ASX: FLG - Flagship Minerals
- Matt Birney
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
Flagship Minerals: A 2.2m ounce gold resource and not a dollar spent on drilling!
Flagship Minerals Executive Chairman Paul Lock on 3AW, 2GB & 6PR Bulls N' Bears Report
Listen to ASX-listed Flagship Minerals Executive Chairman Paul Lock talk to Matt Birney on the Bulls N’ Bears Report about Flagship’s maiden 2.2m ounce gold resource achieved without paying for a single drill hole.
TO LISTEN TO THE FLAGSHIP MINERALS AUDIO INTERVIEW - CLICK BELOW
Flagship Minerals is a gold and copper explorer developing the Isidora gold project in Chile's rich Maricunga belt, a district already carrying some serious gold company footprints. Isidora, formerly known as Pantanillo, sits east of Copiapo and has been added to historically by big names like Anglo American, Kinross and Orosur. Flagship recently tabled a serious maiden gold resource at Isidora and its game on now.
RADIO INTERVIEW - TRANSCRIPT
Matt Birney - Welcome to Bulls N' Bears, brought to you today by Chilean gold developer, Flagship Minerals
Matt Birney - ASX code: FLG.
Matt Birney - I'm Matt Birney , and I'm joined now by the Executive Chairman of Flagship Minerals, Paul Lock.
Matt Birney - Hi, Paul.
Paul Lock - G'day, Matt.
Matt Birney - Okay, so Flagship Minerals is a gold and copper explorer developing the Isidora gold project in Chile's rich Maricunga Belt, a district already carrying some serious gold company footprints. Isidora, formerly known as Pantanillo, sits east of Copiapó and has been added to historically by really big names like Anglo American and Kinross. Flagship recently tabled a serious maiden gold resource at Isidora and its game on now.
Matt Birney - Okay Paul before we get into that resource, where exactly is Isidora and what's the region like generally around it for gold discoveries?
Paul Lock - Isidora sits in the Maricunga Gold Belt on the border of Chile and Argentina. There's over 65 million ounces of gold in resource there, spread between about six or seven projects. And just to the south of us, we've got Kinross' Maricunga with 10 million ounces. Barrick Newmont's Norte Alberto with 27 million ounces, 12kms north, Vulcan owned by Tienan with 11 million ounces and about 20kms north, Lobe-Marte with about 10 million ounces. So this is a really rich belt of gold projects.
Matt Birney - All right, so hit me with the maiden resource numbers, tonnes, grade, and ounces.
Paul Lock - So we've got 115.2 million tonnes at.56 grams a tonne gold for 2.1 million ounces all up. And 91% of this is at the measured and indicated status.
Matt Birney - So, how much money did you spend on drilling to get this resource out? And how many holes did you put down to produce it?
Paul Lock - I think most of my peers will hate this answer, but we spent $0.
Matt Birney - Okay. How'd you do that?
Paul Lock - When we bought the project 12 months ago, it had had a lot of drilling in it by Anglo and Kinross and some other explorers. It had a 2010 MRE with about 1 million ounces in it. So, we recut the resource, lower cut off grade, new economics, little bit of work here and there, mainly desktop. And here we are with 2.1 million ounces.
Matt Birney - So at face value I was thinking the grade looks a bit skinny but then I thought "is this a porphyry?" because if it's a porphyry the grade's probably okay. Firstly is it a porphyry? and what's the mining plan here?
Paul Lock - It is a gold porphyry so it's 0.56 grams a tonne. In the world of porphyry that's a really good grade. This is at surface and this at present the current MRE has about 6 years of heap leachable product in it and then we'd move into sulphides but the game plan is now to do a bit of drilling, expand the resource, bring in more oxides and build out that oxide heap leaching front end before we move in the sulphide.
Matt Birney - So you've also got a Chinese group backing this story now by the name of Xinhai. Who are they and how much skin do they have in the game now?
Paul Lock - Xinhai has around 8% of the company. They invested after doing due diligence on the project. They're a midsize family-owned engineering procurement and construction company. And they've done over 500 EPC contracts globally, including some in South America. So they bring a lot of experience in gold plans to the company.
Matt Birney - How much money have they put in?
Paul Lock - They invest 2.5 million all up.
Matt Birney - Paul Lock from Flagship Minerals.
Matt Birney - Thanks for joining me on Bulls N' Bears and remember we're only here to give you information, not advice, which you should of course seek independently.
Matt Birney - I'm Matt Birney and this is Bulls N' Bears.
Outro - For more public company interviews go to the money page on the 6PR, 2GB, 3AW and 4BC websites and click the public companies tab.
