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ASX Company Announcement

Admiralty Resources NL
ACN 010 195 972

Level 6, 150 Queen Street


Melbourne VIC 3000

[t] +61-3-9642 3535


[f] +61-3-9670 8965
[w] www.ady.com.au

11 November 2005

Company Announcements Office


Australian Stock Exchange Limited
20 Bridge Street
SYDNEY NSW 2000

Interview with Aegis Equities Research

Please find attached the transcript of a Corporate Insights interview done with Brendan Fitzpatrick of
Aegis Equities Research on the 3 November 2005. This interview will be published shortly on the Aegis
website www.aer.com.au .

Yours sincerely,

Phillip Thomas
Managing Director
Admiralty Resources NL

[t] +61-3-9642 3535


[f] +61-3-9670 8965
[e] pthomas@ady.com.au

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ASX ADY
Bloomberg ADY.AU
Reuters ADY.AX
rd
3 November 2005

Admiralty Resources NL Sector: Materials

The following is a transcript of an interview conducted by an Aegis analyst.


For more on Admiralty Resources NL (ADY) see our blue book series at
http:www.aer.com.au or go to the ADY website at www.ady.com.au

Aegis Analyst such as batteries and other associated appliances. So


Perhaps, we could start with an overview of that’s our other key focus.
Admiralty’s projects. Admiralty has several projects
that are pursuing various minerals in several different
Clearly, the Philippines was uneconomic and we’ve
countries, such as the Cia Minera Santa Barbara Joint
decided not to pursue any other opportunities there. Our
Venture an iron ore project in Chile; the Rincon Salar
Bulman project is interesting. It has been pretty well
project in Argentina producing lithium, potassium,
explored previously but still needs to have a fairly sizable
sodium sulphate and boric acid; Ilocos Sur, an iron
drilling project to prove up the geology. Pykes Hill has
titano-magnetite project in the Philippines that was
recently been drilled and we’re just contemplating which
recently evaluated as uneconomic; the Bulman
direction we’ll move there when the Cougar option expires
Project, a lead zinc project in the Northern Territory
shortly.
which is waiting for an exploration license; and the
Pykes Hill project, a nickel exploration play in Western
Aegis Analyst
Australia. Which of these projects offer the most
upside to Admiralty and which are the areas of focus Moving on to look at the financial position of the
for the company at the moment? company: in the September quarterly cash flow report,
the cash reserves stood at $12,000, however cash
Admiralty Resources MD – Phillip Thomas
outflows for the December quarter, are around $1
million. You currently have a loan facility of $6 million
The two key projects are the Cia Minera Santa Barbara
with Perolin Investments and just over $6 million to
Joint Venture iron ore project which is basically nine iron
come from MTM Holdings converting their unlisted
ore mines of which we’ll be exploiting four of those almost
options. Could you comment on Admiralty’s
straight away. In fact, we expect to be shipping and
expenditure plans and whether there will be any need
producing iron ore in early 2006 and that’s a short term
for future capital raisings?
play for us. We know that we’ve got fairly substantial
reserves there and we’re just finishing our proven and
Admiralty Resources MD – Phillip Thomas
probable reserve calculations at the moment. That’s our
There won’t be any need for further capital raisings, and as
key point of focus in the short term. In the two to three
you quite rightly pointed out, we’ve run a fairly lean and
year horizon, it’s the lithium, potassium project in the
mean ship and so we utilise our cash resources very, very
Rincon Salar and we’ve noted that lithium chloride sales,
prudently. We haven’t a need to draw down on that
certainly in the spot market, has been as high as
Perolin credit line, but we will be in November. We actually
US$5,000 per tonne and so clearly producing 12,000
have something like $8.75 million options available out of
tonnes would mean $60 million of revenue per annum. So
MTM Holdings and Leverage Capital also has indicated,
the Rincon has a substantial upside for us both in the
they may convert some of their options. So we’ve got
medium term and the long term as demand for energy
about $8.75 million available there if they deem to convert
related industrial minerals continues to increase and
them and currently they are about 4 cents in the money so
lithium, it continues to be the mainstay of stationary energy

Aegis Equities Research Pty Ltd ACN 085 293 910 AFSL no. 225072 Level 6, 33 York Street Sydney NSW 2000 Australia
Phone +61 2 8296 1100 Fax +61 2 9299 3777 Email mail@aer.com.au Web www.aer.com.au
Page 2 of 5

that may happen before the end of the year and they’ve Admiralty Resources MD – Phillip Thomas
given us notice that they may do that. Certainly. Our capital expenditure is going to be in the
order of US$8 million in total. We’ve spent about US$2.5
The other aspect is the loan, that will give us $6 million. million so far, so we’re looking to put in about another
So we’re talking about A$14 million that we can access. US$5.5 million.
We believe our expenditure is only going to be in the
vicinity of about $7 million up until the next tranche from We’ve recently undertaken a fairly substantial engineering
the converting loan which gives us another $10 million. So project and decided to upscale the plant in terms of
we don’t have any further plans to raise capital. If acquisition of more high speed drums, doubling the
anything, we’d be looking to debt, so we don’t dilute capacity of our magnetic separator and changing the
earnings per share. We try to be as conservative as we configuration of the plant to access the iron ore from the
possibly can in issuing capital. four mines that are located close to each other which we
call the Japonesa Group of Mines. Once we’ve got that
Aegis Analyst implemented, we’ve also been working with the port at
Looking into another aspect of the company’s Huasco and another port to the north and we believe we
operations, you recently had your American have basically cut a deal with that second port which will
Depository Receipts approved for trading. Could you be of a major benefit to us and so we’ve chosen to defer
describe the strategy behind creating these receipts? production from what was October now ‘til early New Year.

Admiralty Resources MD – Phillip Thomas Aegis Analyst


The strategy had two legs to it. The first leg was that Looking at the type of material being produced, I
American investors understand South American assets understand there’s, maybe, one to two years worth of
and they are used to investing in them. There are a fines material which were stockpiled from previous
number of substantial mineral projects that have been operations which could quite easily be separated and
floated in South America, both in Chile and Argentina and prepared for shipping and then perhaps 15 years of
in Peru and so forth. We felt that it would be easy to mining operation. Perhaps, the focus will be using the
market it at an institutional level and at a retail level. Not so fines materials as a start up and then moving into a
much to market it but to get investors familiar with it so we mining operation. Was any consideration given to
can create some further demand for the stock. The starting the mining operation and then using the fines
second leg of it was that US institutions sometimes are as a medium for achieving an overall required volume
constrained to only be able to deal in US securities and of production?
this was a fairly simple way to satisfy their criteria to invest
in a US based security. Admiralty Resources MD – Phillip Thomas
The fines are there as a waste material from a lump
Aegis Analyst operation in the 1970s. We’ve got a good idea of what is
Perhaps we could look a little more closely at the there in terms of size and we’ve actually put a number of
Chilean iron ore project. You were discussing it at the drill holes down through the piles recently to determine
start of the interview and giving us some insight into what the concentration is. We’re actually finding that
the schedule. Would you like to provide a bit more we’ve got higher percentage content of iron in the
detail on the schedule and particularly the capital magnetite that has formed on the surface and we don’t
costs for these projects? have any over burden to extract when we start mining the

Aegis Equities Research Pty Ltd ACN 085 293 910 AFSL no. 225072 Level 6, 33 York Street Sydney NSW 2000 Australia
Phone +61 2 8296 1100 Fax +61 2 9299 3777 Email mail@aer.com.au Web www.aer.com.au
Page 3 of 5

alluvial material. So, what we’re doing is basically taking In terms of blending, we’re really blending because we
apart those stock piles in terms of five by five by five have these pockets of very high concentration of iron ore
metre blocks and determine what the iron content is. So, and clearly 4%, 5% and 6% higher than the market
we know exactly what we’ve got where. From our drill requires. So we’ll utilise that material to supplement some
hole work and from a mining engineering point of view, of the lower grade material to come up with an iron ore
we’ve been able to determine which is the most cost content and a sulphur content that suits particular buyers.
efficient and which has got the richest blocks and what we We’ve got very, very low or even non-existent sulphur in
need to take out. some of our iron ores which is in demand by some steel
mills.

We’re targeting 63.5% iron as our final product with about


a 6.35 mm fine which we can take down to 2 mm if we Aegis Analyst
need to. We will be able to produce coarse fines if there’s Just looking to the transportation issue associated
such a word, up to 35 millimetres and in some areas, we with the production. There has been some talk in
actually have more coarser material than that if there’s a recent announcements that there are discussions
demand for lump material, but we’re really focusing on under way with the government to increase the
that 6.35 millimetre, 63.5% Fe product to start off with. capacity. Are there currently any issues that need to
be resolved?
Aegis Analyst
Admiralty Resources MD – Phillip Thomas
In the June Quarterly report, there was reference to
increasing the reserves. You have recently added two No, in fact we were given approval by the nine
tenements to the area, Pampa Tololo and Cerro Varilla. representatives of the nine government bodies that
What’s the plans for expanding the output of the manage and guide and regulate this particular area. And
operation? And just touching on something you were so we’ve got approval now to mine one and half million
talking about there, the iron content, there was also a tonnes from the Japonesa area, and that is really just the
mention of perhaps blending the output. Is there a start. We will seek approvals for some of the other areas
significant concern or interest in mixing the products and build that up to three million plus tonnes from the
in the various locations? environmental approval point of view.

Admiralty Resources MD – Phillip Thomas In Chile, the environmental permit process goes from
We’ve had some interest for 65% and 66% iron from digging it out all the way to shipping it. It’s not just at the
Cometals through some of their clients and from them mine site. So we have approval to stockpile 600,000
individually. What we’re looking at doing is we have some tonnes of iron ore at any one point in time at the mine site
very, very high Fe content in some of the magnetite, in and we just finished negotiations with one of the major
some of the alluvial areas, and obviously at Pampa Tololo subcontractors where we’re actually subcontracting out the
and Cerro Varilla, we’re getting very, very high anomalies iron ore extraction process but we couldn’t do that until we
on the basic geophysics work that we’ve done so far. got our environmental permit which we received last week.
Now, we’ll probably start a short drilling program to
determine the depth and concentration and get a better Aegis Analyst
understanding of what the geology looks like and what’s
Perhaps moving on to look at the Rincon Salar
actually happening, so then we can take it further.
projects in the salt lakes of Argentina. The current

Aegis Equities Research Pty Ltd ACN 085 293 910 AFSL no. 225072 Level 6, 33 York Street Sydney NSW 2000 Australia
Phone +61 2 8296 1100 Fax +61 2 9299 3777 Email mail@aer.com.au Web www.aer.com.au
Page 4 of 5

schedule is to begin production in early 2006, is this Admiralty Resources MD – Phillip Thomas
still the plan? Look, we have, but we’ve really designed the plant as the
front end to the lithium chloride production facility. So
Admiralty Resources MD – Phillip Thomas 12,000 tonnes of lithium chloride roughly equates to
It’s 2006 for the potassium chloride and June 2007 for the around 40,000 to 45,000 tonnes of potassium chloride.
lithium chloride and that’s because the second phase of Clearly, we have enormous resources available and
the evaporation is to evaporate our potassium chloride possibly one approach might be to secure another major
once we’ve taken out around 90% or 92% of the sodium contract and use that as a basis to upscale the front end
chloride -- we actually concentrate the brine the first time plant. We’ve designed the lithium chloride facility in two
around. stages. So, one stage is not totally dependent on
another, but it just means that we’ll have more feed stock
Aegis Analyst available for the lithium chloride that we can stockpile, so
to speak, in ponds, because we have got 250 square
Looking at the production, the 40,000 tonnes per
kilometres. We’ve got plenty of space to stockpile it.
annum of potassium chloride, there’s an agreement
recently reached with Rheochem where they will take
3,500 to 10,000 tonnes per annum, and then act as an Aegis Analyst
agent for sale of another 30,000 tonnes per annum. One final question; Admiralty is aiming to acquire the
How reliant are you on Rheochem to secure these Rapé Mine that is currently registered to Graciela
sales and what contingency plans do you have if Comas. A court resolution requested amongst other
Rheochem can’t take the 40,000 tonnes per annum. things that the cadastral survey and the pegging of the
mine was to be carried out by the end of September
Admiralty Resources MD – Phillip Thomas this year and the inscription of the mine in the
There’s a worldwide shortage of potash at the moment provincial registrar of the mining producers by the end
because of its consumption in the drilling industry, in of August this year. Graciela Comas has requested an
agriculture. In fact, we know from some of the trends we’ve extension to these deadlines. Could you clarify this
seen from some of the major manufacturers, potash situation and is Graciela Comas working with or in
corporations and others that we will very easily be able to opposition to Admiralty on this issue.
place that at prices that we entered into or used as a basis
of a memorandum of understanding with Rheochem. Admiralty Resources MD – Phillip Thomas
We’re very confident that we can market that potash at a They work very closely with us and we actually acquired
reasonable profit given that it’s almost a by-product of our the mine and have had that inscribed in ADY Resources’
lithium operation. name and we settled on that mine in late August. So, we
actually completed before 31 August. So those issues
Aegis Analyst became not relevant to the acquisition so we’re now in the
process of engineering and looking at the design of the
Given there is such demand for the product at the
plant and looking at the supply of the various components.
moment and in the current JORC compliant resource
estimates there is around 100 years of lithium chloride
production and 200 years of potassium chloride Aegis Analyst
production. Has any consideration been given to A follow up question; everything seems to be
increasing the production volumes? progressing, so how will the Rapé Mine fit in with the
other operations that have been planned?

Aegis Equities Research Pty Ltd ACN 085 293 910 AFSL no. 225072 Level 6, 33 York Street Sydney NSW 2000 Australia
Phone +61 2 8296 1100 Fax +61 2 9299 3777 Email mail@aer.com.au Web www.aer.com.au
Page 5 of 5

Admiralty Resources MD – Phillip Thomas really an easy way to buy what was a relatively well priced
It’s kind of a separate operation in its own right. It’s really boric acid opportunity to generate some cash flows right
a toe in the water, because 6,000 tonnes of boric acid a away to help us. But also we have about 220 parts per
year is really only pilot plant stage. For example, there is million of boron in the Rincon Salar so that if we manage to
350,000 tonnes of boric acid sold in Brazil, our next door capture a large market share, then we can look at very
neighbour. There’s a smaller consumption in Argentina. substantial resource sitting in the Rincon Salar, prove that
Dow Corning and those that make high temperature / high up and produce boric acid from the Salar.
strength glasses are the major consumers of it, as well as
various other applications. From our point of view, it was

END OF INTERVIEW

Aegis Equities Research Pty Ltd (Aegis) has taken reasonable care in publishing the information contained in this Corporate Insight Release. This
information is provided in summary form only, and Aegis does not provide any warranties as to its completeness or accuracy. The information is not
intended to be relied upon when making investment decisions as Aegis is not able to take into account the personal financial objectives of each
investor. Aegis recommends that each investor consult their independent financial adviser for professional advice before making any investment
decisions. Aegis is not, in any way, responsible for any consequences of the use of this information, including consequential losses or damages
suffered by a reader or user of the information, or any third party, as a result of that use.

Aegis Equities Research Pty Ltd ACN 085 293 910 AFSL no. 225072 Level 6, 33 York Street Sydney NSW 2000 Australia
Phone +61 2 8296 1100 Fax +61 2 9299 3777 Email mail@aer.com.au Web www.aer.com.au

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