of these is we're really attracted to a bulk mining methodology
- remember with the installed capacity at Telfer we're really not mine constrained which minimizes the capex profile to bring a bulk mine on into production
- but also you've got these higher pods particularly through that Northern breccia whilst you've got a reasonably kind of more consistent profile through that Eastern breccia but you do see mines in Australia where they just drive into them and take out the High grade areas
- it's good to have flexibility, I'm attracted to the kind of more bulk approach but it's nice to have the flexibility that gives us multiple ways to solve the multi- decade life for Havieron
- and I mentioned earlier around our strategy which includes investing in the drill bit and continuing to do exploration
- that's the DNA of Greatland and obviously hugely successful with the discovery of Havieron
- we like to think we now hold the best underexplored tenement package in the Patterson
- great credit to Rio Tinto who's done a huge amount of geophysical work across this platform and we're really looking to as part of the partnership or the earn in with Rio Tinto now get through the business of drilling multiple targets and there are dozens and dozens of high-grade targets across this portfolio and we're really excited the geology team was hugely excited as people are aware after signing this joint venture we managed to mobilize a rig safely and efficiently within 4 weeks and I think that reflects the opportunity ahead of us and the enthusiasm the geology team has for for the task
- in keeping with having mobilized so efficiently we've already completed phase one of that earn-in, it's a standard three phase earn-in but ultimately we will own 75% of these assets within 7 years and Rio Tinto will retain a 25% stake
- we just update people we drilled the stingray and the decca targets both high quality targets confluences of magnetics, EM and changes in the gravity gradient these are very much the same confluence of geophysical features that that attracted us to Havieron so they' have been drilled
- there is a process to then get the core cut and transported back to Perth for analysis and Essay so that is underway and I expect we'll have assay coming out in certainly early in the December quarter which is close to hand
- we're excited about that but again we did a limited number of holes it's a very technically driven approach where we try to drill in compare to what we're expecting recalibrate better understand the stratigraphy and continue to refine the drilling program
- this a new slide which is Ernest Giles as I mentioned we were the first mining group to actually successfully achieve a land access agreement with the Wakamura Aboriginal Corporation since the determination that they had an interest in that land package or you know we really regard them as owners the so look really delighted to have completed that land access agreement it predates me the negotiations with the wakamura and just delighted and I think the approach that we've both taken to achieve access there is tremendous
- historically geophysical work has been undertaken across this package so we have some walk up targets that we're very keen to drill this just to remind people is an Archean greenstone the most abundant source of gold in Australia and certainly in Western Australia the super pit is Archean greenstone most famously Archean greenstones are tightly held this was undercover so not really recognized as an Archean greenstone so now we have the opportunity to come in on that site and undertake Drilling
- really excited about that and again in keeping with competitive advantage through the Patterson of looking through cover I think we have a team that's really well placed to take advantage of the Ernest Giles Holdings
- otherwise we continue to have a package there Panorama , Bromus and most recently we've added Yannarie
- very excited about Yannarie it really stood out on a heat map that our geology team had put together around opportunities within the state of Western Australia so it's a good addition and we like to be active managers of our exploration portfolio so with that I'd just like to say thank you and pass across for Donald for questions.
Q&A
* I think we should start at the start today and let's go holistic , mining giant Newmont are taking over GGP’s JV partner Newcrest what are the implications for GGP’s 30% stake they have of Havieron and indeed for Telfer (full ownership) so what are the different ways that this might play out Shaun let’s let's start you big and strategic
- Donald you have started big thank you look it is a really interesting strategic strategically interesting time for Greatland and the way I often describe this the option value around Greatland I think is really significant and perhaps not fully appreciated in the market
- look where we you know we value the relationship with Newcrest that is ongoing but what we now have is a Timetable for transaction so on the 13th of October is the Newcrest shareholder vote
- at that time the transaction for all intents and purposes is certain to complete and brings to a close that chapter
- I think the actual implementation date is the 6th of November when Newmont takes the keys so to speak but really from that 13th of October the die is cast so it's certainly expected to my mind that this transaction is recommended by Newcrest and of course Newmont that it will pass and we do celebrate that
- I think Newmont coming in is a really good opportunity for us I think they are seen globally as best of breed in the gold mining space so we think they are additive to the Havieron development and platform
- I think if we think about this more broadly and at the Denver Gold Forum I did get a chance to watch the Newmont presentation and they have a great slide where 10 of the world's 15th largest gold projects will be owned by that combined Newmont portfolio and that really is their tier one Holdings that the you know which are all top 15 gold mines on the planet
- so it is going to be you know an amazing vehicle and we celebrate that for Newmont and then it's a question as to how what is the opportunity for us
- I think our base case is you know we certainly see the attraction of Havieron lowest quartile cost sitting in a tier one jurisdiction in a country Australia where they already operate and will run you know three of the four largest Assets in Australia
- so there's a lot of reasons why they will fall in love with the asset and we think that would be an amazing reflection on the quality of Havieron if the world's largest gold miner a gold miner that says there will be some rationalization in that combined portfolio chooses to want to continue to hold Havieron
- it equally you know they may decide they are going to do some divestments it's and if they did choose to do that I think we want to present ourselves and I think hopefully successfully so as a really credible counterparty and that has been around building a team and a board to transact with a with a Newmont but also the financial credibility particularly delivered by having Wyloo as a strategic holder and the slow process of increasing the institutional holding in our share register
- and of course we also hold the last right of refusal across the asset itself so I think there's plenty of opportunity there I think all are good outcomes I think Newmont will be decisive but the development importantly of Havieron will continue unimpeded regardless of whether it's Newcrest Newmont or Greatland or what combination there is of these groups
- it's a tremendous asset and I think it will continue to process forward but there's option value around that for now
*okay on to the next question from Yvonne, if the price were right might you consider selling the 30% stake in Havieron to Newmont if they were to fall in love with it as you said and go back to being a well-funded Patterson Explorer what's your thoughts on that?
- well look we we're driven by shareholder value you know that's our focus I'll mention briefly that we as a management team we aligned ourselves with the package previously given to the board which were significantly out of the money options
- but I think that is a statement of intent a little a little bit for the company that about creation of shareholder value so that's our focus and yes of course if someone wanted to derisk the returns of running the asset for multiple decades and provide that upfront we would of course consider that
- having said that I joined and the team we've put together is really designed around delivering a operational Havieron and optimizing that project
- that is our intent you know that's what gets us excited in the morning we love the exploration as well and as you can see we've invested and we'll continue to invest and expand and optimize that portfolio but all thing all opportunities are possible but we certainly have the ability and the appetite to be operators of Havieron as well
*okay a little bit more detailed the next question from both from Chris and Tiber, do you have a view whether Newmont will want to keep Havieron and the Telfer for infrastructure so both parts which fit with one another and have you had any discussions with them? Now I can see that the line questions coming in are asking similar things so over to you Shaun on that one
- yeah look thanks Chris and others for the for the question look I probably see Havieron and Telfer as two sides of the same coin there you know there there's a lot of reasons why they really good to integrate and that was really the original concept behind the joint venture with Newcrest is you've got you know established infrastructure that happens to be in the middle of a wind down and then just as Havieron comes online I think I've talked about the almost the goldilocks zone where we weren't too early and we sat kind of sequenced behind Telfer ore and we weren't too late when Telfer had already shut down
- we've kind of just come right on time to be the replacement ore and it's not just the processing plant there's a bitumen air strip or all weather air strip, there's storage there's critical spares there's power generation you know officers and accommodation so it being able to utilize that infrastructure is hugely advantageous rather than kind of going into a green field site
- so effectively I think it makes sense to keep the two together I think that is the way Newcrest has always approached it it's the way we've always approached it my sense is that will be the way Newmont approaches it
- but we don't know the mind of Newmont I have dealt with Newmont previously in in a separate life but equally I think we all understand that Newmont's immediate task is to complete the 20 billion transaction action with Newcrest before they start kind of thinking about what to do next
- it's a little bit like a football you know catch it before you or at least receive the pass before you start working out how how you're going to spend it
* and it would be too soon to have had a brief chat with Newmont about this would it visiting other things
- it's fair to say their focus would be getting the $20 billion task done and that's a little bit my football analogy that I think they'll receive the pass before they start thinking about what they're going to do with the ball
* they want to put the ball in the back of the net perhaps Shaun before they actually decide what to do next
- I think that's true
* fair enough with Wyloo’s backing would there ever be a possibility of buying the 70% stake in Havieron you know the dream big thought if you would prefer to focus on other parts of as you've said the world class portfolio you outlined how extraordinary their portfolio is so say they weren't to go for Havieron who wouldn’t want to buy Havieron but would you go for the 70%
- well look I think when you put together two of the global Majors there's only good assets and remember Newcrest you know although it was a global major and a tremendous platform it's only five assets it's it doesn't have this huge tail of you know 42 operations it is a you know a compact company in many respects
- so there's only good assets in Newmont, I think I talked earlier in in this Q&A around we want to you know present ourselves as a credible counterparty whether that be as part of a joint venture with Newmont to optimize the Havieron Telfer development or if they chose to exit being a credible counterparty from a team from a financial and of course within the structure of the joint venture itself
- so look we think we cover both bases and we think we've been mindful of that over the last couple of years as we've built out the Greatland platform
* okay this next question comes from one of our regulars dip, it looks likely that the Havieron definitive feasibility study won't be due until early 2024, with Newmont expected to announce plans to optimize the portfolio in early February I don't know where these investors get these information from but it is extraordinary it might even be true, would you expect NCM to release DFS before or after this so
- thanks Dip, I think I think I'm confident in saying that Newcrest won't be releasing a definitive feasibility study before the completion of the transaction with Newmont so let's call that the 6th of November so I think a first half of 2024 date is sensible
- presumably you know Newmont would like to understand that review, review the optimization work that has been done before they finalized that document having said that we reach the top of the ore body or scheduled to reach that in the June quarter of 2024 and then you'd expect the feasibility study to be in the market and finalized for or if not ahead of that day so that we've agreed the mine development plan as we then start setting up the level developments and the stopes and the decline down that side of the ore body as we saw in one of the earlier slides
* okay let's give you a simpler question about the independent MRE that you said you were going to going to publish what update can you give on progress and did NCM take up your offer of being involved in the peer review
- so that we continue to work on that technically we will so at the right time once that work is we think in more of a final draft form we would share that with them and who knows that might kind of enter around that transition with the Newmont ownership
- so you this a slightly more complex period than it was in March 2022 when I think we last independently released a MRE
- that said we're committed to getting the work done we continue to walk that forward I'd like to achieve that December quarter timetable that we set for ourselves I might just you know add that you know we will be mindful of you know we value the relationship with Newcrest and Newmont
- it's always been our preference to release Resources and Reserve updates with the partner so if Newmont does come in I think we would want to continue to give them that same opportunity for peer review but that work is being undertaken both internally we'll also get it externally reviewed for confirmation and of course my expectation is our joint venture partner would also want a peer review and we would appreciate and want that to happen
* someone on the board I was reading on the on the GGP board yesterday someone described you as a superb chess player Shaun, I think that that answer is just an illustration of have you being good at chess
- well thanks it’s certainly been a really interesting strategic period really since about late 2021 to this time and it would be certainly fascinating had you told me when I joined that we were going to outlast Newcrest so it has been a you evolving environment throughout
- but it's something that we've enjoyed the challenge of and hopefully people appreciate the progress we've made over that last two years sometimes in a challenging environment but I think we've made the most of it so you we're really proud of the team that we've put together and the work that they've achieved
* yes most people most people do appreciate it and that you know all the messages that we're getting in here at the moment and a few of them take the time to say thank you, I never I never include the thanks but they all say thank you and appreciate the communications that you provide them with so anyway let's talk the delayed ASX listing, this one from Andy, James and David - there you go there's a name check for three people when might the delayed ASX listing happen do you think will the internal restructuring continue and what would a fair ASX listing price be
- yeah look when it comes to the ASX listing I think what I want to kind of say is that we our primary thought process is around what's in the interest of existing shareholders and there's a great Winston Churchill quote about when the facts change I change my mind what do you do and we just felt the circumstances in the market had moved and perhaps that's because of some you know pretty unhelpful media speculation around a capital raising which was not necessarily the intent
- so we just felt wasn't the right time to undertake an ASX listing we want to do that you around creating value and augmenting value for our existing shareholder base so really the purpose of that announcement was to give people comfort and perhaps remove a perception of an overhang
- whether that was correct or incorrect you know it was the perception that we wanted to address and again super appreciate the support of Wyloo, it's great to have a supportive strategic holder it’s even better when that's an extreme extraordinarily well-funded group so they were able to bring in what we thought was a really helpful $50 million debt facility
- there's no dilution as part of that and what that did was enabled us to articulate on the market we have $110 million available to us historically at our at our expenditure rate that gives us a burn profile you know deep well past any kind of contemplation we have around completing the decline and I think with that in place it gave the market confidence that that that an equity raising was not necessarily required
- so I think that's how we thought about it we're going to continue to work with the ASX you know finalize that option we still think in the medium to long term that's in the interest of shareholders, we've done some work we'll continue to take advantage of that and complete the process but we'll look to be opportunistic so I don't want to put a time frame at and set an expectation but I think we would continue to consider that if we felt it was in the interest of shareholders and I think the answer is when because over time and we did have that slide earlier in the presentation around the peer group over time we do think the ASX augments the platform that we have in London here and further there's a number of Australian funds that ASX mandate locked
- they buy a number of our peer group but they can't buy us because we're not on the ASX exchange that's what their mandate allows them to buy they can come and buy that stock in London as so long as we have some link to the ASX so we still believe this the right path but just deciding on that timing
* and broadly what are your thoughts on the timing very roughly
- well I think what I'm trying to do Donald if I'm open is just not create a market expectation on timing I think what I'm really trying to do is say we're preserving the option and we'll look to do that at the right time and you know going back to my Churchill quote I think it's about timing the market
- and so I don't want to put parameters and create an expectation what I want to be able to do is say we now think it's the right time and we've done our homework we're ready to go we can do this in short order from this and I think it's been important the journey we've been on I think creating that expectation being informative with shareholders around how we think of it I think sets us up to have support to execute that ASX cross listing when the opportunity arises
* okay moving on what do you think the relationship with Newmont will look like Shaun
- I think it will be a tremendous relationship
*new boss
- yeah look you know I've dealt with Newmont a couple of times previously Simon Anu Chief Operating Officer has worked with Newmont previously also you in terms of our Northern Star experience
- so I think we have a somewhat a measure for that organization it's hugely impressive as you'd expect from the world's largest Gold Miner, we have a huge respect for what they've achieved
- but also their culture and I think that's hugely important we value culture at Greatland it’s probably our driving focus about how we think about team composition how we and how we conduct ourselves and I think we share some of those same values with Newmont so we think the alignment there is really good and look I'd be delighted if we have a multi-decade partnership with Newmont
- there's different ways and different way strategically the options can play out around this but this a world-class team a world-class operator and world-class people that we're really excited about working with
- so make no mistake we're pleased
* Alan and others I've asked us to ask you about the feasibility study give us a broad outline of what will be included in the feasibility study
- look If you have a look back to the pre feasibility study we that was finalized around a 2 million and in that we talked about the preferred model moving forward ton run rate is around a 3 million ton run rate (annually)
- that would be my expectation it will be certainly north of 2 million tons and centred around a 3 million ton per annum run rate and a lot of the work around the decline is centred around creating the overtaking bays, the stockpile bays to allow a the modelling to deliver something around that 3 million ton, so when you see the overall meters developed and then you see the actual vertical distance covered the Delta there or the reason there's so much more meters developed is we are making so many overtaking bays, so many opportunities for passing Bays which allows for a more productive decline, so that's been really important part of the mine planning and then looking at optimizations around that as well
- looking at recoveries looking at what can be done to that processing plant thinking about the amount of evaporation needed to manage the water balance the size of the paste fill plant the haulage route all these things to just try to bring things forward and then optimizing the Mind plan and although we did 80,000m of growth drilling there was also a lot of infill drilling to try to give more confidence that mine plan and bring some more material into that mine plan
- but the PFS in some ways was hugely successful because from memory I think it was 1.4 million tons of reserves and that covered all the infrastructure being put in
- so this a little bit like an infrastructure asset from here you know once you've put the pipes in once you've built your highway or built your electricity grid if you can put more down that utility that marginal material just adds to the profitability and that's what you've got a little bit here
- we've already paid the cost in the PFS of putting the infrastructure in place now we have an expanded mine plan to bring into the feasibility study which just increases the efficiency and the cash profile that that infrastructure cost will can bear
- so I think it's you know I think we continue to be really pleased with how the physical ore body of Havieron evolves
* okay let me ask you a direct question Shaun, when will the decision to mine be and what are the thought what are your the thinking that goes around that
- there there's a very structured element to the joint venture agreement where within a time a short time period of finalization of the feasibility study the partners decide to make the formal investment decision, that's a catalyst if one party wanted to exit or didn't agree with the development there's an opportunity to consolidate ownership
- that's would be highly unlikely we wouldn't be that be that lucky it's fundamentally but so I think it's really just a question that will be in short order after the feasibility study which we'd expect in the first half of calendar 2024
- of course the overlay there and part of the reason why I think Newcrest is hesitant to put a data around that is they may not it may not be a Newcrest brand on the feasibility study, so Newmont will have its own pathway internally for finalizing a study I think that will be additive but fundamentally that that is the pathway but of course everyone Newmont included will want to have that study published by the time we reach the top of the actual ore body itself and have punched through that Permian zone
* wow that was a very interesting answer Shaun thank you let’s talk exploration we can roll Yannarie and Ernest Giles in together if you wish but you've always been a fan of EG you've just managed to sign the EG land agreement what's next there and John asks why do you like Ernest Giles why do you like those so much
- look I think coupled with the Patterson which is has proven success we love that location I think there's a lot of reason to really like EG as well I've mentioned this Archean greenstone that is associated with the majority of gold discoveries in Western Australia
- they have been really fertile across Western Australia where they've been located they are typically tightly held and they're drilled out like pin cushions this wasn't really understood to be an AR greenstone we managed to identify that we managed to Peg it then there's the question of getting the land access agreement
- so this has been a somewhat long journey but we really like it and much like the Patterson that's undercover and covers your friend, you know if this was outcropping at surface it would have already been picked over, people would have already looked at it it would have been drilled it would be understood but because it's undercover applying modern geophysical and geological techniques allow us to peer through that cover better than ever before and have a better probability of success and that's really what our team has been built around because of the cover sequence that you have through the PatterSon so we feel this consistent with our competitive advantage
- it's a really fertile rock type and then plus because historically we've done some geophysical targets we know it lights up like a Christmas tree we know we have some tier one targets and again I don't want to be definitive but we are we took four weeks to mobilize a rig to get onto that South Patterson Rio Tinto joint venture
- I'd expect from here it will be a similarly quick time safety will be our priority and you know we'll need to work really hard to efficiently get a rig out there but I think you'll find the geo team or the exploration team is already working very hard and has already warmed up contractors to be able to mobilize there in short order it's good ground we're excited about it
* okay an associated question from Mike, he says there's a Western Australian Grant connected with drilling Earnest Giles the deadline for which is 30th of November 2023 are you able to mobilize rigs to get the work done in time or can you apply for an extension I think the detail with which people study GGP is quite extraordinary Shaun and this another example of it
- yeah John is correct there is an EIS WA government West Australian government grant for us for part of the drilling costs on EG we do want to take advantage of that that was you know something that we were able to kind of achieve in terms of the timing with the wakamura, and we really appreciate them working with us to achieve that time frame you
- again I can't be definitive but we'd like to think and we're certainly planning to achieve the drilling in the time frame to receive the EIS funding for good order it is not unusual to be able to roll that over but I can't say that with certainty fundamentally it's a separate application each year which will be assessed on the merits and there are lots of applications so it there is even if your application had merit the year before it can be it's is where it's ranked so although we are confident it would be renewed next year we can't be certain we'd like to take the guesswork out of it and just mobilize a rig in short order and that is our intent
- I'll be more decisive on that when we when we finalize it and again although we're really driven by that we'll continue to value safety that will be our primary responsibility it is a remote area and we will work through our safety and our risk assessments in terms of mobilizing that team
* okay you talked about Wyloo providing GGP with a 50 million Aussie dollars lending facility so you've answered that part of the question do you have any significant cash calls coming up and how do you see the Wyloo relationship working going forwards I mean that really strategically is a fascinating question
- look it it's somewhat steady as it goes there's two parts to that question it's steady as it goes in terms of the joint venture so we're really comfortable around there's no surprises to our expectations around cash calls so I think that's always good and indeed the budget is prepared prior to the financial year and that gives us a certainty around cash calls
- so we're reasonably confident around that profile the relationship with Wyloo we value it it's warm they're supportive we don't think we can think of a better relationship Cornerstone investor
- we really respect them they've got a dedicated mining team with expertise around geology and mining and other skill sets within that organization so we think they're a really well-informed investor and a patient investor to help us unlock value and they want to create value for their own portfolio so we think there's lovely alignment there so you know we certainly think very highly of the Wyloo team
* okay lots of people want to know when the essays from scallywag and Patetrson South might be released and there's lots and lots of people have asked that same question so I'll just bundle them all into the one question
- yeah it's a great question look it's it was really around the Logistics of again getting the core taken back and we don't tend to take core in individual trips we tend to kind of bundle it together
- we cut it then we get it transport it the relevant portion down to Perth for cutting so you a number of those steps have been completed
- assay time frames are much improved than what they were say 12 months ago and we had that long period where there were big backlogs in assay so to my understanding assay times are become more normalized again
- so if that's the case you'd expect those to be available early in the December quarter so not particularly far away but we don't just to be clear we don't have the essays yet
- we're looking forward to receiving them but it should be a relatively short burn from here
* okay I've got I've gathered together a few share price questions there'll be no surprises to you Shaun that there's there are several and they take different forms so here we go I buried them deep into deep into the list of questions but we have to talk about share price at some point so here we are Adrien, Anthony and Chris ask why do you think there's a Havieron size gulf between the quality of your assets and the share price, one is not reflective of the other and also a different take on the same thing can you give your view on the falling share price and what's behind it
- look I'm somewhat restricted around what I can practically say around share price or future direction of share price but I think I'll make two points around that
- firstly look we think the Havieron project continues to improve and expand I think the drilling that we've done over the past 18 months continues to be you know top draw we continue to derisk Havieron in terms of you know we really pleased to get through that third spiral and indeed the second aquifer
- which is just porous Rock so when people think about Aqua they shouldn't think of you know flowing rivers or anything they should really just think of really porous rocks which have a high water content than the surrounding rock but the so we think that's an important derisking and also just the time in terms of the closer we get down to the bottom of the ore body that is clear really advantageous in terms of development
- no mining process is linear so with every meter we tick off that again is a derisking exercise
- I think also overlaying that there has been you know it's a we spoke I think the first question was around the strategic environment you know the market loves certainty that's something we probably haven't been able to provide that year in terms of for much of this year around who our joint venture partner is what is their intent
- so we I do feel this 13 October vote gives us a level of stability and you know we asked before around the ASX listing and that Wyloo facility again it was our attempt to try to add stability to the Market by saying look there's uncertainty around that the ASX let's take that off the table there's a suspicion in the newspaper that we're going to raise Equity let's take that off the table and let's do that by bringing in a Wyloo loan which is not dilutive and give people comfort on that
- so you know we like to think we've taken some steps but I'm sure 13th of October will be a red letter day in terms of the market feeling like we've closed a chapter of uncertainty
* yeah 13th of October that's all put that in the diary and while we're talking shares Eddie asks the Perennial question why have you not bought substantial shares in GGP given that they're cheap well look there's two parts I have bought shares during the journey I only buy when we're allowed that's you know been a couple of equity raisings where I've been able to participate
- you know there are long close periods and then even within once the close period we have a certain cooling off period and then also there are statutory close periods in the UK a little bit different to Australia where I think it's 30 days before financial statements you're not allowed to buy or sell so you know they are tight Windows that said you know I think you know there are people within the organization who I think would be interested if an opportunity arises but to be clear I have invested my own money over the journey
* James asks the question he says Alex had 14 million share options that 0.28 due to expire on the 18th of July this year is there an ongoing blackout period or did Alex decide not to exercise as options
- there was an ongoing blackout period and my understanding of I'm not sure if these are LSE rules or just common rules to all option schemes up here is that if the company is in a blackout period rather than simply losing those options there rolled forward until the expiry of that blackout period
- that's a little bit different to Australia in Australia there are carve outs around issuing equity and disposing of equity around kind of blackout periods and but London is a more structured in terms of some of these things
- so I think what I can say is those options have not expired I think some of those options are the end of those you know old series that were done obviously at really attractive pricing
* okay the employee share incentives were announced recently and it's fair to say that not everyone was happy here's Dip who takes a balanced view says the recent employee share incentives are well deserved given the challenges faced to date so will you be setting specific KPI’s for staff such as how much institutional share ownership increases for example, that said I think just matching her exceeding gdxj Performance is perhaps a bit of a soft target so a lesser weighting might have been more apt perhaps 5% and that was backed up by David who concurs saying have you misread the mood of long-term shareholders in offering over generous incentives given the very poor share price performance, there you go that's one for you Shaun
- look there's a little bit time pack I'm glad you raised because I did I did want to talk about the so
- I think firstly let me talk about well let's talk about the target against the n in the specific questions and then I'll move to the well no I might I might start at the broad and then we'll move to the specifity of the question so look we felt an incentive plan was really important we didn't provide an incentive plan for all of FY 23 which was not our intent you know be open we you it's meant to be an annual plan or be it you know it's a there are only periods when we can issue them but there is a really big one off component
- most of this which is the options are one off in nature and what we've done there is there's really four elements of that planning
- you know one it's a super competitive environment in Australia but particularly in West Australian mining it's difficult to attract good people and I think we've been able to do so I like to think that reflects our culture it certainly extends it reflects the quality of the asset but make no mistake it is a really competitive environment
- secondly the out of the money options and it's meaningfully out of the money gives us alignment with shareholders we also aligned it with the previous board issue so effectively you've got alignment with management and those directors that came in
- thirdly it’s non-cash consideration which we think is important and to some extent safe the company money in terms of the packages we were able to put to people
- and finally we wanted to anchor people in we wanted to effectively lock people in to deliver Havieron and that's really important like that that is the Cornerstone of our value and we think this something that we need that the right team to do who knows how the environment evolves but I think locking in that team for a period of time and giving us stability is a really important element
- and the final element I would say is we do have you know five billion shares on issue so you do the number of shares as opposed to the percentage of the company does look a bit larger than if we were I think a more usual number of shares in the Australian Market would be say sub 500 million so you'd kind of take a zero off the number and I think that does colour perception even though the percentages are the same based on the denominator being the number of shares on issue
- if I go into the specificality of that question I actually really have some sympathy for that view, there is different ways of governance
- previously and historically what I've what I saw early in my career is that things were based on absolute return if the share price goes up shareholders win you win it's there's alignment
- where governance has evolved rightly or wrongly is to put in benchmarks and this means that if the gold price goes up and all your peer group goes up you may not actually get a tick in your share price Improvement because you actually need to outperform your peer group
- similarly though and I think this was the nub of the question if the gold price goes down and your peer group goes down but you outperform your peer group that outperformance is recognized
- now beauty is a little bit in the eye of the beholder on that but I probably have some sympathy for that view expressed that they'd rather on absolute returns although the intent of modern governance and I certainly understand it is to incentivize and reward outperformance compared to the sector average so almost normalizing for your underlying commodity price
- I think each person can have a different view on that I certainly understand both have a little bit of sympathy truth be said for the views expressed there but I'm I equally I'm really comfortable with the approach the board and the renumeration committee with the engagement and supportive management ultimately took
- but I believe that is if you have a look at a Glass Lewis or a ISC who write governments reports on us this a structure that they prefer this relative to peer group
* okay moving on H back to more general questions James asks can you please provide an update on the Environmental Protection Authority public consultation which closed in May or give indicative time scales on this process
- James good question he's correct it was submitted I'm always hesitant to put time frames on government departments I suspect the UK is not dissimilar to Australia in in that regard they do a heck of a job I think we're justifiably really proud of the governance in Australia, the Westminster system I think the EPA and our Environmental Protection standards in Australia are First Rate
- and that is admirable and something certainly the company wants to achieve and indeed exceed those benchmarks having said that it takes the time takes it's not on the critical path
- I am a little bit optimistic about kind of the time frame when that comes out but we've kind of made a point on not trying to create an expectation on a date in in the market
- if it became on the critical path I think that's when we'd have to start communicating it but we're not close to that so we feel the application was lodged in time to have the contingency for the EPA to work through it
- we understand they've done some work we've seen some questions we've and the well the Q&A iterative process kind of play out we believe it's substantially or is rather on track and substantially on track from a timetable but certainly not in the critical path where it starts holding things up so positive but we will wait patiently for the ultimate determination process
* Shaun we find ourselves out of time do you want to do you want to squeeze in another question or two before we say goodbye
- look I think the shareholders really value the Q&A it's certainly the focus for me so if you've got a couple more questions certainly from my perspective
* I've got far more than a couple let's try this one from Jackie in the recent GGP environmental submission an electric winder and/or Haul lifting shaft were mentioned at Havieron, can you elaborate on what these imply so what lies behind those two things
- so look if if we hark back to the PFS we looked at three forms of ore transport which was that the decline ramp a conveyor and a shaft haulage mechanism
- all three were considered they continue to be in consideration and I don't want to be pre-empt the feasibility study where that's going
- I'm not although I equally don't want to create an expectation where there shouldn't be, I think it would be natural to at least explore all three with the EPA as whilst you're finalizing the definitive feasibility study and provide optionality but I think prima facie (at first sight) people should Centre on that the decline the truck haulage decline but you would always preserve optionality and if at a future date or indeed at the date of the DFS if you decided you could improve you'd obviously want to be able to do that and anticipate that in your EPA
- but I don't think people should be reading into that other than it's just good practice to maintain optionality through these processes
* okay I thought we'd asked all the possible permutations of the Newmont takeover but Colin has come up with a good one Shaun if Newmont were to renew its interest in Ernest Giles and propose a JV with Greatland prior to it making any decision regarding the future of it for Havieron would you go for it
- well look we you know we really prize the EG ground I think Never Say Never I spoke at length about how we value the relationship with Newmont and the quality of that organization so of course we would be open to discussions but I think my instinctive answer is we now have a capability and a platform that can unlock the value there at EG so prima facie we would like to do that and keep the benefit for our shareholders
- albeit if Newmont could articulate an information approach a methodology that we thought increased the probability of success for both Partners we'd obviously consider it so it's prima facie I think people should you know think should see our thought process as wanting to keep all of it but we're always open to good ideas
* okay I think this makes a well let's go let’s Stuart Rudall tenement let's quickly answer this one given that the drilling intercepted great mineralization are you retaining the land at Rudall and if so why given that it's so deep
- yeah look good question that's right that's right the Australian names are not always self-evident the so I you know Stuart I think you know is based out there in the Patterson so I see his work on LinkedIn oh sorry and Twitter or X so look the 800 meter deep hole we thought was a really interesting intercept
- you know at the bottom of that hole really came the high grade intercept as is typical with that Havieron with that Patterson ore you can't necessarily tell just by looking at it so it was really only the assays that we really understood the grade we were seeing
- I think what's interesting there is where that structure goes from so we'd like to do some more geophysics on that particularly to the extent we've got that hole is open and if that structure was trending towards surface I think that would be great more interesting to us than if that structure was heading further at further depth
- so I think that's the way we think about it for now again I've talked about our technical approach to drilling we like to close out targets before closing the book on them so we would probably still like to understand whether that structure and those high grades actually do go towards surface because if they do go towards surface that's when Rudall will become would become certainly of interest to us
* okay so time for our last question and just before then it's time to say that we did a brief poll at the on zoom and of those watching on Zoom which is about 300 people currently 97% are shareholders I remember someone in in GGP said to us once so are these you know who's actually watching here are these people actually shareholders 97% of the people watching on Zoom today are shareholders and I just thought what a great last question from Steven, where do you see GGP in 10 years Shaun last question
- so Donald thanks for those statistics obviously the you know we're focused on the 97% of who are shareholders but hopefully we've converted another 3% of the audience to become shareholders of Greatland |
- Stephen was a great question around the vision and I think about it in the context of my own experience Sakari, Straits, Northern Star really were single asset platforms and we grew them over a period of years to being multi asset multi-billion dollar platforms
- that's what we want to achieve here we think Havieron gives us a tremendous platform a tremendous base to grow and I think the people we've bought in are tremendous and in a market where it's really difficult to get good people I really think we've picked the eyes out of it the board is as good as any in Australia literally
- and I think that creates options for us particularly with the share register we've built and continue to build out so you I'm really optimistic about what we can do with this platform that's why I joined and you know we're excited about that
-pound-for-pound I think our management team in terms of the size of company we are really is exceptional so I love to think we can leverage that human capital we can leverage the asset base we have the exploration we have to achieve something great here no pun intended with Greatland
* okay that that's it for today I just like to thank Shaun Day,managing director at Greatland Gold for joining us, as ever it's been a terrific day, hundreds of hundreds of shareholders have joined us, I have to say thank you individually to each and every one of you the questions have been great as ever it's been a terrific session and that's it and if you are lucky enough to be going along tonight we shall see you look forward to seeing you at six o'clock and if not have a good evening - thank you so much.
Link to download notes with slides:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/5yno2mth ... 3.pdf/file