Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
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Thank you for all of the detailed information and extracts - was a bit too late for me to listen to live.
Interesting to see on the slides that NCM continue to experiment and find new and more economic ways of mining at depth - and starting at Telfer - that they reckon can be rolled out elsewhere.
Bodes well for whatever may be found at greater depths at Havieron, in terms of being economic to mine, and maybe a very close geology to Telfer.
end
Sandeep Biswas
''Good. Thanks, Omar. How are you?
Unidentified Analyst
Yes, good. Thanks. Thanks. Great presentation. Just a quick question, basically, so you've got your flagship assets, Lihir and Cadia. Just kind of thinking about your future plans with regards to sort of organic growth opportunity such as, Red Chris and Havieron. And whether you see these two projects stand-alone, as being just as big, as the Lihir and Cadia, especially the grades we're seeing at Havieron, on at the moment? Thanks.
Sandeep Biswas
Into this is the similarities that it has with the geology and the strike of Cadia. And that's certainly so far in where we're drilling so far proves to be the case. So the ultimate goal for Red Chris, if you - our aspiration, if I can put it that way, is to essentially have another Cadia. I mean, that's why we got in there and moved so quickly to do it.
But just remembering that the current milling capacity there with the installed equipment is 10 - 11 million to 12 million tonnes per annum. So if we were to get to the full size of the Cadia mine, then we'd have to do something, in relation to the processing facilities.
But if you look at the - and you're asking what's the potential. Well, that's what we hope to prove up, that it becomes our next sort of Tier 1 mine, world-class, decade-long underground block cave mine.
In terms of Havieron, look, it's still work in progress. But if it goes along the lines that I said, which is it becomes a high-grade supplement to that Telfer that currently is going through or even stand-alone, at the sort of grades that we see.
But if that can be backed up with a bulk mining option in the break-in material and what have you, well, Telfer may go back to becoming a Tier 1 operation. Hard to say right now, but you've seen the drill results. It's quite encouraging.
Unidentified Analyst
No, certainly, certainly. And I point to the depth of Havieron. I think that the fact that it remains open at the moment as well, I think the market may be underestimating the size of it. Would you agree with similar thoughts or...
Sandeep Biswas
Nice try. But no, I can't comment on that right now.''
Unidentified Analyst
''Good morning, Sandeep. Just two questions on Havieron. So the market people are underestimating the material impact of Havieron being a world-class plant and against the economics of cave mining?
Sandeep Biswas
Sorry, Hugo, you're cutting in and out. Did you catch the question, Gerard? I couldn't quite hear. Hugo was cutting in and out.
Gerard Bond
He asked whether - is the market underestimating the value of Havieron and its economics enabled by block cave mining?
Sandeep Biswas
We've - I mean that's a tough one, and I wouldn't like to comment when they're under or overestimating. But what I will say is that - and you've seen in the drill results, and we continue to be excited by the potential of it because, not just because of the high-grade crescent zone that we've talked about, and that's starting to take some good shape and is open to depth, and we're now drilling deeper down to see how deep and continuous it goes.
But what - and I've reported on this before. What has surprised us is that the breccia material that the crescent zone sits in between, well, that is mineralized quite extensively in there, determining how extensive that is, which really opens up the possibility of - in addition to any high-grade mining that you do of the crescent zone, does this also transform into a bulk mining option further in the future.
And it's - and that has the potential to change the way we look at Havieron where we initially thought it was going to be just a high-grade mine with open stoping or maybe even some sub-level type gaping into a much bigger block caving scenario. But yeah, that's all to be determined. It's all conceptual right now. But as we do more and more drilling, if it continues at the rate it's going, it's looking very good.''
''Daniel Morgan, UBS
Okay. Thank you very much. And last question just on Telfer. What does the Telfer operation look like prior to any potential Havieron coming on board? Are you going to have underground ore? Or is it going to run out shortly to peers on reserves?
And also how the trajectory of the pit grade looks because there was some variability over the past 12 months, but the guidance would imply that some of those issues might be behind you?
Sandeep Biswas
Yeah. We've got a much better handle on the open pit grades now. We were going through the so-called livable veins back in the course - the period you referred to, which was very variable. But we're into a far more predictable range in terms of grade in the open pit.
The good news underground is on paper, if you look back a year ago, the underground would have been closed by now. But the extension of drilling that we've done and some really smart thinking around cash-on-cash returns on investment underground has seen the life of the underground increased. So we can get some more of the high grade from underground.
And we continue to drill and find new pods. I don't know how long the underground will last. I mean, obviously, it won't last for another 10 years or something, but we're encouraged by what we're seeing, which adds that incremental - those ounces, which you'll see in this year's plan, which would not have been there, absent the great work done by our underground team at Telfer''
''We also have a multitude of growth options, including Havieron, Red Chris, Golpu and our Cadia expansion.''....in descending order of importance and degree of growth. Top of the list, Havieron, again
What is interesting is Havieron takes centre stage and indeed is elevated to primary reference in SB's opening speech :-
Sandeep Biswas
''Thanks, Gerard. I'm also pleased to advise that the Board has approved a final fully franked dividend of $0.175 per share, which equates to a full year dividend for FY '20 of $0.25 per share. This is the fifth consecutive year that we've increased returns to shareholders.
As we announced in early April, we've now earned a 40% interest in the Havieron Project, which is located near our Telfer mine in Western Australia. Our exploration results from Havieron continued to demonstrate the continuity of high-grade mineralization over an expanded mineralization footprint.
These results signaled the very real potential for a renewal of our asset portfolio in the Paterson Province. The grades we're seeing at Havieron are unique for this region and we're excited to progress and accelerate our evaluation of this opportunity.
Studies are well underway to investigate the potential of starting an exploration decline by the end of the current calendar year or in early 2021, with the potential to achieve commercial production within two to three years from the commencement of the decline, subject to the completion of the studies. We hope to release the results of the study in the coming months.
Finding gold is hard and rare, so these kind of drilling results are really exciting. ''