INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW LAW, MANAGING DIRECTOR, MILLENNIUM MINERALS LTD. (MOY)
“Millennium Explores Moly Prospects”
http://www.brr.com.au/event/48726
MONDAY, JULY 28, 2008, 5:30 PM
BRR Today, Boardroomradio is joined by Mr. Andrew Law, the managing director of Millennium Minerals, Andrew, welcome to Boardroom Radio.
10 MOY Thank you very much, Joel.
BRR Now, Andrew, given that this is Millennium's first Boardroom Radio broadcast, let's start at a fairly high level and work our way down. First up, could you perhaps give our listeners a brief blurb on who Millennium Minerals is and
15 what its visions and goals are.
MOY Millennium Minerals, we are an emerging metals exploration company and our main focus is on molybdenum and gold. We've currently got tenements in the East Pilbara region of Western Australia, particularly all around Nullagine and we have approximately 680 square kilometers of ground. Our vision is to
20 become a world-class metals company through the exploration and production and marketing of strategic minerals that we discover and explore on our tenements. How are we going to do this? Our main strategy at this point in time is to focus on two key items; that's defining a substantially due compliant resource at our Millennium Molybdenum Project and increasing our
25 gold inventory which stands currently at about 785,000 ounces.
BRR Now, Andrew, looking at where the company has come from and what you've been doing, you were close to moving into gold production last year. Now you go on the board to put the brakes on that project and in hindsight, it's turned
30 out to be a very wise decision. What was the rationale behind the move?
MOY Well at the middle of the year 2007, the board started to look at what was actually happening with the gold project and I guess due to rising exchange rates, rising capital and operating costs, and ultimately higher risk, the project original economics and MPVs were starting to look a bit tough to achieve. I
35 think one would say in hindsight, the decision made by the board that was to delay the project certainly proved to be a good decision in hindsight and in looking at what's happened to the smaller to medium-sized producers of late, i.e. the View Resources, Crescent Gold, Monogold and I think what we've actually done at the end of the day is we've actually preserved our gold value
40 and are currently focused on looking at a better way to extract that value.
BRR Andrew, turning to the exploration side of things, while looking for more gold resources you came across the Millennium moly-in-soil anomaly. Could you take us through the process of how you uncovered the moly and where you're
45 going with it.
MOY Well, it was actually interesting is during early 2007, whilst looking for more gold resources, we were using sort of regional soil sampling to try and identify additional gold. We decided to use molybdenum as a price element to try and help us identify more gold and what we did is we were sampling over the Millennium area and we got some significant moly results. When comparing those moly in soil results and having a look at our aeromag, we also noticed that the moly in soil set right in the middle of our 11 square kilometer aeromagnetic anomaly. The size of the moly-in-soil anomaly is quite
5 significant when you compare it the Spinifex Ridge moly-in-soil anomaly on a like-to-like basis. We believed that the Millennium soil anomaly is an ode of magnitude larger and is actually marked by stronger enrichment of moly compared to Spinifex Ridge. What we then did is we then went about on that soil anomaly and we drilled approximately about 90 RAB holes. These RAB
10 holes tested down to a vertical depth of approximately 80 to 90 meters and some of the best intercepts we got were located beneath the areas of strongest moly enrichment in the soil horizon. We had 8 meters grading at 0.052%, 12 meters at 0.038%, 28 meters at 0.015%. So that gave us some significant encouragement that molybdenum was certainly a feature. I guess
15 going back to look at these 11 square kilometers, we sort of looked at the size and sort of actually started drilling. Then we came up with an idea to use a geophysical IP survey method. So we did a trial IP on about four lines. At the same time we drilled four deep RC holes and we wanted to match the RC holes and the results of the RC holes with the trial IP to see if the two
20 techniques would work together. The first hole on the trial IP, we got 78 meters intercept grading 0.015% but the interesting features within that 78 meters there were numbers of zones that went 6 meters at 0.022%, 6 meters at 0.041%, 6 meters at 0.036% so you can see that there were some significant grades that gave us some encouragement. One of the things we
25 actually learned from that trial drilling is that the one hole MIRC 0001 that hit an anomaly, when we actually compared that to the trial IP, it looks as if we had skimmed the zone. So what we then did is that it proved up the theory for us to take the IP and do it right across the 11 square kilometers because this would then possibly help focus where there are more chargeability zones and
30 that would actually help us focus on where our drilling should concentrate on and rather not the fringes.
BRR And, Andrew, when you run that comprehensive IP survey, I think it was 25 traverses, you uncovered two very large clusters. Could you explain and
35 perhaps our listeners can also look at the presentation. There's a diagram there that will allow them to visualize it a bit better. Could you take them through the diagram and sort of identify those clusters that the IP uncovered.
MOY Well, Joel, on our exploration snapshot, we built a model up on the IP results and as you can see, where we had the original high-grade soil in moly
40 anomaly which is pretty much the center of our 11 square kilometer zone between the two major faults, you can see that after the trial IP came out, we identified a significant zone to the southwest of the anomaly and there's a second zone to the northeast. Now the southwest zone is probably a kilometer by a kilometer anomaly in size, the northeast zone is probably 1
45 kilometer by 1 to 1-1/2 kilometers. Two significant zones were identified. On those two zones, there has been no drilling, no soil anomalies, nothing. In fact, in both of the zones, particularly the one to the northeast, that area is covered by 2 to 3 meters of alluvium from a creek that runs nearby that's why those two zones have never been looked at before. I guess that they're pretty blind discoveries at this point in time.
BRR So, Andrew, finally, looking forward sticking with the exploration theme, what
5 is Millennium going to do in the short to medium term, what can our listeners keep an eye out for.
MOY What we're planning to do next is to complete the drilling of approximately holes and we're going to use a combination of both RC and diamond cut tails. The RC should go down to somewhere between 150 to 200 meters deep and
10 then that will be followed up by diamond drilling which will take us down to 400 meters, or if we still got results and we're in the core, we'll continue that core drilling to 600 meters should it be necessary. Again, going back to the our sort of exploration model and snapshot, we’ve identified three targets. One is what we call the drill A targets. Now that’s the drill right in the center of
15 the two IP anomalies that we found, the one in the southwest and the one in the northeast. We’re also going to look at what we call drill B targets and these are looking at the coincident strong IP and EM conductivity anomalies. This is very much centered around the original four deep RC holes that we did. We think we need to just close that area off a bit more. And thirdly, we’re
20 looking at some plunge extensions through mineralization that we’ve also delineated in the previous drilling. So that’s pretty much what our focus is at this point in time.
BRR Andrew, thanks for those comments. There certainly are plenty for our
25 listeners to follow and we look forward to catching up and chatting about program. Thanks for your time today.
MOY Thank you very much, Joel.
INTERVIEW CONCLUDED
Contact brr@brr.com.au for more information
DISCLAIMER: Transcripts made available by Boardroomradio.com is a free service whereby the transcripts are created by one or more third party contractors without any involvement or oversight by Boardroomradio.com or the respective company, firm, partnership or individual that is being transcribed. Boardroomradio.com and its contractors, client companies, firms, partnerships and guest speakers (paid or otherwise) do not invite reliance upon, nor accept responsibility for, the information they provide. Boardroomradio.com makes every effort to provide a high quality service. However, neither Boardroomradio.com, its transcript providers, nor the providers of any other written or oral data made available on the Boardoomradio.com site (and its partner sites) give any guarantees, undertakings or warranties concerning the accuracy, completeness or up-to-date nature of the information provided. Users should confirm information from another source if it is of sufficient importance for them to do so. Boardroomradio.com, its directors and employees do not accept any liability for the results of any actions taken or not taken on the basis of information in this site, or for any negligent misstatements, errors or omissions.
MILLENNIUM MINERALS LIMITED (MOY)
email presenter
share this
Millennium $16.6m capital raising and debt restructure