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208. Bull, Bear & Beyond – Terrain Minerals: executive interview
0 Plays2 seconds ago
In this interview, Terrain Minerals executive director, Justin Virgin, discusses his hopes for the company in the light of the forthcoming announcement of drilling results at its Smokebush gold project in Western Australia and how he expects them to contribute towards a maiden JORC resource towards the middle of the year and the development of the company thereafter. Terrain’s shares are up 2.5x in the past nine months. Could there be room for more?
Terrain Minerals is a Western Australia-based diversified exploration company on a mission to discover the next generation of technology-critical minerals. Its exploration strategy provides investors with early exposure to high-potential flagship projects in addition to an advancing pipeline of large-scale opportunities in key commodities critical to the global energy transition. With a diversified focus on critical and precious metals, Terrain is de-risking its portfolio through a staged, cost-effective exploration strategy across multiple projects. Its focus is on high-value commodities including gold, gallium, rare earth elements, copper and lithium – the building blocks of tomorrow’s innovations.
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About ‘Bull, Bear & Beyond’
Bull, Bear & Beyond': features candid conversations with senior executives and from our own team of experts from across industries, exploring strategy, innovation, and the opportunities shaping their markets and 60-second pieces are a compressed summary of content designed to convey our message in a single, easily shareable hit.
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Transcript
Introduction to Terrain Minerals' Project
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello, good morning and welcome to Edison TV. It's how Lord Frost might have started off this interview this morning. um But I'm not Lord Frost. I am Ashbourne, though. And, well, you get the picture. Now, they say that lightning doesn't strike twice.
00:00:26
Speaker
Or does it? Last year, Terrain Minerals, who we'll be interviewing in this particular segment of Edison TV, announced results from its Smokebush Gold, its lightning prospect at its Smokebush Gold project in Western Australia.
00:00:41
Speaker
That came out with results of, well, amongst other things, 13 metres at 8 grams a ton, a little bit more than 8 grams a ton. But within that, it had 2 metres at 48 grams a ton. That's about one and a half ounces per tonne of gold. Now, will all the tonnes be like that?
00:00:57
Speaker
I think I can probably go out on a limb here and say probably not all of them. But they're coming up to their second round
Interview with Justin Virgin
00:01:05
Speaker
of results. And joining me, um i would say in the studio, but he's not. He's in Western Australia ah with his finger on the pulse.
00:01:11
Speaker
is the company's principal executive director, Justin Virgin. Justin, very good morning to you. Very good morning in London terms. Very good afternoon in in Western Australian terms. Thank you for joining us.
00:01:22
Speaker
tell Tell us about what you're looking at at the moment. Yeah, thanks for having us. Really exciting. um It's a bit of an inflection point for the company. we've In this project, we've got 16,000 RC metres and 97 holes and four diamond holes. So reasonably advanced, we are targeting a jork mid-year and we've just recently completed 7,739 metres at the project and predominantly 4800 them plus diamond
00:01:55
Speaker
which are due to come out imminently ah at lightning so You know, we've we've been drilling here for a few years now. We've been doing like 1,000, 2,000 metre size programs, done some IP.
00:02:10
Speaker
We've got some really, we've we've unlocked it. The last set of results in September 25 have unlocked this for us. The model works and we've gone back.
00:02:21
Speaker
um And, you know, we're hoping for similar results to last time. we The bulk of these results, 70% of the drilling is extending null and mineralization zones. And gold's typically found where gold has been or next door and a little bit of exploration ah and testing for some new zones. So really exciting for the company.
00:02:40
Speaker
So in terms of the timing, when do you think you can announce these results to the market? imminent I think they're not far away. um The next week or two, it's it's been about six to eight weeks since the last lot have been sent to the lab. So we're where We're close, we believe. So it's it's the business time. It's imminent. Worth saying that it's the 9th of April as we speak. So within a week would be, you know, before the 16th, let's say 17th of April, ah the end of next week. um So it really is imminent in that respect. Now,
00:03:18
Speaker
I assume, ah have you seen, when you got that 48 grams per tonne, was there visible
RC Drilling Process and Expectations
00:03:24
Speaker
gold in that? No, these are RC chips. So it ah comes out, the rigs actually, RC is ah basically hammer drill.
00:03:31
Speaker
So it's unusual to see you get chips. If you do a diamond core, which is like a straw into an ice cream and pull it out, you'll get like a pipe. You sometimes do see them, um but we unfortunately didn't see that.
00:03:44
Speaker
um That's a bit of a gimmick for the market. just Okay, so so you know my next question was, have you looked at the core? how you know is it Is it all sparkly and orange? um And you won't have that because, as you you to say, it's RC drilling, it's RC chips. Yeah. um In terms of how the program's gone so far, has it, would you say, it's met your expectations, given you what you wanted? Absolutely. we I think all of our drilling has hit the zones where we thought they'd be within a metre.
00:04:16
Speaker
So, you know, we've got, if you look some of our announcements, we've got three or four points in a lot of the cross sections already. and And now we're just pushing things a bit further and along. um So yeah, we're very happy. We're very excited about what we're seeing. it it's It's behaving and now we just yeah the results will tell us how well it's behaving. But yeah what I can say is gold doesn't come down with a rain. and It typically comes comes up from underneath and we're pushing it down. So so what are the next steps?
00:04:46
Speaker
So results by the end of next week, roughly, so mid-April, and then what after that?
Future Plans and Project Development
00:04:52
Speaker
We're planning so get our jork, our maiden jork out. Towards the middle of the year? Mid-June.
00:05:00
Speaker
One or two hundred thousand out zone we're sort of expecting, but yeah let's see. um you know the The region has got a lot, of is well endowed. Our neighbour dug about 32 pits.
00:05:12
Speaker
Their average grade of their meal is about 3.2 grams a tonne, I believe. So there's some yeah some there's some healthy deposits around around the area and and a few big ones. So maiden resource, middle of middle of of of the year. And then how would you like to see it develop after that? In your wildest dreams, and you're allowed to exercise, you know, some latitude here. Well, what we found, we've we've got all the technical components to have a big deposit here.
00:05:39
Speaker
So we've got all the geological pieces and we've confirmed it's in a basalt, which is a really good um medium for gold to come out of solution. We've got dolerites, which act like big giant sponges, which is just a basalt that's cooled deep down in the Earth's crust. It has big giant spongy sort of holes that will fractures in it for gold to sit in all the fluids to pour into.
00:06:01
Speaker
um so we need to go back and do a lot more drilling. This program's got to tell us where that next drilling is, potentially find some more zones of mineralisation we don't know about, and then we need to go and drill the dolarites out, which There's many of them um sort of stacked, sitting east-west. The main structure goes north-south where the fluids have been running, and then they've hopefully poured into these Dolarite cross-cutting units. So we know a few of them are mineralised.
00:06:30
Speaker
So for us, we need to go back and do to drilling and more drilling. With a jaw, we can probably look at, see if we can do some early stage toll treatment.
00:06:42
Speaker
and get into some early cash flow. That's definitely on the radar for us. If we can get a little bit of this into a mill somewhere and become self-sufficient for funding, that's a major tip for us as well. And this is in a fairly accepted greenstone belt in Western Australia. So yeah you're drilling in the right postcode, so to speak.
00:07:00
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah. There's multiple million ounce deposits all around us, um which he which is pretty exciting. There's where we're next to Waradah resources just taken out by Capricorn. They've got a few million ounces to the south at Capricorn.
00:07:16
Speaker
We've got Golden Grove's about 40 kms to the north. It's a major mine that's been going a long time, started off as a gold mine. a and roth say which goes up to the deflector mill so we've got three or four mills with a trucking distance which i believe have some capacity and yeah that's it's exciting this has been six seven years of hard work to get to this stage now and you know you look at our early programs one or two thousand meters poking about done some ip and your last program about 5 000 meters and this is 7 700 meters and we've and with
00:07:48
Speaker
to the south now that we have a working geological model down in the wildflower area which also sits around the same intrusion in in the same rocks we've just tested four targets down there there's golden soil above them We've drilled these IP anomalies there. There's fractures or structures coming, feedings from the same intrusion unit. The fluid system's the same.
00:08:08
Speaker
And now that we've drilled them, we're pretty sure they look exactly the same. So is there goal there? So we've potentially got three or four new discoveries, and we've basically taken a long time to get a model that works.
00:08:19
Speaker
And now we're rolling it out. We're sort of McDonaldizing it a little bit. Our franchises are coming. um And I think, yeah, there's a lot of excitement. you know It looks like lightning's shaping up to be the real deal. ah potentially is going to plunge down to the bowels of the earth and it needs a lot more drilling to expand it at the at the top and then we got some new discoveries hopefully to to roll out so um yeah it's it doesn't get much better than this it's been like six seven years of hard work and it looks like we're about to you know start the race and become a real company excellent
00:08:53
Speaker
Now, you mentioned there the prospect of ah toll treatment at one of the mills you've got nearby.
Project Advancements and Funding Needs
00:09:01
Speaker
What though in terms of the development of this project as a mine in its own right?
00:09:06
Speaker
um yeah Look, we've had a mining lease granted over Lightning and the Lightning area. which is a big tick and ah and takes us a long way down that road. um I think it's probably as simple as doing some mining studies. Now, once we have the dual model, um you know, there's potentially two structures running up and down pretty much Lightning and Monza structures, which are mineralised, is just modelling them up.
00:09:33
Speaker
um Gold is pretty close to surface here and that keeps down plunging. um You just do some the mining start studies, some scheduling, um do the final permits, there's a few bits and pieces, but you know this is what we do in West Australia.
00:09:46
Speaker
We get gold mining to production. it's ah It's a very known path. So we could very quickly get this into production, potentially, separate i say if we did 50,000 ounces, if we're lucky enough to prove that much up, you could just do a small little pit, get some dirt into our mill.
00:10:06
Speaker
There's a company up the road called New Murchison. They've done a deal where they sell their gold to a neighbouring mill and they've got a 600 million market cap now. We've got a 16. So if we sort of could, are able to duplicate a model like that, there's a lot of upside and then obviously gives us the capital then to develop and you know maybe one day if we're really lucky, become a standalone.
00:10:29
Speaker
in In terms of the timing, ah when do you think When do you think, what's the earliest date by which you could be sending your oar off to be told treated? And and then what's the earliest you think you might be looking to stand alone? or and How much more drilling do you have to do before you're at these sort of points?
00:10:51
Speaker
How long is piece of string? and Look, a lot of our... I would say the $64,000 question, but it's now the million dollar question. There's inflation for you. So a lot of our... Let's not go there. um There's a lot of drilling is 25 metres by 25 and a little bit's 50 by 50.
00:11:09
Speaker
But I think we'd need to, you know, call it 20,000 metres. So maybe $3 million, $3.5 million dollars three and a half million dollars to to draw that out. um you You'd want to be doing some pitch shells with a bit of a mining study um to to design that properly, to bring it to a point where certain. and And look, I think we'll be running that process at the same time as we're doing all the approvals for mining. So yeah,
00:11:39
Speaker
I don't know what I don't really want to say or promise, but yeah is it possible within 12, 18 months? Yeah, potentially. we might yeah know It comes down to how much money do you throw at it and how how much success.
00:11:50
Speaker
um you know It'd be unlikely if you've got sort of got four points and the the ones in the the middle don't come in as well, but um you know drillings drilling is drilling. But at the moment, we we're pretty confident from what we've seen and these new results come in.
00:12:04
Speaker
Anything like what we've seen at the recent drilling and and the past drilling, this is the real deal. This is going to be, a you know, potentially a real mine.
00:12:16
Speaker
So that being the case, and if things develop according to plan and according to your wildest dreams, so to speak, ah in in terms of funding it, is is the cash there or will you need to go back to the market?
00:12:30
Speaker
ah Look, we're a junior. We always need money. and Until you're in cash flow, you need money. I think
00:12:38
Speaker
I think the last set of results were quite positive. we definitely got a re-rating on them. I think if these results come in similar, and you know I think our model does work. it Last time it proved it. um I think we'll probably get another re-rating.
00:12:51
Speaker
um you know There's interested parties. it's it's Where are we in that in that pipeline? of it where investors who are serious want to get involved. I think we're in this market, we're probably approaching that point.
00:13:04
Speaker
um I'm talking to people all the time. I think a lot of people like what we're doing. We just stuck to our nitty and done the proper stuff. And it's now starting to give us some rewards. Like when i was in Cape Town when we caught up um and also the recent conference here in West Australia,
00:13:24
Speaker
I was getting yeah a lot of small boutique funds and people that don't normally talk to me coming over. So there's definitely been a mood in the change of people who are showing interest in the company, which yeah is is is reassuring and shows that I think we're we're on the right track and we're hopefully at that imminent point for that big re-rate.
00:13:42
Speaker
you did you you You mentioned that re-rating there. It's worth pointing out actually to to our listeners and our viewers. ah that the shares are up two and a half times in the last nine months or so, two and a half times in the last month. So so that's the re-rating you're talking about and hoping to replicate. Yeah, absolutely. um yeah know We've gone from a yeah know four to six million market cap up to a 16 to 20 million market cap.
00:14:07
Speaker
um you know You'd like to think that there's a lot more upside with some good results, which hopefully will show people that this is a real deal and it holds together very well.
Challenges and Resource Availability
00:14:19
Speaker
If you look at some of our documents, you can see the plates that are modeling up and holding already. um which is exciting. And obviously with the draw, that's confirmation that a lot of people actually want to see. that obviously helps with mining studies. So that's all within the next couple of months. And then obviously a larger draw program to roll out.
00:14:37
Speaker
um So yeah, it's looking pretty good. Might even find a strategic ah partner to come in who will hang around and not sell their shares, which would be nice. let's say Okay, so that that that that is another option a thate or another funding option for you effectively downed down the track.
00:14:53
Speaker
You mentioned the drill spacing there, 25 meters by 25 meters, and and you you talked about the mineral resource estimate, a maiden MRE in the middle of the year.
00:15:04
Speaker
Any idea at this stage as to whether that gives you measured, indicated, or inferred? Oh, that's more of a geologist question. um
00:15:16
Speaker
ah Is that, I suppose I could go on to say, you know, usually you start with the inferred, don't you? Yeah, you do. it And actually there is some evidence, there is some evidence in the market that what the market is screaming for at the moment in terms of valuation is early stage inferred resources. So, you know, you may be giving the market ah exactly what they want. And then of course, there'll be the process of upgrading that at some later stage. Absolutely. We do a bit of a mining study, hopefully we get ah some good results this time.
00:15:45
Speaker
Then we do a bit of mining study, put some rough pitch shells on, and then we go back and spend our money smart and wisely on yeah potentially being able to take out a small little scoop as we develop the rest and and lift it up through the jaw categories.
00:15:59
Speaker
yeah We've just done some diamondve four diamond holes, which we're very happy with. and What we could see, it's exactly what you want to see. um There's no visible gold reported, but you know we're seeing all the right components that you want to see. in a and And we've confirmed we've got dollarites we're in basalts. We can see it. This quintessentially a West Australian project that offers some big scale.
00:16:22
Speaker
It's just how far the fluids are pushed into these rocks and how much gold's come out. But and if you look at the last past result, there's some cracking stuff there. um You know, some with the diamond holes, some of it's going to be in different categories because some of it's a little bit closely spaced, some isn't.
00:16:39
Speaker
It really just depends. and yeah ah Gold is sausagey. It pinches and swells and does all sorts of weird things. So subject to how the intersections hit with neighbouring intersections and how they model it.
00:16:54
Speaker
um Yeah, it's I'm not a geologist and I'll let them do that let them do their things, but we're We're pretty happy with with everything as it's been going. As you expect, 16,000 metres, 97 holes.
00:17:10
Speaker
We've got a fair bit of knowledge of what's going on here.
00:17:14
Speaker
Just expanding the conversation a little bit, because you mentioned your you you know your geologists there and geological team. um How easy, what one of the problems we're seeing in the mining industry is a access to skills um as well as access to everything else. but ah and And also I'll come on to sort of access to laboratory time as well.
00:17:37
Speaker
Are you getting the, act do you have the skill set in enough quantity that you can use it? Or is it difficult to to hire the right people um in Western Australia at the moment? And are you getting the time with the labs that you want as well? They're giving you the results in a decent turnaround or is ah or are there capacity constraints there as well?
00:17:58
Speaker
um The labs are pretty busy um and you they've got some staffing issues, I believe. But there's the skill set for the people that work in labs are very different to the skill sets that we need. Obviously, mining, you have blue collar, white collar. You have a bit of a spread subject to the to the task at hand.
00:18:18
Speaker
um We're finding about a six to eight week turnaround at the moment. to get our results back, which you know during quite a period, we'll get them back in a couple of weeks. So it it is frustrating, but that's just what we're living with at the moment.
00:18:32
Speaker
you know there's There's a lot of consultants and out there that we can use and plug into. it A lot of the the mining companies now who, you know the probably the third tier ones, like to come in partner and help help this ah help fund these mines into production.
00:18:45
Speaker
So they have their in-house mining team. Some of them have drill rigs. and I do equity for drill sort of scenario. So seeming we're in West Perth, um know this is the epicentre of mining, it's probably in West Australia. Within a couple of hundred metres, I have all the experts from the specialist contractors, so it's easy to to push into them. But you know in my experience, i was a broker for many years.
00:19:09
Speaker
As you start to have success, everyone what is drawn to you, sort of like a bright light in a moth. um And people want to be involved in new projects because they can come on early, probably get themselves set and they ride the company on the way up.
00:19:24
Speaker
um No one wants, everyone wants to lock into a company if they've got a five, 10 year um you know a project ahead of them and they get all the kudos and success. They want to be a part of it. So we're sort of entering that stage and and having conversations with people accordingly.
00:19:40
Speaker
um People who like to to be involved in in new projects. So it's, there's always. Are you like a bright light, bright light to a moth at the moment? Absolutely. I might invest in some more tea.
00:19:52
Speaker
But you know, I think we are, I think we're, we're up and coming and it's, you know the fact that we do mining in West Australia, there's a machinery around. um yeah There's a lot of civil jobs and there's also mining jobs. And so there's actually quite a bit of machinery that you can lock into. And you know we're not talking about a major mine here. We're talking about maybe a small fleet to start with. And off we go from there. Potentially, if we're lucky, we'll go underground as well. um you know A lot of the mines in the area are down yeah one and a half kilometres plus.
00:20:23
Speaker
And there's another whole complete different skillset there with people. And once again, it's available here in West Australia because that's sort of what we do.
Other Projects and Closing Remarks
00:20:31
Speaker
Excellent. it Worth saying, ah terrain is not actually a one trick pony, is it? it's ah Can I say it's a five trick pony?
00:20:38
Speaker
do Do you want to talk about some of your other projects? Yeah, look, you know, we're we're a pipeline company where you go down the rabbit hole with exploration on a project and it and it actually stops and a dead end and you've got to reverse out, but you need to survive. So we've always had the mentality that we need other projects.
00:20:54
Speaker
You know, some with a Queensland project, which copper gold, it's taken about three or four years to get it, a year to get it pegged and put together and about two years to get granted. It takes time. So, you know, we thought,
00:21:05
Speaker
Four years ago, copper would be a a great place to be. It's two and a half thousand square Ks. It's been locked up in a couple of companies that we know um for over 20 years, and it's got some really really, exciting results on it. So that's one of our projects. We've got another project up in the Pilbara, which is a lithium gold project. We've just done some work. Some soils are pending there. And we've done a machine learning study, which is what found HEMI, which is 11 million ounces just down the road.
00:21:32
Speaker
And there's 1,100 square kilometres in the Pilbara, not one drill hole of it. It's heart of the mining district, West Australia. No one's been looking for gold up there. It's an iron ore district. And sure enough, I just found 11 million ounces and maple lithium and all sorts of stuff.
00:21:46
Speaker
Pugangura is nearby. So that's an exciting project, but it's taking two years to get it granted. So we've been working there and I tend to be very good at discovering things I'm not looking for.
00:21:58
Speaker
um And that's how we've come across across our Lahrens Lane gallium project, ah which is actually on our gold project tenement package. It's just to the south or southeast. um yeah But the WA government's paying for metallurgy work there.
00:22:12
Speaker
We've got a Jork exploration target on 27 square kilometres. We've got some high-grade gallium in a clay regolith, so it's just like a sand, a major drainage channel that's big. So yeah there's some met studies coming from curtin University here in West Australia.
00:22:26
Speaker
and so the The West Australian government's funding it because galleon's a critical mineral and we need to be able to unlock it. So let's see where we end up there, but we're quietly confident. And we also have a very, very high grade rare earth hitting one hole and it down in Esperance, which is the bottom of West Australia, which is a failed nickel project. Once again, we found we look at the whole periodic table and found this, you know, it's a high-grade rare earth hit eight metre zone, know, 4,000 ppm, up to 8,000 ppm hits within that zone. This is comparable to what they have in Brazil.
00:23:02
Speaker
So we've just gone down there and done just under 1,000 metres air core. We've got regolith map from our VTAM we've reprocessed it that sits so shows a nice big 66 square kilometre target.
00:23:16
Speaker
So we've put some holes into that. Yeah, who knows, let's say. um So it's not exactly what we're doing, but you know if we prove these up slowly, add a bit of value to them, you know I think our philosophy has always been once we find something real, that's what we become. I think we've just become a gold, silver company um at Smokebush.
00:23:36
Speaker
That's what I'm thinking. um And that's where our focus is. These other things will, you know, fix them up a little bit, add a little bit bit of value to them. The goal is to give shareholders shares in other companies with them. That's what we'll probably do I'm a shareholder. I'm happy to, you know, spend a little bit of money on them and float them off in another direction now that I think we're actually onto to a real project.
00:23:57
Speaker
All right. Well, though Justin, we wish you the very best of luck indeed. Ladies and gentlemen, that was ah Terrain Minerals Principal Executive Director Justin Virgin talking to me there at Edison TV. We'll be bringing you more such ah opportunities, investment opportunities in the very near future. Remember Terrain Minerals, it's, as I say, up two and a half times, listed in Australia, up two and a half times in the last nine months or so. So I'm looking for another re-rating with those results. So Definitely worth taking a look at. um We'll be bringing, as I say, more opportunities in the very near future. But until then, you have a capital day.
00:24:35
Speaker
Thanks for having us.