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Aug 2018 - Intermin Res Ltd

Firing on All Cylinders : An Update based on a May 2018 Visit to IRC’s Teal & Goongarrie Projects

  • ERA visited a number of Intermin Resources Ltd’s (IRC’s) Kalgoorlie to Goongarrie Projects in May 2018, particularly Teal (and Jacques-Peyes), Goongarrie Lady, Anthill, Blister Dam (and its flaky visible gold), Baden Powell & Olympia as shown in Figure 1a. We glanced at the location of Crake, which reported those spectacular intercepts of 28m @ 3.3g/t (from 56m incl 4m @ 15.1g/t), and 20m @ 4.6g/t (incl 8m @ 8.4g/t).
  • Intermin has a target route to become a ~100kozpa gold producer with a >5 year mine-life, by using the stepping stones of small mining projects (SMPs) to self-finance its exploration, and has displayed its capability to achieve that with its very successful oxide mining of Teal realising ~3.5koz higher gold production at 21.84koz, mostly from ~13% higher ore tonnes mined and 5% higher recoveries of 93.6%, which increased the expected revenue of $29.3m by 24% or $7.2m to $36.5m. The actual profit (>$8m?) is expected to be finalised in SQ 2018, with its operational JV partner claiming alternative cost variations.

Other Key Points: :

  • The SMP over Teal has been extremely successful, with a larger resource mined, better recoveries and higher profits than expected, and has increased IRC’s confidence in advancing the next 3 prospects in the pipeline (Goongarrie Lady, Jacques-Peyes, and Anthill) through to mining, treatment and profitability.
  • Apart from Goongarrie Lady, the proposed production pipeline order of the projects/prospects is not “set in stone” and could change, especially if one prospect infers potentially better return characteristics, as illustrated by the Crake discovery joining the mix.
  • The results from the feasibility study on Goongarrie Lady were reported on 28 June 2018, with an expected free cashflow return of $5 to $7m over 7 months, possibly pre-strip mining in MQ 2019.
  • The Crake discovery in the Binduli tenements resulted from Evolution ending its JV farm-in and handing control back to Intermin who were then able to drill/explore where they wanted to, with IRC’s first target (Crake) being on strike of Janet Ivy (where Zijin is mining & paying a 50c/t royalty).
  • There are a number of projects making steady progress such as Blister Dam and Baden Powell/Olympia, and the tenement package is increasing with Ida and Lakewood in Figure 1a.
  • In addition to the JVs mostly involving other companies farming-in, as shown in “blue” in Figure 1b, Intermin has its Richmond Vanadium JV in QLD, which has also been making steady progress.

 

  • Written by: Keith Goode
  • Tuesday, 14 August 2018