Investment Strategy: Ed Isu emphasizes the importance of a strategic approach to drilling, focusing on understanding geology and executing timely exploration to achieve rapid success.
Key Discoveries: Ed is credited with major gold discoveries such as Platonic, Bronzewing, and Jundee, highlighting the significance of strategic drilling and geological understanding in uncovering valuable resources.
Exploration Techniques: The use of laterite sampling and strategic drilling patterns were crucial in Ed's discoveries, demonstrating the importance of innovative exploration methods in identifying gold deposits.
Market Challenges: The podcast discusses the impact of fluctuating gold prices and market conditions on exploration and mining operations, emphasizing the need for strategic financial management.
Partnerships and Negotiations: Ed's collaborations with industry figures like Joe Gutnik and Mark Casy were pivotal in securing funding and advancing exploration projects, showcasing the role of strategic partnerships in the mining industry.
Future Prospects: Ed remains optimistic about future discoveries, focusing on sediment-hosted copper and VHMS deposits in South Australia, leveraging his extensive experience and strategic approach to exploration.
Industry Insights: The discussion highlights the challenges and opportunities in the Australian mining sector, including regulatory environments, infrastructure, and the potential for significant discoveries under cover.
Exploration vs. Discovery: Ed distinguishes between exploration and discovery, emphasizing the importance of clear objectives and effective drilling strategies to achieve successful outcomes in mining projects.
Transcript
We have the privilege of sitting down with Ed Isu, somebody credited with the discovery of Platonic, Bronzewing, and Jund D. He's also negotiated with some giants of the mining industry, including Joe Gutnik, Mark Casy, and Robert Champion Decrepney, just to name a few. Mate, Ed has played a a massive part in in big corporate moves like yeah he's been he's been amongst several takeovers rode the highs and lows of the gold game be it great central you know Wuna when it was Apex Minerals even um having a a front row seat at the Hemi discovery um part of the strategy that that that led to that too >> add to that he lived through the stories of Sons of Gualia as well as leading St. Barbara for a period of time, >> 50 years on, Ed is still chasing discovery, mate. He's energized by the future, hunting the next big find. A true giant of of mineral discovery. He's got a wonderful strategy for actually finding stuff. And when you see serially successful people like Ed with with just discovery after discovery next to their name, you know, at that point, it's not luck. You must be doing something right. We're thrilled to share the conversation. I mean, how often is it that we get to sit down next to uh next to someone that that is is regularly attributed with three enormous discoveries being Platonic, Bronzewing, and John D. But not just those. Ed is uh been around the footy, many many other discoveries, and we're delighted to to have him in the hot seat with us today. you've been you've been doing a lot of research about Ed and I'm I'm insanely curious to have this conversation with a serely successful explorationist like yourself Ed mate you couldn't have said it any better Ed we're very grateful that you've joined us here today and I'm very curious to hear of those three discoveries that Trev just mentioned which are often attributed to to you and the team you worked for there which one was the sweetest >> bronze ring was the sweetest Um because by then we knew after the discovery of plutonic uh what we had to do to be very focused on achieving rapid success. And um and you know there there was good science behind it and good uh geologists working with me uh in the team that understood that process and that requirement also cuz we all know that capital is very impatient and risk capital even more so. Um so the the one of the driving forces in my thinking has always been to do things in a very timely manner. >> I think I read that bronzewing was hit on the the 64th hole of a 65 hole program. Is that is that right? >> Yeah, that that's correct. I mean, basically what we were doing there, um, we knew there was gold at Mount McClure to the west and there was gold, um, at Mount Joel to the east and there was this area, a substantial area in between that was undercover. And we'd figured that the laterite that was exposed at Mount McClure to the west most probably went undercover in the area in between. So we decided that we drill along existing roads and fence lines at 400 m spacing. The reason for the spacing, that wide spacing, was that if there's going to be this laterite under the cover, and if there's going to be gold under the laterite, then there would be some some distribution of gold in the laterite profile. And and you know, obviously, if it's going to be of any size, it could could be easily 400 m in dimension. So that's what we did. And um so not all the the we basically drilled these holes in the circle, the north south line, east, west, north, south, and then uh from west to east. And as as you said, it was the second last hole of the program that intersected the laterite at about 20 m below the surface and it had from memory it had about 4 m of 2 g But um the hole kept going and we intersected 10 m at 1 g at a depth of 70 m. Critical thing was that that gold was associated with quartz veining in altered mafics which was the target. So having having got those results, we accepted the fact that this was interesting and stepped immediately uh 200 m to the north with RC drilling and the bronzewing discovery was made as a consequence of that discovery. Second last air core hole or was ra drilling was called in those days. Uh the second last air core hole had the four grams or two grams at 20 m and 1 g at 70 m which led to the uh discovery of >> the the the way your approach to drilling has been described is it sort of puts a smile on my face there. I'll read out some of the snippets but one of them was a frontal attack with the drill rig. Another was that you you weren't afraid to drill often and and drilled deep. And thirdly, that you attack the area with your customary go for broke enthusiasm. You you clearly had a a different approach. What was it that you you sort of put put it most down to that that enabled the three discoveries in in relatively sort of short succession there? Uh we understood we understood the geology. Uh we could see the potential scale and so the step from the discovery type intersections to uh next step after that was to see scale of it. And once the scale of that had been established like you know whether it was 1 kilometer in strike or 2 km in strike that deter that then determined the the next phase of drilling and and the spacing of it and also of course at what depth you had to get always had to get the third dimension to get a better understanding you know of of the of the potential of the deposit and the concept of doing early diamond in drilling was to help to understand the geology better because it's any geologist will tell you that trying to understand the geology from you know RC chips is difficult particularly if they're if they're so stop sort of arguing with yourself we'll um we drilled early diamond holes to get a better understanding >> what what was the sort of emotion like in in in the camp when you made these this discovery is like for for a geologist to make one of these things in in their careers a pretty exciting feeling and I'm sure there would have been a lot of doubt around the the market and around the the the geological community about how you guys were were approaching things. So, if we can sort of put ourselves in inside the room with you guys, what was the the sort of feeling? >> Well, it was one of uh it's the chase, right? And it was one of it was always one of great excitement right from from uh you know obviously the geologists on site to those were that were working with me in Melbourne and and the board you know including Joseph Goodnik in those those days. He he was always very enthusiastic and uh and followed followed the advice that was he was being given. And so, you know, you had a you had a uh a very collegate and a lot of camaraderie at at on site because of the success that was being achieved. >> And and you mentioned your your relationship with Joe Gutnik there. It was um you know, one one of the most impactful in in the market on geology in Western Australia through the late 80s in into the ' 90s. What what do you sort of ascribe the um the dynamic like and the the ultimate success of that relationship to? >> What what an unlikely individual to have bold exploration success in WA. Just it's it's remarkable. Um well, Joseph was uh smart uh and had um access to the money and uh you know by then I'd already had um 20 odd years experience in Western Australia understood I thought I understood the regalith and how that worked and one of the reasons for that is that I as an individual and as company representative is we supported the CSRO research into laterite sampling to tell us what was happening underneath and that was very that was also very effective. So that's that was the first leg. And then once once you once you've intersected the drilling, once you've intersected gold in the drilling, well then the only thing to do is to keep drilling. Um rather than get sides, you know, sidetracked by doing more geopysics or some other some other uh exploration technique. Just said, "No, we had the gold. We understood where where it sat. So, let's keep going and and that you know the management team and the board of course were all uh in favor of that cuz it produced the results. C >> can you tell us more about that that relationship with the the CSRO and how that kind of unlocked some of those discoveries and and your thinking? Well, yeah. I mean, when I first went to Western Australia in 19 early 1970, um, one of my exploration manager was at that time was, uh, Ray Smith, who then went on to work from 72 onwards at the CSRO and very specifically studying sampling of laterite nodules to get a sense as to what was happening. beneath later cover and that I mean basically that research started in 1972 and uh plutonic which was result of doing laterite nodule sampling in an area where there had been no gold previously um was applied you know resulted in the discovery 1986. So this is this is was a long-term research project that in the end uh bore a lot of fruit but it was it was long a long time in getting to the point and I as an individual was always keen on understanding the um what the what the regalith was likely to tell us and the companies that I was working for. We always supported that research on an ongoing basis. >> And and just to to spell it out, what was the like the finding from the CSRO that actually helped you to to to make gold discoveries just by sampling the lite? >> Well, okay, you got when we first went to Plutonic, um we sampled at what was the old mineral claim boundaries uh corners. So that was like a one one by two kilometer grid. And the first time we went there results generated a 1 g per ton sample. Now 1 g per ton sample in a laterite nodule in essence probably pick that over every day of the week. But this was in an area where there had been no no previous gold mining, no historic gold money. So we figured that was pretty interesting. So went back and collected another round of samples and the second time round we got samples with 30 g per ton. And of course then it self-evident that the only thing to do was to drill and we drilled uh 25 holes first up uh sorry we drilled 30 holes first up. Five of them hit um gold. The other 25 in the end were all within the open pit, but only five of the first 30 holes intersected gold. But of course, they were interesting results, so we followed them up a bit and uh and the rest was came history. And and this played a role with with bronze wing as well which was a a pretty fascinating discovery story as I understand it because initially you you had a the thinking in the market it was a a kind of lower grade war body but that that changed once you started drilling it at depth is that right >> yeah well I mean basically the first yes the fir even from the outset the first RC results and I don't remember them exactly today. But the first RC results certainly inter at Bronzewing intersected, you know, 5 g per ton over several meters and that again uh changed the landscape. But the important thing was taking the step from getting 10 m at 1 g per ton at 70 m. It's not economic by any standards, but understanding the geology and following that up. And we didn't have to go through a through a joint venture committee meeting or try to convince some management who didn't understand what this really uh could mean. We didn't have to do that. Joseph and I said, "Okay, this is a good result. We'll follow it up." That's what we did. you you did at a point and you and you relayed this story to us when we spoke a week ago have to work with Mark Casy a bit and there was a a deal you did to take 51% ownership of a project and and put up a bit of capital that uh everyone else in the market who had looked at wasn't willing to kind of take. Can you take us through that story? >> Yeah, sure. Um after the discovery of uh plutonic uh and the sale of plutonic um cash was used to explore part for diamonds in the uh in the plutonic area. Uh and there was good yeah I mean there was some some humor about that but in fact Anglo or Debeers were exploring for diamonds in the in the same area. So it it um it it it was a valid yeah there was a valid basis for exploring there for diamonds and Joseph was keen to find diamonds. Um and so we persisted with that some time. But then I I do recall that Mark Reesi uh approached us at one time to do a he had John D and he had a large part of the the Andlebelt which he' joint ventured out previously and people had spent money looking for base metals at one time. uh and he got the land back and he kept kept this very large land package together. But the deal that he wanted at the time was to get a 51% interest in Jund D. He had to put up a nominal amount as an option payment and I think it was something like $50,000 at the time. But the hook for Cesi was that he wanted $3 million cash after 12 months for that option to be exercised. And uh Joseph uh at wasn't ready to take that jump away from diamonds. So we sort of left it for the moment. I went and then as the diamond in my view as the diamond expiration wasn't being that successful I said to I advised Joseph that maybe we should go back to greasy and see if that deal was still possible. it was and he told us then and he's made it public himself that during that in that 12- month period he had 19 different companies come to look at the land in particular Jundee uh and they all balked at this notion of having to pay $3 million cash in 12 months time so did it now I I said to Joseph at the time if if If we can't work out in 12 months whether we can pay $3 million to exercise the option to earn 51%. Then we shouldn't be in this business. So we agreed. And while we're negotiating with Greasy on on that um on J D he said look I've got all this other land to the south and I'll do a joint venture deal with you on that if you like. uh you know earning you can earn 70 70% or 75% by spending all the money up to and including a feasibility study bankable study right okay job done and um we agreed um then to do both John D and the rest of the belt at that time and there was no upfront payment for the joint venture on the rest of the belt so it was a good it was a good deal for Great Central at the time and of course history tells us that he ended up being a very good deal for Mark Crey as well. >> I mean this this sort of led to his his first big breakthrough success. What was it sort of like negotiating and him? >> Oh, it was extremely difficult. We thought he's a hard partner, >> but it it was difficult, but it was not unreasonable. Uh, you know, we had many late night meetings with Mark um to to nut out what what was fair to both sides. And I think in the end the deal that was struck um looked favorable you know to to Mark but was also favorable to great central ended up with 100% of it then >> yeah the the John D that we know as John D to today did it always look and feel like the the special John D? Well, Jundee's uh in really in two parts. Well, there were three parts to Jund D, right? There's Jundee, which is the deal that Great Central did with Mark and then Eagle and another company had the western part of Jundee and they they had already found some gold there. And then there was an eastern block which CI kept to himself. Um so um when we first drilled there uh we ended up I think in the oxide zone about 1 to one and a half million ounces um and that you know that was that happened pretty rapidly then I thought okay so what happens at depth so I thought we knew what we're doing so we targeted you know obviously the higher grade results in the RC drilling in the oxide zone uh to see what happened and the first few diamond holes got very little and uh so I realized that we actually weren't that clever after all. So I said okay the only way to tackle this uh was you know we had a strike length by the end of about 8 kilometers was to drill diamond holes you know to about 4 500 m deep at 400 m centers along the whole strike and that was the plan. um the second I think it was the second diamond hole. Uh and and they were just grid space. There was there was the only geological impact was that we had this strike length and we needed to find out what was happening and I think again it was the second hole intersected Barton and it it was a high-grade result and then we followed it up from there. So, did it always look um special? Um I at the time I remember thinking that bronzing was pretty good, but Casi to his due told me no. Jundi was always going to be so maybe he had he had a a more insightful view than I did at that time. >> And and there was a view from you and the team at the time that this would become a a massive pit. Is >> that right? >> Yes. you you I mean you worked through that 90s period in an era where the gold price was going against you unlike it has for for the last 20 years which is a completely different framing to to go back and think about but was that sort of constantly in the back of your mind there? >> Yeah, it it did. I remember going to a a conference in um gold conference in New York. Probably was the Denver gold show, not New York in Denver. Um 97. There was so much exploration going on at that time around the world, not only in Australia. I thought um there's going to be so much gold is going to be found. Um now whether the two are related or not but the gold price start to fall from then on. So yes the fallen gold price had a had a big impact on on how we're thinking of but at John the pits the pits we had we created several pits that would that wouldn't actually as much as we might have wanted they didn't join up so we just took them as they were. There was some pretty sort of vocal debates between Butnik and various Australian politicians at the time because I think we were as a central bank selling a large portion of our gold that market too which was a was a headache for all the gold miners across Australia. >> Yeah. Well, it was at that time that Australia sold sold uh its gold when it was already the third largest gold producer in the world. It actually made made no sense. But you know um they obviously the politicians are obviously getting other advice. >> JD found this this description uh somewhere the Gutnik Goodnik issues was described as one of the most creative capital intellect combinations in the market. What do you think of that characterization? Uh that's very complimentary comment of course but uh look we worked well together um for a long time for a long period of time and and I think it was the fact that Joseph understood the risks that were were involved and I I I guess I understood the geological risks and that combination worked very well. you reflect a lot on the the access to capital being um enabling the the pace of discoveries and I I almost I'm flashing forward a lot but you know in a lot of ways like your your DJ was was you being a financier for for exploration kind of flip roles you were now you were now goodnick do you do you ever see it that way >> yes and no I mean Success in exploration is largely a function of how much capital is there is if you accept the fact yes you've got to have strong technical teams and you have the environment in which you can do that work but in in Australia most explorers are staff for capital and in my view exploration success is improved with more capital being available and I've had this convers conversation with inst with very large institutional investors and that that point never occurred to them. There's this concept that expiration success in in Australia is spec it's speculation. Uh but it doesn't have to be it can actually be success can be a function of knowledge application of new technology and and the smarts of the of the team. And that's the one I mean one of the benefits in Australia today is that you know modern day expiration has been going on for 60 years or more and as a function of expiration of that expiration it's all been recorded at the M department whatever it's called today and that's readily accessible so you can actually keep building on past expiration efforts um for success. the uh the concept of drilling something out like Swiss cheese comes up a lot with the way you've approached things. I know we were speaking about it just before, but how do you reflect on that sort of statement? >> Well, I think I I I always regard it as a derogatory statement. Um but it in fact was necessary to get to uh indicated resources or at least probable reserves to be able to raise the capital to develop the mines. And that's that was the the fundamental reason. And the only only time we uh we did drill holes like Swiss cheese was if we actually knew what we had. And you know there was largely a program or always a program of infill drilling to make sure that we actually got understood the distribution of the gold as it was. I mean fortunately we never made a mistake. we always were able to produce to the reserves that we'd estimated >> the um the turn of the the turn of the century. You're uh you're MD of New Hampton Goldfields. What what what's your what's your thinking with this this you know new chapter in in your career? >> Um well, okay. So, I thought that we could create uh with New Hampton a um a a a gold expiration company um and and basically do the same as what I'd been doing with Joseph at Great Central Mines and Central. Uh and it had New Hampton had a had a small operation. Yes, it was short of um a feed. Well, we'd been there before, so we thought we could fix that by drilling appropriately and it was, you know, close to Kouli. It was in the right place. Um and it didn't actually quite work out like that. And then and then we uh we we acquired the um we acquired the bell mine. Uh and that was part of giving New Hampton an additional um additional operation and and an an additional expiration opportunity. But with most operations, operations suck all the energy and all the oxygen and expiration tends to get put to one side and uh and that's what happened in that case. And so it wasn't it was and then it got taken over by by Harmony wasn't my idea but uh the by then the largest shareholder of New Hampton was was uh uh Robert Drepney. Robert championed and he he uh sold out to to Harmony to basically divest that interest. So that um I wasn't in favor of the t or the price of the takeover and objected to it, but the rest of the board said no no that's what happened. >> How hard was that sort of transition? And I know you'd been doing a lot of management in in your later years at at Great Central, but that transition from expiration and working within a framework to being a manager and running a company. >> Oh, that was Yeah, that was a challenge, right? Um because now I mean working with Joseph, Joseph was clearly responsible for raising the capital. I was responsible for spending the money wisely and and exploring. When we got to New Hampton, of course, I was responsible for both. And that was even though I'd been in the market and people knew who I who I was and why I did, it was still difficult. And it was also a difficult time. Uh, you know, in in the market full stop. So, yes, it was it was not easy. >> You then headed up after sort of finding your way into St. Barbara of of all companies which was a um well it's a company with a fascinating history and plenty of ups and downs but sort of circa 2004 find your way in there and then get your hands on some Sons of Gualia assets what tell us about that sort of period >> okay sons of Barbara the shareholders of of so of St. Barbara shareholders of St. Barbara were unhappy with the management and they rolled rolled the board and appointed myself as the MD and Colin Wise I brought along as the chairman and this major shareholder at that time was resource capital fund and I'd worked with the principles of that fund in the development of of bronzewing. They they uh they were the early financiers of Brunswick. In fact, they they lent some money to complete the lent central money to complete the feasibility study on bronze. So, I had a good relationship with um but prior to that I'd spent a year advising uh Sons of Golia on on their expiration. this was to the board rather than to so I was very familiar with the assets and uh and in fact was advising them on what I thought should happen at Sons of Golia at the Sons of Golia mine and and elsewhere for that matter but um and Sons of Golia mine was the was the principal asset I mean they had Carousam and they also had uh on the cross operations. Um so I was quite familiar with those assets and then Sons of Gully went into uh they were concerned the management were concerned about meeting future hedge requirements and when they approached the counterparties about that they said well if you have concern then what can we do? So they put Sunoli into administration when Sons of Gali had $60 million in bank. So it's the people forget these sorts of things. Uh and um put it into administration and I uh thought oh this is now I was at St. Barbara. I thought this is interesting. So it became clear that the administrator wanted to sell everything one package and uh terms of the gold and the lithium and green bushes tatalite aspects quad they they treated separately. There are a lot of different Docker proposals that were put in. There were there were so many proposals, but was was the administrator just just favoring a clean outcome? Is that how you >> he was he was very much in favor of all the gold assets being done in one go? And the question is do that, right? So, um because there was there were environmental bonds of some 30 odd million attached to the gold assets. Um so so okay so resource capital fund was the major shareholder in Barbara. I put it to them that we do this sons of gullia deal they had to figure out how to how to get rid of these bonds finance the bonds when you know when St. Barbara as a company had a market cap of 50. How do you finance bonds of uh 30 odd million? Well, they they got letters of credit and solved that issue for us. Uh and then got we bought we're able to buy the assets, the whole company for $4 million cash plus replacing the bonds. And so the outlay was $4 million. Um and then we had to sit you had to work out okay what could what could St. Barbara do now. So we decided there and then that we would sell Carud Dam and and the Southern Cross operations and focus on on um on Leonora Sons of Golia and of course is that a good decision? Well it was all we could do at the time. um rather than dilute you know raise a lot of capital and dilute the existing shareholders. Um so we did sell that and of course tells us that Rally Finlandson ended up with Kara Sudam is now owns Sons of Goully mine and uh that's that's interesting but anyway we uh we developed um well what we did at Sunzigi after we got control of it was very simple thing the previous management had were advising the board that to look to actually develop the extensions of the Sunzog mine below 1,000 m depth required sinking of a shaft and then drilling from the base of the shaft. Of course, we know the shaft was cost 120 million. It would take two or more years to do and then you still had to do all the drilling. And my advice to the board at the time was no, we actually don't need to do that. You can draw from the surface. But that was rejected um by by the management. Um so of course when we got hold of the assets, that's what we did. We drilled from the surface. Now cost, yes, was $300 a meter, which was outlandish, outrageous, but the cost was only $30 an ounce. That was the critical component. So we're able to then after consultation with again with resource geologist specialists, what spacing did we require for them to be able to sign off on indicator resources to get to res because we we knew we had to raise capital at some stage to develop redevelop the mine. Anyway, the answer was if we drilled it at a 40 by 40 meter spacing, even you know down to 1,800 m that would that would most probably was the answer most probably get to indicated resources. Um and that's what we did. And um we did we we generated um I think 3 million ounces in resources from that drilling uh and 1.8 million ounces in reserves and were able to redevelop the mud and it's it's since then it has produced more than 2 million ounces. Uh um but the critical thing was uh that we're able to do that relatively quickly cuz could have two or three or four rigs on on site. The drilling results was were generally better than what the model had indicated. you know, had inferred resources below 1,000 mters, but so you actually had a picture as to how much gold you would get if once you intersected the or body and in many cases the drilling results were better than what the model predicted. Um, which was heartening but at the same time was necessary. Um so in the end the we're quite confident about the about the resource model and particularly about the grade and the grade stood up for a long time. >> Was was was Tower Hill part of the picture back then too? >> Tower Hill that's a good question. Tower Hill was we looked at Tower Hill hard. Um it had infrastructure issues which you know which Genesis have resolved I think very elegantly um in terms of stopping the railway line rather than moving the railway line. Um from an underground viewpoint it was clear that the ground conditions were not favorable for underground development. But um and I did think at one time about driving a decline from the base of the Suns of Golia shaft to decline sorry to u uh to to Tower Hill but we didn't didn't get around to doing that. That that was that was an idea we were contemplating at the time. But I think what Genesis have come up with is very elegant solution. Big open pit at two grams. Wow. Isn't it remarkable? You know, 20 20 years ago, put put a shaft in Gualia and like find a way to get around this railway for Tower Hill. The strategy hasn't changed too much. >> I mean, they have they explored the shaft and then they they shafted the shaft plan. >> The shaft and the shaft. >> Yeah. >> And how do you kind of think about that period, that sort of 5year block where you're managing the company? Did you have enough time to sort of focus on exploration and making discovery or were you constantly dragged into the the ups and downs of managing mines? >> Well, I think history tells us that you know operations suck all the energy and effort. Um, and you know, we did have we did have an ambition to get to a 400,000 ounce gold producer. uh which me which meant and at that stage we had Suns of Golia and uh Southern Cross operations they were going to be producing about 250 to 300,000 ounces a year so we had to find another th000 producer which we didn't do didn't didn't achieve in the time frame um I mean we did do a lot of drilling at Tower Hill uh and that that was an obvious one. Um uh and I I do I do remember the time when we're drilling both at uh Sons of Golia mine deep holes standing well back see the rigs from the from the highway but when we're drilling at Tower Hill we had two or three RC rigs drilling and the highway was quite close to Tower Hill and when when we started doing that drilling the share price of uh St. Barbara went up just because everyone could see there was a lot of activity or I think that's what it was. >> I I really reflect now more so than than having read about it before on this model of having the exploration chief and the the sort of financing chief. Is that something you ever tried to to recreate later or is it just impractical? I think I think that's probably worked with DJ if we if we look hard at it. Um Bruce Pankut my colleague and co-director yes was he he was a geologist but he went he went soon went into broking and ended up being head of Macintosh securities uh which was Australia was one of the two Australian brokers and they ended up being taken over by Mel Lynch and Bruce was you CEO of Mineral Lynch. So his background was he had a lot of experience in the market and I think that that combination is basically worked again. So the short answer is yes. I think it is it is a it's a good model. >> Yeah. And and you obviously had a lot of success there with with DJ. you you told us a a great story which I'd love for you to share on the discovery of Hemi and the advice you were giving and what could have been I think some six years prior to the eventual discovery there. >> Yeah. Well, can if I if I can just start at the beginning perhaps in that um when Bruce and I got together in DJI, DJI had a market cap of $2 million, right? So it was and and the reason why I was was that cuz it was difficult to raise capital in that in that time and we were doing I was I was basically doing a or trying to emulate what Mark Crey had done and that was to pick up large areas and and have Greenfield's exploration happen. When Bruce said he wanted to join with me, I said that was that was good. and we sat down and said, uh, okay, so where's the best place to look for gold? And the answer re the real answer was that it's probably already held by both large and small companies. So having come to that conclusion, we said, okay, well, let's have a look at all the ASX listed companies that were exploring for gold in Australia. and there were about 160 and we very quickly of course got down to about 10 of which uh Deg Gray was number one and NTM uh was number two and NTM being ended up being taken over by Dacian and number three was Yandel and the reason for picking uh Deg Gray as the number one was it had a large had a large land area and gold was known throughout the area. And we actually did a we did an estimate, a risk estimate as to how much gold we could find by extending the existing deposits and we made allowance for the discovery of a new one. didn't know where that would be, but we might because because of the prospectivity of the land, we thought there's likely to be another withnol or another mala, you know, 1 to 2 million ounce type deposit and we figured out how much that would cost to drill and we did it on a risk weighted basis. So in other words the uh to extend whistl or malab to 1 to 2 million ounces we thought the risk was risk was quite low. So that was 75% success rate but in terms of finding a new one we thought well that had to be a risk rate of about 50% 50/50 chance of finding a new one. Um anyway, that led us to investing in the gray and we invested in the gray at 20 cents at a time and uh and we're quite happy with that and of course the share price went down to 5 cents. So we we we realized we weren't that clever after all. But um the market was sensing that the Gray had to had to buy out the chi there was a Chinese partner that they had an option over to buy them out and they needed to raise $13 million for that. So the market sensed that there was more money needed to be raised. So the share price went down. Anyway, uh cut a long story short, we we Bruce and I helped them raise uh with my son Grant, helped helped them raise the money at at 5 cents. Um and one of the conditions was that we go on the board, Bruce and I would go on the board, which we did. Um I did spend and the other large shareholder at that time was Kirkland Lake and uh they didn't want to contribute to any to the capital raise so they they got diluted but they did want to have a look at the land position one time so they came over and I as just as a a shareholder at that time I went with the Kirkland Lake people and we did a two-day helicopter ride looking at all prospects. And the one thing that became very clear to me was that this was a vast area, a vast area. It was 150 km long and about 50 km wide. And yes, there was gold deposits throughout. And uh you could you could actually sort of sense that in the past companies and or individuals would be overwhelmed by the by the scale of what they had. So they always sort of went back to what they knew. So there was all this concept of incrementally adding to what what had been found. And um well we had we had to think differently about it. And also mind you even highly respected academic geologists said no is different to the UA you're not going to find any big deposits only they only found small ones. Well of course you could dismiss that argument from a a statist statistical viewpoint when you look at gold provinces. So we didn't take any notice of of the respected geological wisdom and figured out that okay so this thing was 150 km long there it became clear there are about four areas each of about 30 km long which had been hardly explored or poorly tested and knew each of the existing deposits were about 1 kilometer long. So worked out that you could drill air core drilling at one kilometer spacing or thereabouts across the structures and it each area there were four areas each area would cost about a million dollars each to do that first pass air core drilling. Uh it took us it took us a while to convince both board and management that that's what they should do. in fact took more than six months but when they started of course the Hemi discovery was the first area they adopted this strategy and it happened within the first two weeks. Now um the the story of course is that the real story is that yes the the geology team Andy led by Andy Beckworth and Phil Tamara very competent very competent people but the strategy they had of finding a little bit more and building a central mill was always going to not going to really cut it from a share shareholder viewpoint. degra put out a DFS on >> DFS. There was a study put on on melanin in 2019 I want to say or 2018 like yeah so that was that was the strategy was >> that was the strategy was yeah and and we said no we we haven't invested in the grave for that strategy we've invested because you've got this large land package with enormous potential so let's go and see if we can find and of course once you say let's see how we can find it you'd have to explain how you go about it and that was the strategy bit We >> we we wrote it up four areas each 30 km long. It's a drill space drill travis every every 1 kilometer holes. I can't remember the spacing was probably 160 m or something along each line and let's see what happens. That's the business that we're in. Right. And um and yes, so as I said before, they came up within virtually within the first two weeks of starting on that strategy and then uh subsequently of course we found and and Grave made this public themselves. They had actually drilled in the Hemi area 6 years earlier. the air core drilling had the the rods had got bogged in the gravel layer at about 40 mters below the surface and stopped and if they kept if they had gone another meter or two they would have hit I think it was Juon or Eagle one of those uh which then would have of course escalated and they would have found the rest of it. Um so the really critical point for explorers and for shareholders in exploration company is to be absolutely clear that the drilling that's being done is effective cuz if it's not then don't even bother starting and if it isn't effective then keep going until you have completed an effective drilling program. This is this is a lesson that you've had several times in your in your career and before we started recording you were telling telling one of those very examples. Um do you want to do you want to talk about yeah your your observation of the depth of drilling and >> Yeah it's a very it's a it's a a beautiful example really in that we're at uh at Mount Pleasant just you know north of north of Kgouli Mount Pleasant area in the in the 80s was one of the red hot gold areas to the extent where even Western mining got involved um with consolidated uh exploration company at the time and um and and elders resources were there. So it was it was it was one of the hot areas. Anyway, there was a mill there and um central mining bought the land package and the mill uh and it was in the early 90s. The mill had about six months of reserves. So we had to had to find some new reserves and um went there and you could see at Mount Pleasant there was this corridor about 8 km long about 2 km wide where there was several open pits and it was it looked like there was drilling everywhere. So it' been drilled. And in effect, it looked like it the job had been done. However, when you went to the open pits, you could see there was 20 m of aluvial cover over the top of weathered bedrock. And in in those days, in the in the 80s, air core drilling or ra drilling as it was called, you know, it was it was the next step after soil sampling. You drill down to about 20 m and often it was a standard depth. Okay, drill down to 20 m, find out what's at the bottom of the hole. So, uh, when we saw this in the in the open pit wall that there was 20 m of cover, thought, ah, let's go back to the maps in the office and let's remove all the holes from the maps that were less than 20 m deep. And that created these vast gaps in what looked like an area that had been drilled. And uh so we drew up a pattern. Pattern I think was 240 m line spacing uh 80 m hole spacing on the lines. The first gap that we drilled was um 500 m from the existing operating mill and we found quarters again within sort of within a month of starting on that on that strategy. And of course quarters produced about a million ounces. So the critical thing in all of this is is to be absolutely clear that the drilling has been effective terms of testing what geologist might might be thinking about at the time. And I I see it I mean even you know in the belt for example I mean expiration's been going on there since we found Bronzewing in '92. There's still large areas when when the geologist drag the maps out, they look like they've been drilled, but then you ask the question, how much of it's effective? And most of the holes go away. So, it's underexplored. >> So, is strategy more important than geological thinking? >> Oh, you have to have both. I mean the success of Hemi for example is a function that you know Andrew Beckwith and his team knew exactly what had to do what they had to do and how to go about it once they got onto it. So you can't separate the two. You actually have to get the right strategy and then have the right right team together. If if we look forward now, Ed, you're you're doing some exciting stuff in in South Australia and using your your abundance of experience and and knowledge, h how do you think you can sort of relay that? Like obviously you're doing that in a in a private structure. What are the sort of differences you're you're bringing forward and how sort of excited are you by the prospects? >> Well, we're I guess we're doing I'm personally doing two things. one part of as part of a private syndicate. We're exploring in South Australia for sediment hosted copper and we're exploring for deuser type BHMS deposits in in the Briar Ura and Briar basin uh north of Mechathar and uh so we're doing that and we're applying the logic um and fortunately we have enough capital between us to actually follow that through uh And as a consequence, we've been exploring either as DJgo or privately in on the Stewart shelf in South Australia now for probably 10 years. And what we're looking for is sediment hosted copper using the Zambient copper belt model as as the analog. And we've we've established that the concept is applicable and we found copper mineralization. And now we're finding economic mineralization up to 20 m at 1% copper within 20 m of the surface. Everything's undercover. We have uh about 200 kilometers of strike of what's called the transition zone, which is where where you would expect the copper mineralization to be. And we've done we did a very large soil sampling program last year. Um I can't remember how many samples we took but it's it's again it's identified a number of areas uh of some scale. Uh and we know this is reliable because we've got the soil sampling results over where we've actually found copper at depth. So, we're we're very optimistic about the potential outcome. And of course, the benefit the infrastructure benefits are incredible. And it's only about an hour from Port Augusta. There's a highway to Ellis Springs. There's a railway line. Uh there's pipelines and there's electric uh transmission lines going to Olympic Dam. all within, you know, within one or two kilometers of where we're exploring. You know, may it may in fact be a disadvantage that they're there if we find copper underneath these transmission lines, but we'll worry about that when when the time comes. But that that that looks um part of it a joint venture with Gold Road um and um and and part of it we own 100% or Discover Co. the company owns 100% of in terms of what we're doing at Urida. We're exploring there again. It's a joint venture with Gold Road because we've joint ventured back into the land that DJ had and Discover Co. is process of u earning its equity in earning back that equity in in in that land. So um it's um and we're look it's people have been exploring for deusa type mineralization in the briar and ura basin since the 1970s and the grusa is the only one that's been on and monty which is a sideshow the only one that's been found but the but the geological evidence is strong that there'll there'll be others and we um we've Again, we've been exploring there now for for several years. Um, and we're encouraged by what we see. Uh, we haven't done a lot of drilling. We haven't done a lot of recent drilling in the ura. So, that's um, so that's really the next step. Um, and then the other thing that I do is um, I invest in in the existing listed explorers. and uh and with with with the same lens as what we use to to identify the hemi prospect. So in other words, invest in companies that have land in scale potentially have own 100% of the land. Uh management has got to be uh competent and capable. Uh and so we've invested in um Yanel resources and and Cal Gold uh and both of those have you know potential for are are in proven gold provinces for a start and have potential to find uh decentsized discoveries >> like with with DJ I I you took issue with being referenced as an exploration company in the past and um like we're in the business of discovery, not expiration. So I find it quite quite intriguing that um the private entity you're dealing with now is called Discover Co. It's in the name, you can't mistake it. Why do you feel strongly about the difference of being an exploration company versus a discovery company? >> Well, that's it's it's the same reason why I don't like the word project. >> Yeah. Um, we're in the business of making discoveries, not exploring. And and yeah, is that is that being a bit pedantic? Well, if it is, bad luck. Because the purpose of drilling holes is is not just to go through the process, but is to get get an outcome. And yes, you've got to go through you got to go through the process and you know all the all the checks and balances that need to occur. that they all need to occur. But at the end of the day, unless unless we're clear about why we are doing what we're doing, you know, you you can lose sight of the fact. I mean, there are geologists who love doing geology whether whether they whether they find something or not sometimes is not well or sometimes is not the main game. They just like doing geology. Um, I like being involved in making discoveries and using geological knowledge to do that. >> Is that that outcome or the chase as you called it before still as exciting as it was 50 years ago? >> Of course it is. It's it's a you know, you know, getting a a a drill hole result um when not not so even when you do expect it is um you when you actually have it confirmed that this is potentially something new or something big or or both. Um you know that's it is exciting. I want to I want to um tap in a little bit to to how how things unfolded with with DJO. You know, by virtue of DJI's investment in in Deg Gray, DJ DGO's market cap also exploded. Um always traded at a bit of a a discount to to NTA and for that reason maybe it was a pretty pretty um obvious entry to pick up a a substantial stake into the gray. So ultimately how that culminated is is Gold Road acquired DJO. You're sitting on the board of the Gray around this time I think. So how are you kind of evaluating the the the lay of the land knowing that you're you know you're sitting on a worldass deposit and it's going to be of interest to to to majors and that you know you're also still at DGO which is which is going to have the stake which is very attractive. Well, that that's an interesting question and it it does raise the uh does raise the issue of conflict. Um and uh that's in the end in the end what Bruce and I in particular decided to do was to every time we invested new money, we're actually investing it. we're diluting our interest because our our share price wasn't reflecting the true value of our even our holding in in the gray and when when we started on the process of selling DJI to gold then then potential conflict arose so it was best for us step down which >> yeah but do you like do you remember the emotions in kind of being in the midst of of a you know a pretty pretty meaningful it was diff it's like yes you've been around discoveries before but there was there was something different about Degra and that Degra was a pure play exploration company with giant discovery >> as opposed to being being in >> yeah no I mean yeah there were mixed emotions about about stepping away from it um cuz I think you know what I mean apart from being involved in expiration u in in the expiration face uh also been involved in in building mines and building villages. And when you think about that just for a moment, um we actually built Jandi village 30 km from Luna. We built the bronzewing village 40 km from Lster. We bought we built the Sons of Golia the Yeah. Sons of Golia village in Leonora, right? Um and and yet um and there's a there's debate starting now about about the benefit to all stakeholders of mining activity. But when I think hard about it, if you if you think about our our traditional owners and the aual that we um then you have AFL footballers who are top of their game, right? Where do they come from? They usually come from the wheat belt towns in Western Australia where they play football with the local teams. That's where they get their skills. And um and yet if we'd actually had the mindset and the government support and the community support to say build our facility like like they did in the 1960s when BHP and Rio built you know Port Hedland Parabedu and and Mount Newman etc. We'd had that mindset, you would have been able to establish communities at Leonora and at Wuna as an example and at Linster where you had you could accommodate all aspects of our society. And then you would have been able to dream a little bit. You would have been able to have football teams in Wuna and Linster and Leonora where the young Aboriginal men could play the football and the young ainal women would play netball and you'd have competitions and you get you get this community situation happening as as does happen in the wheat belt towns, right? that's never happened. And that's that's um and and the reason why I raise this is that I've raised this particularly with with the gray when I was on the board about this same issue about and it's for them to decide, but in the end it's only an hour from Port Headland. Do is it is it really the best in an overall sense when you've got a 30-year mine to actually have fly in fly out from Perth when you've got Port Hedland? Now, it requires a lot of coordination between governments and companies and communities for these two things to work, but if they don't even start on it, it's not going to happen. So yeah, >> with that all said, you you've made an active decision through your career to to focus on Australia, to focus on Western Australia in particular. So you clearly think the the opportunity set that we have here sits above the the pack. >> Well, they do in that clearly. I mean, Australia, 85% of the rocks that host the the large deposits are undercover. So modern day exploration is only just starting to un unpack unpack that in in mind. Obviously the infrastructure in Australia in many places is is supportive of any potential mind development. the the regulatory environment, whether it's whether it's uh environmental or whether it's to the traditional owners or whether it's with conflict of land use between farmers and and miners, all of that's pretty well understood. And yes, it can be bureaucratic and it can be slow, but there usually is an answer. And okay, you go to Africa where you can walk up to a mine. Yeah, Australian technology will show you where you have to drill, right? But then you have the sovereign risk and that sovereign risk keeps playing out to the disadvantage of, you know, of shareholders, Australian shareholders. Anyway, >> well, it's to to our great advantage, Ed, that you've spent your career exploring in in Australia and discovering and let's hope there's a a few more discoveries left in future. Thanks a lot for joining us and sharing all your your stories and thoughts and perspectives. >> Well, thank you. >> There we go, mate. Another fantastic bit of insights. All made possible thanks to our fantastic partners, Sanvic Ground Support, Focus, the platform by Market Tech. Check it out now and get your tickets to IMAK. October 21 to October 23. Investors go free. Now remember, I'm an idiot. JD is an idiot. If you thought any of this was anything other than entertainment, you're an idiot and you need to read our disclaimer.
Australia’s Most Successful Gold Explorer
Summary
Transcript
We have the privilege of sitting down with Ed Isu, somebody credited with the discovery of Platonic, Bronzewing, and Jund D. He's also negotiated with some giants of the mining industry, including Joe Gutnik, Mark Casy, and Robert Champion Decrepney, just to name a few. Mate, Ed has played a a massive part in in big corporate moves like yeah he's been he's been amongst several takeovers rode the highs and lows of the gold game be it great central you know Wuna when it was Apex Minerals even um having a a front row seat at the Hemi discovery um part of the strategy that that that led to that too >> add to that he lived through the stories of Sons of Gualia as well as leading St. Barbara for a period of time, >> 50 years on, Ed is still chasing discovery, mate. He's energized by the future, hunting the next big find. A true giant of of mineral discovery. He's got a wonderful strategy for actually finding stuff. And when you see serially successful people like Ed with with just discovery after discovery next to their name, you know, at that point, it's not luck. You must be doing something right. We're thrilled to share the conversation. I mean, how often is it that we get to sit down next to uh next to someone that that is is regularly attributed with three enormous discoveries being Platonic, Bronzewing, and John D. But not just those. Ed is uh been around the footy, many many other discoveries, and we're delighted to to have him in the hot seat with us today. you've been you've been doing a lot of research about Ed and I'm I'm insanely curious to have this conversation with a serely successful explorationist like yourself Ed mate you couldn't have said it any better Ed we're very grateful that you've joined us here today and I'm very curious to hear of those three discoveries that Trev just mentioned which are often attributed to to you and the team you worked for there which one was the sweetest >> bronze ring was the sweetest Um because by then we knew after the discovery of plutonic uh what we had to do to be very focused on achieving rapid success. And um and you know there there was good science behind it and good uh geologists working with me uh in the team that understood that process and that requirement also cuz we all know that capital is very impatient and risk capital even more so. Um so the the one of the driving forces in my thinking has always been to do things in a very timely manner. >> I think I read that bronzewing was hit on the the 64th hole of a 65 hole program. Is that is that right? >> Yeah, that that's correct. I mean, basically what we were doing there, um, we knew there was gold at Mount McClure to the west and there was gold, um, at Mount Joel to the east and there was this area, a substantial area in between that was undercover. And we'd figured that the laterite that was exposed at Mount McClure to the west most probably went undercover in the area in between. So we decided that we drill along existing roads and fence lines at 400 m spacing. The reason for the spacing, that wide spacing, was that if there's going to be this laterite under the cover, and if there's going to be gold under the laterite, then there would be some some distribution of gold in the laterite profile. And and you know, obviously, if it's going to be of any size, it could could be easily 400 m in dimension. So that's what we did. And um so not all the the we basically drilled these holes in the circle, the north south line, east, west, north, south, and then uh from west to east. And as as you said, it was the second last hole of the program that intersected the laterite at about 20 m below the surface and it had from memory it had about 4 m of 2 g But um the hole kept going and we intersected 10 m at 1 g at a depth of 70 m. Critical thing was that that gold was associated with quartz veining in altered mafics which was the target. So having having got those results, we accepted the fact that this was interesting and stepped immediately uh 200 m to the north with RC drilling and the bronzewing discovery was made as a consequence of that discovery. Second last air core hole or was ra drilling was called in those days. Uh the second last air core hole had the four grams or two grams at 20 m and 1 g at 70 m which led to the uh discovery of >> the the the way your approach to drilling has been described is it sort of puts a smile on my face there. I'll read out some of the snippets but one of them was a frontal attack with the drill rig. Another was that you you weren't afraid to drill often and and drilled deep. And thirdly, that you attack the area with your customary go for broke enthusiasm. You you clearly had a a different approach. What was it that you you sort of put put it most down to that that enabled the three discoveries in in relatively sort of short succession there? Uh we understood we understood the geology. Uh we could see the potential scale and so the step from the discovery type intersections to uh next step after that was to see scale of it. And once the scale of that had been established like you know whether it was 1 kilometer in strike or 2 km in strike that deter that then determined the the next phase of drilling and and the spacing of it and also of course at what depth you had to get always had to get the third dimension to get a better understanding you know of of the of the potential of the deposit and the concept of doing early diamond in drilling was to help to understand the geology better because it's any geologist will tell you that trying to understand the geology from you know RC chips is difficult particularly if they're if they're so stop sort of arguing with yourself we'll um we drilled early diamond holes to get a better understanding >> what what was the sort of emotion like in in in the camp when you made these this discovery is like for for a geologist to make one of these things in in their careers a pretty exciting feeling and I'm sure there would have been a lot of doubt around the the market and around the the the geological community about how you guys were were approaching things. So, if we can sort of put ourselves in inside the room with you guys, what was the the sort of feeling? >> Well, it was one of uh it's the chase, right? And it was one of it was always one of great excitement right from from uh you know obviously the geologists on site to those were that were working with me in Melbourne and and the board you know including Joseph Goodnik in those those days. He he was always very enthusiastic and uh and followed followed the advice that was he was being given. And so, you know, you had a you had a uh a very collegate and a lot of camaraderie at at on site because of the success that was being achieved. >> And and you mentioned your your relationship with Joe Gutnik there. It was um you know, one one of the most impactful in in the market on geology in Western Australia through the late 80s in into the ' 90s. What what do you sort of ascribe the um the dynamic like and the the ultimate success of that relationship to? >> What what an unlikely individual to have bold exploration success in WA. Just it's it's remarkable. Um well, Joseph was uh smart uh and had um access to the money and uh you know by then I'd already had um 20 odd years experience in Western Australia understood I thought I understood the regalith and how that worked and one of the reasons for that is that I as an individual and as company representative is we supported the CSRO research into laterite sampling to tell us what was happening underneath and that was very that was also very effective. So that's that was the first leg. And then once once you once you've intersected the drilling, once you've intersected gold in the drilling, well then the only thing to do is to keep drilling. Um rather than get sides, you know, sidetracked by doing more geopysics or some other some other uh exploration technique. Just said, "No, we had the gold. We understood where where it sat. So, let's keep going and and that you know the management team and the board of course were all uh in favor of that cuz it produced the results. C >> can you tell us more about that that relationship with the the CSRO and how that kind of unlocked some of those discoveries and and your thinking? Well, yeah. I mean, when I first went to Western Australia in 19 early 1970, um, one of my exploration manager was at that time was, uh, Ray Smith, who then went on to work from 72 onwards at the CSRO and very specifically studying sampling of laterite nodules to get a sense as to what was happening. beneath later cover and that I mean basically that research started in 1972 and uh plutonic which was result of doing laterite nodule sampling in an area where there had been no gold previously um was applied you know resulted in the discovery 1986. So this is this is was a long-term research project that in the end uh bore a lot of fruit but it was it was long a long time in getting to the point and I as an individual was always keen on understanding the um what the what the regalith was likely to tell us and the companies that I was working for. We always supported that research on an ongoing basis. >> And and just to to spell it out, what was the like the finding from the CSRO that actually helped you to to to make gold discoveries just by sampling the lite? >> Well, okay, you got when we first went to Plutonic, um we sampled at what was the old mineral claim boundaries uh corners. So that was like a one one by two kilometer grid. And the first time we went there results generated a 1 g per ton sample. Now 1 g per ton sample in a laterite nodule in essence probably pick that over every day of the week. But this was in an area where there had been no no previous gold mining, no historic gold money. So we figured that was pretty interesting. So went back and collected another round of samples and the second time round we got samples with 30 g per ton. And of course then it self-evident that the only thing to do was to drill and we drilled uh 25 holes first up uh sorry we drilled 30 holes first up. Five of them hit um gold. The other 25 in the end were all within the open pit, but only five of the first 30 holes intersected gold. But of course, they were interesting results, so we followed them up a bit and uh and the rest was came history. And and this played a role with with bronze wing as well which was a a pretty fascinating discovery story as I understand it because initially you you had a the thinking in the market it was a a kind of lower grade war body but that that changed once you started drilling it at depth is that right >> yeah well I mean basically the first yes the fir even from the outset the first RC results and I don't remember them exactly today. But the first RC results certainly inter at Bronzewing intersected, you know, 5 g per ton over several meters and that again uh changed the landscape. But the important thing was taking the step from getting 10 m at 1 g per ton at 70 m. It's not economic by any standards, but understanding the geology and following that up. And we didn't have to go through a through a joint venture committee meeting or try to convince some management who didn't understand what this really uh could mean. We didn't have to do that. Joseph and I said, "Okay, this is a good result. We'll follow it up." That's what we did. you you did at a point and you and you relayed this story to us when we spoke a week ago have to work with Mark Casy a bit and there was a a deal you did to take 51% ownership of a project and and put up a bit of capital that uh everyone else in the market who had looked at wasn't willing to kind of take. Can you take us through that story? >> Yeah, sure. Um after the discovery of uh plutonic uh and the sale of plutonic um cash was used to explore part for diamonds in the uh in the plutonic area. Uh and there was good yeah I mean there was some some humor about that but in fact Anglo or Debeers were exploring for diamonds in the in the same area. So it it um it it it was a valid yeah there was a valid basis for exploring there for diamonds and Joseph was keen to find diamonds. Um and so we persisted with that some time. But then I I do recall that Mark Reesi uh approached us at one time to do a he had John D and he had a large part of the the Andlebelt which he' joint ventured out previously and people had spent money looking for base metals at one time. uh and he got the land back and he kept kept this very large land package together. But the deal that he wanted at the time was to get a 51% interest in Jund D. He had to put up a nominal amount as an option payment and I think it was something like $50,000 at the time. But the hook for Cesi was that he wanted $3 million cash after 12 months for that option to be exercised. And uh Joseph uh at wasn't ready to take that jump away from diamonds. So we sort of left it for the moment. I went and then as the diamond in my view as the diamond expiration wasn't being that successful I said to I advised Joseph that maybe we should go back to greasy and see if that deal was still possible. it was and he told us then and he's made it public himself that during that in that 12- month period he had 19 different companies come to look at the land in particular Jundee uh and they all balked at this notion of having to pay $3 million cash in 12 months time so did it now I I said to Joseph at the time if if If we can't work out in 12 months whether we can pay $3 million to exercise the option to earn 51%. Then we shouldn't be in this business. So we agreed. And while we're negotiating with Greasy on on that um on J D he said look I've got all this other land to the south and I'll do a joint venture deal with you on that if you like. uh you know earning you can earn 70 70% or 75% by spending all the money up to and including a feasibility study bankable study right okay job done and um we agreed um then to do both John D and the rest of the belt at that time and there was no upfront payment for the joint venture on the rest of the belt so it was a good it was a good deal for Great Central at the time and of course history tells us that he ended up being a very good deal for Mark Crey as well. >> I mean this this sort of led to his his first big breakthrough success. What was it sort of like negotiating and him? >> Oh, it was extremely difficult. We thought he's a hard partner, >> but it it was difficult, but it was not unreasonable. Uh, you know, we had many late night meetings with Mark um to to nut out what what was fair to both sides. And I think in the end the deal that was struck um looked favorable you know to to Mark but was also favorable to great central ended up with 100% of it then >> yeah the the John D that we know as John D to today did it always look and feel like the the special John D? Well, Jundee's uh in really in two parts. Well, there were three parts to Jund D, right? There's Jundee, which is the deal that Great Central did with Mark and then Eagle and another company had the western part of Jundee and they they had already found some gold there. And then there was an eastern block which CI kept to himself. Um so um when we first drilled there uh we ended up I think in the oxide zone about 1 to one and a half million ounces um and that you know that was that happened pretty rapidly then I thought okay so what happens at depth so I thought we knew what we're doing so we targeted you know obviously the higher grade results in the RC drilling in the oxide zone uh to see what happened and the first few diamond holes got very little and uh so I realized that we actually weren't that clever after all. So I said okay the only way to tackle this uh was you know we had a strike length by the end of about 8 kilometers was to drill diamond holes you know to about 4 500 m deep at 400 m centers along the whole strike and that was the plan. um the second I think it was the second diamond hole. Uh and and they were just grid space. There was there was the only geological impact was that we had this strike length and we needed to find out what was happening and I think again it was the second hole intersected Barton and it it was a high-grade result and then we followed it up from there. So, did it always look um special? Um I at the time I remember thinking that bronzing was pretty good, but Casi to his due told me no. Jundi was always going to be so maybe he had he had a a more insightful view than I did at that time. >> And and there was a view from you and the team at the time that this would become a a massive pit. Is >> that right? >> Yes. you you I mean you worked through that 90s period in an era where the gold price was going against you unlike it has for for the last 20 years which is a completely different framing to to go back and think about but was that sort of constantly in the back of your mind there? >> Yeah, it it did. I remember going to a a conference in um gold conference in New York. Probably was the Denver gold show, not New York in Denver. Um 97. There was so much exploration going on at that time around the world, not only in Australia. I thought um there's going to be so much gold is going to be found. Um now whether the two are related or not but the gold price start to fall from then on. So yes the fallen gold price had a had a big impact on on how we're thinking of but at John the pits the pits we had we created several pits that would that wouldn't actually as much as we might have wanted they didn't join up so we just took them as they were. There was some pretty sort of vocal debates between Butnik and various Australian politicians at the time because I think we were as a central bank selling a large portion of our gold that market too which was a was a headache for all the gold miners across Australia. >> Yeah. Well, it was at that time that Australia sold sold uh its gold when it was already the third largest gold producer in the world. It actually made made no sense. But you know um they obviously the politicians are obviously getting other advice. >> JD found this this description uh somewhere the Gutnik Goodnik issues was described as one of the most creative capital intellect combinations in the market. What do you think of that characterization? Uh that's very complimentary comment of course but uh look we worked well together um for a long time for a long period of time and and I think it was the fact that Joseph understood the risks that were were involved and I I I guess I understood the geological risks and that combination worked very well. you reflect a lot on the the access to capital being um enabling the the pace of discoveries and I I almost I'm flashing forward a lot but you know in a lot of ways like your your DJ was was you being a financier for for exploration kind of flip roles you were now you were now goodnick do you do you ever see it that way >> yes and no I mean Success in exploration is largely a function of how much capital is there is if you accept the fact yes you've got to have strong technical teams and you have the environment in which you can do that work but in in Australia most explorers are staff for capital and in my view exploration success is improved with more capital being available and I've had this convers conversation with inst with very large institutional investors and that that point never occurred to them. There's this concept that expiration success in in Australia is spec it's speculation. Uh but it doesn't have to be it can actually be success can be a function of knowledge application of new technology and and the smarts of the of the team. And that's the one I mean one of the benefits in Australia today is that you know modern day expiration has been going on for 60 years or more and as a function of expiration of that expiration it's all been recorded at the M department whatever it's called today and that's readily accessible so you can actually keep building on past expiration efforts um for success. the uh the concept of drilling something out like Swiss cheese comes up a lot with the way you've approached things. I know we were speaking about it just before, but how do you reflect on that sort of statement? >> Well, I think I I I always regard it as a derogatory statement. Um but it in fact was necessary to get to uh indicated resources or at least probable reserves to be able to raise the capital to develop the mines. And that's that was the the fundamental reason. And the only only time we uh we did drill holes like Swiss cheese was if we actually knew what we had. And you know there was largely a program or always a program of infill drilling to make sure that we actually got understood the distribution of the gold as it was. I mean fortunately we never made a mistake. we always were able to produce to the reserves that we'd estimated >> the um the turn of the the turn of the century. You're uh you're MD of New Hampton Goldfields. What what what's your what's your thinking with this this you know new chapter in in your career? >> Um well, okay. So, I thought that we could create uh with New Hampton a um a a a gold expiration company um and and basically do the same as what I'd been doing with Joseph at Great Central Mines and Central. Uh and it had New Hampton had a had a small operation. Yes, it was short of um a feed. Well, we'd been there before, so we thought we could fix that by drilling appropriately and it was, you know, close to Kouli. It was in the right place. Um and it didn't actually quite work out like that. And then and then we uh we we acquired the um we acquired the bell mine. Uh and that was part of giving New Hampton an additional um additional operation and and an an additional expiration opportunity. But with most operations, operations suck all the energy and all the oxygen and expiration tends to get put to one side and uh and that's what happened in that case. And so it wasn't it was and then it got taken over by by Harmony wasn't my idea but uh the by then the largest shareholder of New Hampton was was uh uh Robert Drepney. Robert championed and he he uh sold out to to Harmony to basically divest that interest. So that um I wasn't in favor of the t or the price of the takeover and objected to it, but the rest of the board said no no that's what happened. >> How hard was that sort of transition? And I know you'd been doing a lot of management in in your later years at at Great Central, but that transition from expiration and working within a framework to being a manager and running a company. >> Oh, that was Yeah, that was a challenge, right? Um because now I mean working with Joseph, Joseph was clearly responsible for raising the capital. I was responsible for spending the money wisely and and exploring. When we got to New Hampton, of course, I was responsible for both. And that was even though I'd been in the market and people knew who I who I was and why I did, it was still difficult. And it was also a difficult time. Uh, you know, in in the market full stop. So, yes, it was it was not easy. >> You then headed up after sort of finding your way into St. Barbara of of all companies which was a um well it's a company with a fascinating history and plenty of ups and downs but sort of circa 2004 find your way in there and then get your hands on some Sons of Gualia assets what tell us about that sort of period >> okay sons of Barbara the shareholders of of so of St. Barbara shareholders of St. Barbara were unhappy with the management and they rolled rolled the board and appointed myself as the MD and Colin Wise I brought along as the chairman and this major shareholder at that time was resource capital fund and I'd worked with the principles of that fund in the development of of bronzewing. They they uh they were the early financiers of Brunswick. In fact, they they lent some money to complete the lent central money to complete the feasibility study on bronze. So, I had a good relationship with um but prior to that I'd spent a year advising uh Sons of Golia on on their expiration. this was to the board rather than to so I was very familiar with the assets and uh and in fact was advising them on what I thought should happen at Sons of Golia at the Sons of Golia mine and and elsewhere for that matter but um and Sons of Golia mine was the was the principal asset I mean they had Carousam and they also had uh on the cross operations. Um so I was quite familiar with those assets and then Sons of Gully went into uh they were concerned the management were concerned about meeting future hedge requirements and when they approached the counterparties about that they said well if you have concern then what can we do? So they put Sunoli into administration when Sons of Gali had $60 million in bank. So it's the people forget these sorts of things. Uh and um put it into administration and I uh thought oh this is now I was at St. Barbara. I thought this is interesting. So it became clear that the administrator wanted to sell everything one package and uh terms of the gold and the lithium and green bushes tatalite aspects quad they they treated separately. There are a lot of different Docker proposals that were put in. There were there were so many proposals, but was was the administrator just just favoring a clean outcome? Is that how you >> he was he was very much in favor of all the gold assets being done in one go? And the question is do that, right? So, um because there was there were environmental bonds of some 30 odd million attached to the gold assets. Um so so okay so resource capital fund was the major shareholder in Barbara. I put it to them that we do this sons of gullia deal they had to figure out how to how to get rid of these bonds finance the bonds when you know when St. Barbara as a company had a market cap of 50. How do you finance bonds of uh 30 odd million? Well, they they got letters of credit and solved that issue for us. Uh and then got we bought we're able to buy the assets, the whole company for $4 million cash plus replacing the bonds. And so the outlay was $4 million. Um and then we had to sit you had to work out okay what could what could St. Barbara do now. So we decided there and then that we would sell Carud Dam and and the Southern Cross operations and focus on on um on Leonora Sons of Golia and of course is that a good decision? Well it was all we could do at the time. um rather than dilute you know raise a lot of capital and dilute the existing shareholders. Um so we did sell that and of course tells us that Rally Finlandson ended up with Kara Sudam is now owns Sons of Goully mine and uh that's that's interesting but anyway we uh we developed um well what we did at Sunzigi after we got control of it was very simple thing the previous management had were advising the board that to look to actually develop the extensions of the Sunzog mine below 1,000 m depth required sinking of a shaft and then drilling from the base of the shaft. Of course, we know the shaft was cost 120 million. It would take two or more years to do and then you still had to do all the drilling. And my advice to the board at the time was no, we actually don't need to do that. You can draw from the surface. But that was rejected um by by the management. Um so of course when we got hold of the assets, that's what we did. We drilled from the surface. Now cost, yes, was $300 a meter, which was outlandish, outrageous, but the cost was only $30 an ounce. That was the critical component. So we're able to then after consultation with again with resource geologist specialists, what spacing did we require for them to be able to sign off on indicator resources to get to res because we we knew we had to raise capital at some stage to develop redevelop the mine. Anyway, the answer was if we drilled it at a 40 by 40 meter spacing, even you know down to 1,800 m that would that would most probably was the answer most probably get to indicated resources. Um and that's what we did. And um we did we we generated um I think 3 million ounces in resources from that drilling uh and 1.8 million ounces in reserves and were able to redevelop the mud and it's it's since then it has produced more than 2 million ounces. Uh um but the critical thing was uh that we're able to do that relatively quickly cuz could have two or three or four rigs on on site. The drilling results was were generally better than what the model had indicated. you know, had inferred resources below 1,000 mters, but so you actually had a picture as to how much gold you would get if once you intersected the or body and in many cases the drilling results were better than what the model predicted. Um, which was heartening but at the same time was necessary. Um so in the end the we're quite confident about the about the resource model and particularly about the grade and the grade stood up for a long time. >> Was was was Tower Hill part of the picture back then too? >> Tower Hill that's a good question. Tower Hill was we looked at Tower Hill hard. Um it had infrastructure issues which you know which Genesis have resolved I think very elegantly um in terms of stopping the railway line rather than moving the railway line. Um from an underground viewpoint it was clear that the ground conditions were not favorable for underground development. But um and I did think at one time about driving a decline from the base of the Suns of Golia shaft to decline sorry to u uh to to Tower Hill but we didn't didn't get around to doing that. That that was that was an idea we were contemplating at the time. But I think what Genesis have come up with is very elegant solution. Big open pit at two grams. Wow. Isn't it remarkable? You know, 20 20 years ago, put put a shaft in Gualia and like find a way to get around this railway for Tower Hill. The strategy hasn't changed too much. >> I mean, they have they explored the shaft and then they they shafted the shaft plan. >> The shaft and the shaft. >> Yeah. >> And how do you kind of think about that period, that sort of 5year block where you're managing the company? Did you have enough time to sort of focus on exploration and making discovery or were you constantly dragged into the the ups and downs of managing mines? >> Well, I think history tells us that you know operations suck all the energy and effort. Um, and you know, we did have we did have an ambition to get to a 400,000 ounce gold producer. uh which me which meant and at that stage we had Suns of Golia and uh Southern Cross operations they were going to be producing about 250 to 300,000 ounces a year so we had to find another th000 producer which we didn't do didn't didn't achieve in the time frame um I mean we did do a lot of drilling at Tower Hill uh and that that was an obvious one. Um uh and I I do I do remember the time when we're drilling both at uh Sons of Golia mine deep holes standing well back see the rigs from the from the highway but when we're drilling at Tower Hill we had two or three RC rigs drilling and the highway was quite close to Tower Hill and when when we started doing that drilling the share price of uh St. Barbara went up just because everyone could see there was a lot of activity or I think that's what it was. >> I I really reflect now more so than than having read about it before on this model of having the exploration chief and the the sort of financing chief. Is that something you ever tried to to recreate later or is it just impractical? I think I think that's probably worked with DJ if we if we look hard at it. Um Bruce Pankut my colleague and co-director yes was he he was a geologist but he went he went soon went into broking and ended up being head of Macintosh securities uh which was Australia was one of the two Australian brokers and they ended up being taken over by Mel Lynch and Bruce was you CEO of Mineral Lynch. So his background was he had a lot of experience in the market and I think that that combination is basically worked again. So the short answer is yes. I think it is it is a it's a good model. >> Yeah. And and you obviously had a lot of success there with with DJ. you you told us a a great story which I'd love for you to share on the discovery of Hemi and the advice you were giving and what could have been I think some six years prior to the eventual discovery there. >> Yeah. Well, can if I if I can just start at the beginning perhaps in that um when Bruce and I got together in DJI, DJI had a market cap of $2 million, right? So it was and and the reason why I was was that cuz it was difficult to raise capital in that in that time and we were doing I was I was basically doing a or trying to emulate what Mark Crey had done and that was to pick up large areas and and have Greenfield's exploration happen. When Bruce said he wanted to join with me, I said that was that was good. and we sat down and said, uh, okay, so where's the best place to look for gold? And the answer re the real answer was that it's probably already held by both large and small companies. So having come to that conclusion, we said, okay, well, let's have a look at all the ASX listed companies that were exploring for gold in Australia. and there were about 160 and we very quickly of course got down to about 10 of which uh Deg Gray was number one and NTM uh was number two and NTM being ended up being taken over by Dacian and number three was Yandel and the reason for picking uh Deg Gray as the number one was it had a large had a large land area and gold was known throughout the area. And we actually did a we did an estimate, a risk estimate as to how much gold we could find by extending the existing deposits and we made allowance for the discovery of a new one. didn't know where that would be, but we might because because of the prospectivity of the land, we thought there's likely to be another withnol or another mala, you know, 1 to 2 million ounce type deposit and we figured out how much that would cost to drill and we did it on a risk weighted basis. So in other words the uh to extend whistl or malab to 1 to 2 million ounces we thought the risk was risk was quite low. So that was 75% success rate but in terms of finding a new one we thought well that had to be a risk rate of about 50% 50/50 chance of finding a new one. Um anyway, that led us to investing in the gray and we invested in the gray at 20 cents at a time and uh and we're quite happy with that and of course the share price went down to 5 cents. So we we we realized we weren't that clever after all. But um the market was sensing that the Gray had to had to buy out the chi there was a Chinese partner that they had an option over to buy them out and they needed to raise $13 million for that. So the market sensed that there was more money needed to be raised. So the share price went down. Anyway, uh cut a long story short, we we Bruce and I helped them raise uh with my son Grant, helped helped them raise the money at at 5 cents. Um and one of the conditions was that we go on the board, Bruce and I would go on the board, which we did. Um I did spend and the other large shareholder at that time was Kirkland Lake and uh they didn't want to contribute to any to the capital raise so they they got diluted but they did want to have a look at the land position one time so they came over and I as just as a a shareholder at that time I went with the Kirkland Lake people and we did a two-day helicopter ride looking at all prospects. And the one thing that became very clear to me was that this was a vast area, a vast area. It was 150 km long and about 50 km wide. And yes, there was gold deposits throughout. And uh you could you could actually sort of sense that in the past companies and or individuals would be overwhelmed by the by the scale of what they had. So they always sort of went back to what they knew. So there was all this concept of incrementally adding to what what had been found. And um well we had we had to think differently about it. And also mind you even highly respected academic geologists said no is different to the UA you're not going to find any big deposits only they only found small ones. Well of course you could dismiss that argument from a a statist statistical viewpoint when you look at gold provinces. So we didn't take any notice of of the respected geological wisdom and figured out that okay so this thing was 150 km long there it became clear there are about four areas each of about 30 km long which had been hardly explored or poorly tested and knew each of the existing deposits were about 1 kilometer long. So worked out that you could drill air core drilling at one kilometer spacing or thereabouts across the structures and it each area there were four areas each area would cost about a million dollars each to do that first pass air core drilling. Uh it took us it took us a while to convince both board and management that that's what they should do. in fact took more than six months but when they started of course the Hemi discovery was the first area they adopted this strategy and it happened within the first two weeks. Now um the the story of course is that the real story is that yes the the geology team Andy led by Andy Beckworth and Phil Tamara very competent very competent people but the strategy they had of finding a little bit more and building a central mill was always going to not going to really cut it from a share shareholder viewpoint. degra put out a DFS on >> DFS. There was a study put on on melanin in 2019 I want to say or 2018 like yeah so that was that was the strategy was >> that was the strategy was yeah and and we said no we we haven't invested in the grave for that strategy we've invested because you've got this large land package with enormous potential so let's go and see if we can find and of course once you say let's see how we can find it you'd have to explain how you go about it and that was the strategy bit We >> we we wrote it up four areas each 30 km long. It's a drill space drill travis every every 1 kilometer holes. I can't remember the spacing was probably 160 m or something along each line and let's see what happens. That's the business that we're in. Right. And um and yes, so as I said before, they came up within virtually within the first two weeks of starting on that strategy and then uh subsequently of course we found and and Grave made this public themselves. They had actually drilled in the Hemi area 6 years earlier. the air core drilling had the the rods had got bogged in the gravel layer at about 40 mters below the surface and stopped and if they kept if they had gone another meter or two they would have hit I think it was Juon or Eagle one of those uh which then would have of course escalated and they would have found the rest of it. Um so the really critical point for explorers and for shareholders in exploration company is to be absolutely clear that the drilling that's being done is effective cuz if it's not then don't even bother starting and if it isn't effective then keep going until you have completed an effective drilling program. This is this is a lesson that you've had several times in your in your career and before we started recording you were telling telling one of those very examples. Um do you want to do you want to talk about yeah your your observation of the depth of drilling and >> Yeah it's a very it's a it's a a beautiful example really in that we're at uh at Mount Pleasant just you know north of north of Kgouli Mount Pleasant area in the in the 80s was one of the red hot gold areas to the extent where even Western mining got involved um with consolidated uh exploration company at the time and um and and elders resources were there. So it was it was it was one of the hot areas. Anyway, there was a mill there and um central mining bought the land package and the mill uh and it was in the early 90s. The mill had about six months of reserves. So we had to had to find some new reserves and um went there and you could see at Mount Pleasant there was this corridor about 8 km long about 2 km wide where there was several open pits and it was it looked like there was drilling everywhere. So it' been drilled. And in effect, it looked like it the job had been done. However, when you went to the open pits, you could see there was 20 m of aluvial cover over the top of weathered bedrock. And in in those days, in the in the 80s, air core drilling or ra drilling as it was called, you know, it was it was the next step after soil sampling. You drill down to about 20 m and often it was a standard depth. Okay, drill down to 20 m, find out what's at the bottom of the hole. So, uh, when we saw this in the in the open pit wall that there was 20 m of cover, thought, ah, let's go back to the maps in the office and let's remove all the holes from the maps that were less than 20 m deep. And that created these vast gaps in what looked like an area that had been drilled. And uh so we drew up a pattern. Pattern I think was 240 m line spacing uh 80 m hole spacing on the lines. The first gap that we drilled was um 500 m from the existing operating mill and we found quarters again within sort of within a month of starting on that on that strategy. And of course quarters produced about a million ounces. So the critical thing in all of this is is to be absolutely clear that the drilling has been effective terms of testing what geologist might might be thinking about at the time. And I I see it I mean even you know in the belt for example I mean expiration's been going on there since we found Bronzewing in '92. There's still large areas when when the geologist drag the maps out, they look like they've been drilled, but then you ask the question, how much of it's effective? And most of the holes go away. So, it's underexplored. >> So, is strategy more important than geological thinking? >> Oh, you have to have both. I mean the success of Hemi for example is a function that you know Andrew Beckwith and his team knew exactly what had to do what they had to do and how to go about it once they got onto it. So you can't separate the two. You actually have to get the right strategy and then have the right right team together. If if we look forward now, Ed, you're you're doing some exciting stuff in in South Australia and using your your abundance of experience and and knowledge, h how do you think you can sort of relay that? Like obviously you're doing that in a in a private structure. What are the sort of differences you're you're bringing forward and how sort of excited are you by the prospects? >> Well, we're I guess we're doing I'm personally doing two things. one part of as part of a private syndicate. We're exploring in South Australia for sediment hosted copper and we're exploring for deuser type BHMS deposits in in the Briar Ura and Briar basin uh north of Mechathar and uh so we're doing that and we're applying the logic um and fortunately we have enough capital between us to actually follow that through uh And as a consequence, we've been exploring either as DJgo or privately in on the Stewart shelf in South Australia now for probably 10 years. And what we're looking for is sediment hosted copper using the Zambient copper belt model as as the analog. And we've we've established that the concept is applicable and we found copper mineralization. And now we're finding economic mineralization up to 20 m at 1% copper within 20 m of the surface. Everything's undercover. We have uh about 200 kilometers of strike of what's called the transition zone, which is where where you would expect the copper mineralization to be. And we've done we did a very large soil sampling program last year. Um I can't remember how many samples we took but it's it's again it's identified a number of areas uh of some scale. Uh and we know this is reliable because we've got the soil sampling results over where we've actually found copper at depth. So, we're we're very optimistic about the potential outcome. And of course, the benefit the infrastructure benefits are incredible. And it's only about an hour from Port Augusta. There's a highway to Ellis Springs. There's a railway line. Uh there's pipelines and there's electric uh transmission lines going to Olympic Dam. all within, you know, within one or two kilometers of where we're exploring. You know, may it may in fact be a disadvantage that they're there if we find copper underneath these transmission lines, but we'll worry about that when when the time comes. But that that that looks um part of it a joint venture with Gold Road um and um and and part of it we own 100% or Discover Co. the company owns 100% of in terms of what we're doing at Urida. We're exploring there again. It's a joint venture with Gold Road because we've joint ventured back into the land that DJ had and Discover Co. is process of u earning its equity in earning back that equity in in in that land. So um it's um and we're look it's people have been exploring for deusa type mineralization in the briar and ura basin since the 1970s and the grusa is the only one that's been on and monty which is a sideshow the only one that's been found but the but the geological evidence is strong that there'll there'll be others and we um we've Again, we've been exploring there now for for several years. Um, and we're encouraged by what we see. Uh, we haven't done a lot of drilling. We haven't done a lot of recent drilling in the ura. So, that's um, so that's really the next step. Um, and then the other thing that I do is um, I invest in in the existing listed explorers. and uh and with with with the same lens as what we use to to identify the hemi prospect. So in other words, invest in companies that have land in scale potentially have own 100% of the land. Uh management has got to be uh competent and capable. Uh and so we've invested in um Yanel resources and and Cal Gold uh and both of those have you know potential for are are in proven gold provinces for a start and have potential to find uh decentsized discoveries >> like with with DJ I I you took issue with being referenced as an exploration company in the past and um like we're in the business of discovery, not expiration. So I find it quite quite intriguing that um the private entity you're dealing with now is called Discover Co. It's in the name, you can't mistake it. Why do you feel strongly about the difference of being an exploration company versus a discovery company? >> Well, that's it's it's the same reason why I don't like the word project. >> Yeah. Um, we're in the business of making discoveries, not exploring. And and yeah, is that is that being a bit pedantic? Well, if it is, bad luck. Because the purpose of drilling holes is is not just to go through the process, but is to get get an outcome. And yes, you've got to go through you got to go through the process and you know all the all the checks and balances that need to occur. that they all need to occur. But at the end of the day, unless unless we're clear about why we are doing what we're doing, you know, you you can lose sight of the fact. I mean, there are geologists who love doing geology whether whether they whether they find something or not sometimes is not well or sometimes is not the main game. They just like doing geology. Um, I like being involved in making discoveries and using geological knowledge to do that. >> Is that that outcome or the chase as you called it before still as exciting as it was 50 years ago? >> Of course it is. It's it's a you know, you know, getting a a a drill hole result um when not not so even when you do expect it is um you when you actually have it confirmed that this is potentially something new or something big or or both. Um you know that's it is exciting. I want to I want to um tap in a little bit to to how how things unfolded with with DJO. You know, by virtue of DJI's investment in in Deg Gray, DJ DGO's market cap also exploded. Um always traded at a bit of a a discount to to NTA and for that reason maybe it was a pretty pretty um obvious entry to pick up a a substantial stake into the gray. So ultimately how that culminated is is Gold Road acquired DJO. You're sitting on the board of the Gray around this time I think. So how are you kind of evaluating the the the lay of the land knowing that you're you know you're sitting on a worldass deposit and it's going to be of interest to to to majors and that you know you're also still at DGO which is which is going to have the stake which is very attractive. Well, that that's an interesting question and it it does raise the uh does raise the issue of conflict. Um and uh that's in the end in the end what Bruce and I in particular decided to do was to every time we invested new money, we're actually investing it. we're diluting our interest because our our share price wasn't reflecting the true value of our even our holding in in the gray and when when we started on the process of selling DJI to gold then then potential conflict arose so it was best for us step down which >> yeah but do you like do you remember the emotions in kind of being in the midst of of a you know a pretty pretty meaningful it was diff it's like yes you've been around discoveries before but there was there was something different about Degra and that Degra was a pure play exploration company with giant discovery >> as opposed to being being in >> yeah no I mean yeah there were mixed emotions about about stepping away from it um cuz I think you know what I mean apart from being involved in expiration u in in the expiration face uh also been involved in in building mines and building villages. And when you think about that just for a moment, um we actually built Jandi village 30 km from Luna. We built the bronzewing village 40 km from Lster. We bought we built the Sons of Golia the Yeah. Sons of Golia village in Leonora, right? Um and and yet um and there's a there's debate starting now about about the benefit to all stakeholders of mining activity. But when I think hard about it, if you if you think about our our traditional owners and the aual that we um then you have AFL footballers who are top of their game, right? Where do they come from? They usually come from the wheat belt towns in Western Australia where they play football with the local teams. That's where they get their skills. And um and yet if we'd actually had the mindset and the government support and the community support to say build our facility like like they did in the 1960s when BHP and Rio built you know Port Hedland Parabedu and and Mount Newman etc. We'd had that mindset, you would have been able to establish communities at Leonora and at Wuna as an example and at Linster where you had you could accommodate all aspects of our society. And then you would have been able to dream a little bit. You would have been able to have football teams in Wuna and Linster and Leonora where the young Aboriginal men could play the football and the young ainal women would play netball and you'd have competitions and you get you get this community situation happening as as does happen in the wheat belt towns, right? that's never happened. And that's that's um and and the reason why I raise this is that I've raised this particularly with with the gray when I was on the board about this same issue about and it's for them to decide, but in the end it's only an hour from Port Headland. Do is it is it really the best in an overall sense when you've got a 30-year mine to actually have fly in fly out from Perth when you've got Port Hedland? Now, it requires a lot of coordination between governments and companies and communities for these two things to work, but if they don't even start on it, it's not going to happen. So yeah, >> with that all said, you you've made an active decision through your career to to focus on Australia, to focus on Western Australia in particular. So you clearly think the the opportunity set that we have here sits above the the pack. >> Well, they do in that clearly. I mean, Australia, 85% of the rocks that host the the large deposits are undercover. So modern day exploration is only just starting to un unpack unpack that in in mind. Obviously the infrastructure in Australia in many places is is supportive of any potential mind development. the the regulatory environment, whether it's whether it's uh environmental or whether it's to the traditional owners or whether it's with conflict of land use between farmers and and miners, all of that's pretty well understood. And yes, it can be bureaucratic and it can be slow, but there usually is an answer. And okay, you go to Africa where you can walk up to a mine. Yeah, Australian technology will show you where you have to drill, right? But then you have the sovereign risk and that sovereign risk keeps playing out to the disadvantage of, you know, of shareholders, Australian shareholders. Anyway, >> well, it's to to our great advantage, Ed, that you've spent your career exploring in in Australia and discovering and let's hope there's a a few more discoveries left in future. Thanks a lot for joining us and sharing all your your stories and thoughts and perspectives. >> Well, thank you. >> There we go, mate. Another fantastic bit of insights. All made possible thanks to our fantastic partners, Sanvic Ground Support, Focus, the platform by Market Tech. Check it out now and get your tickets to IMAK. October 21 to October 23. Investors go free. Now remember, I'm an idiot. JD is an idiot. If you thought any of this was anything other than entertainment, you're an idiot and you need to read our disclaimer.