Transcription of The Stock Network Interview with Broken Hill Mines (ASX:BHM), Executive Chair Patrick Walta
Lel Smits: Broken Hill Mines is delivering strong operational momentum in Australia’s iconic mining region with record quarterly production and the successful restart of the Pinnacles mine marking significant milestones in its growth strategy. As the company ramps up high-grade ore from both the main load and Pinnacles, while progressing initiatives to unlock the full capacity of its RAS processing plant, it’s positioning itself for further production growth in silver, lead and zinc. Ahead of presenting at the Noosa Mining Conference, I’m joined by Executive Chair, Patrick Walter, to discuss record quarterly production, operational momentum, and how main load and Pinnacles are expected to drive the next phase of growth.
Pat, welcome back to the Stock Network.
Patrick Walta: Great to be here, thanks.
Lel Smits: Broken Hill Mines has just delivered its strongest operational quarter since acquiring the RAS mine with record or throughput improving metal production, also a standout performance in June. What were the key drivers behind these results?
Patrick Walta: It’s certainly been a busy quarter for Broken Hill Mines and yes, we’ve achieved record production and really that’s off the back of us executing our strategy of bringing multiple ore bodies online. So the company over the last 12 months has evolved from having one ore body, the Western Min, to now three ore bodies online, bringing main load and Pinnacles into the fold. And what’s quite exciting is that the June quarter, our best quarter to date, only had the effect of main load in it.
So we have Pinnacles which came online right at the end of the quarter. We’ll start to see the benefits of that into the September quarter and beyond as well.
Lel Smits: Absolutely, and as you mentioned, the main load is now contributing increasing volumes of high-grade ore while Pinnacles has successfully restarted with first ore delivered to the RAS processing plant. What’s coming up next in terms of news flow?
Patrick Walta: We’ve got a lot of action on site, which I’m here in sunny Broken Hill at the moment. One of the really exciting things we’re doing beyond increasing our production from these ore sources is drilling. We’ve been doing extensive drilling programs at both the Pinnacles mine and at the RAS mine as well.
And we believe some of those results will be quite stunning for the market to see. And importantly, the areas that we’re drilling, we’re actually mining as well. So it’s not just sort of resource ounces that we’re growing, we’re growing revenue, we’re growing our production ounces.
And yeah, some really exciting developments that we see coming in and around those and maybe some growth in some of our lesser known deposits as well. So watch this space.
Lel Smits: I certainly will be. Pat, thank you for the update to Broken Hill Mines. Look forward to hearing more at the Noosa Mining Conference. Thank you very much.
Patrick Walta: Thank you.
Ends