hätte auch lieber einen Link einhestellt, der funzt aber nur mit Registrierung, 30 Tage Gratisprobe.
Wer möchte: http://www.miningnews.net/...=1133552ionsource=s88&highlight=ytc§
Sehr interessant das Interview mit Rimas Kairaitis (CEO), vor allem:
"Should our exploration team encounter immediate success, it may have an impact on what the DFS team finally delivers. A positive result might scale our project up by 100 per cent or 200 per cent.”
Thursday, 18 March 2010
NEW South Wales-based junior explorer YTC Resources has scored a hat-trick of robust opportunities which have catapulted it into the production league in record time. By Imelda Cotton - RESOURCESTOCKS*
The company began with a handful of tin and copper-gold tenements in the world-class, mineral-rich Lachlan Fold Belt of central-western NSW, populated by large-scale money-makers such as the Cadia, Northparkes, CSA copper and Peak gold-copper-base metals mines.
By 2005, YTC Resources had attracted the attention of China’s high-profile Yunnan Tin Group, the world’s largest producer of tin and non-ferrous metals, which was keen to establish an alliance with an Australian company as a platform for its expansion into the region.
By the time YTC Resources listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in May 2007, Yunnan Tin Group had become its strategic partner and cornerstone investor, providing access to financial backing that most juniors can only dream of.
Then, in a third stroke of good fortune, YTC Resources acquired 100% of the high-grade Hera gold project in the world-class Cobar Basin, for a “great price” from previous owner CBH Resources at a time when valuations on mining projects were at discount levels due to the global financial crisis.
It is not too often that a company of YTC’s size and experience would wind up on such a winning streak. The rarity of its blessings is not lost on chief executive officer Rimas Kairaitis.
“We have been very optimistic from the start and I think a lot of that has to do with having the Yunnan Tin Group and its affiliated investors on board as 30 per cent shareholders,” he told RESOURCESTOCKS.
“Their approach to investing in Australia was very staged and cautious – they were after a company with good acreage and, importantly, a technically strong focus.
“We were in talks with them for about 18 months so by the time the deal was done, we were all very familiar with each other and very clear on the direction we were heading in.”
Central to YTC’s fortunes has been the September 2009 acquisition of the Hera project, 100km southeast of Cobar, which has potential to be fast-tracked to development for “modest” capital expenditure.
The company secured the deal for $A12 million (including an 80% interest in joint venture ground to the north of the main deposit) after a two-year, Australia-wide project acquisition assessment and subsequent capital raising, which saw Yunnan Tin Group and its investors make considerable contributions towards the $25 million target.
The protracted acquisition search centred on finding a project that was the right fit for the company – something, Kairaitis said, which would be capable of lifting YTC into the league of mid-sized mineral producers.
“We had real difficulty finding the right new project that we could sink our teeth into, from a price and quality point of view,” he said.
“There are very few Australian projects up for grabs with all the attributes we look for – well priced, near term and technically sound, with high resource confidence and low development risk and without any other encumbrances, such as approvals or environmental issues.
“Hera is a deposit in a world-class terrain that ticks all of those boxes and we believe we got it for a fantastic price – the replacement value of the existing drilling and exploration work alone is between $15 million and $20 million.
“The project is undeveloped but near term, we own it 100 per cent and there are no other vested interests.
“It has excellent exposure to the gold market and hosts a mix of high-grade gold with base metals, which is geological heaven because it allows a company like ours to ride out the economic cycles.”
But wait, there’s more. Included in the Hera deal was a prefeasibility study conducted by CBH Resources in 2005, advocating a modest but high-grade underground mine at a production rate of 200,000 tonnes of gold per annum over a seven-year mine life, delivering 40,000 ounces of gold per year.
The recommendation was based on prices of $A500 per ounce gold and $US1400 per tonne lead-zinc.
In the five years since then, metals prices have soared to around $A1200/oz gold and more than $US2000/t lead-zinc, meaning that, unless the definitive feasibility study uncovers an unknown quantity, success from Hera is a veritable no-brainer.
In late 2009, YTC Resources appointed a third-party consultant to complete the DFS, which will feature detailed metallurgical testwork and cost estimates for mining and processing options, including toll treatment of the ore at the nearby Endeavour plant or the construction of a stand-alone plant onsite.
Metallurgical studies already completed for the DFS have indicated high gold gravity recoveries (+70%) at coarse grind (0.25mm), as well as high-quality lead, zinc and likely copper concentrates, good recovery and high silver and gold credits.
“It is certainly shaping up to be a very attractive proposition based on today’s prices alone but there is still a lot of work to be done,” Kairaitis said.
“We have a very good idea on what the resource is now and we recognise there is promising exploration potential to the north, south and underneath the main deposit.
“Should our exploration team encounter immediate success, it may have an impact on what the DFS team finally delivers.
“A positive result might scale our project up by 100 per cent or 200 per cent.”
Hera features a significant blue-sky element given that most deposits in the Cobar Basin which started as modest, shallow projects have evolved into vertically continuous major orebodies.
Kairaitis said the project was a good discovery back in 2001 and as YTC committed more exploration energy to it, hopefully it could demonstrate how big Hera really was.
While Hera is undoubtedly the potential hero for the company, Kairaitis is equally excited about its 100%-owned Kadungle project, also in central NSW, where initial drilling results have indicated the presence of large-tonnage, porphyry-related gold-copper and molybdenum mineralisations.
“Kadungle is definitely our second area of priority,” he said.
“We have recorded a number of major, very broad, low-grade gold and copper intersections which have been very encouraging.
“They will be the target of a gravity geophysics survey during 2010 to locate mineralising porphyry intrusions at depth for subsequent drill testing.
“The next 12 months will be an incredibly busy time for YTC Resources and as a management team, we are very confident that it will reap significant rewards for us.
“We are extremely fortunate to have a project of such exceptional quality on our books at a time when there is a strong gold price and constant growth in demand for industrial metals.”
Kairaitis also believes the company’s growing shareholder base has every reason to be confident, with YTC offering a low-cost entry into what will be high-margin gold production within a fairly short timeframe.
“There is a lot of exploration upside to our story – an aggressive junior company with a great patch of ground in a basin with a history of world-class deposits and a broader acquisition strategy with Yunnan Tin Group which gives us access and exposure to some excellent opportunities,” he said.
“We are very keen to expand our interests in the Cobar Basin and we will keep up the search for additional projects which meet all of our criteria, but first and foremost we have to focus on getting this company into production and making money.” |
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