Transcription of The Stock Network Interview with KGL Resources (ASX:KGL), Chief Executive Officer Sam Strohmayr
Lel Smits: KGL Resources has reached a major development milestone securing funding to advance its high-grade Javois copper-silver-gold project in the Northern Territory through to production. The funding package provides around $689 million in aggregate funding, while construction and a final investment decision are targeted for the third quarter of this year. I’m joined today by CEO Sam Strohmeyer to discuss the funding milestone, construction pathway and exploration potential across Javois and Unca Creek.
Sam, welcome to The Stock Network.
Sam Strohmayr: Thanks, Lel. It’s great to be here.
Lel Smits: Great to have you on. And look, KGL has secured around $689 million in aggregate funding, including the $300 million US dollar Wheaton Precious Metal Streaming Agreement and $300 million Australian dollar equity raising. Can you outline for us, how does this funding package change the outlook for Jervis and also give KGL confidence to move toward construction and production?
Sam Strohmayr: Yeah, thanks, Lel.
Look, I mean, it’s a huge and significant milestone for KGL. I mean, the funding now, essentially we’re fully funded to bring the Javois project into production. So really we’ve sort of moved from having a sort of financial risk associated with this project.
Now it’s really into execution of construction, you know, doing it well, doing it safely and getting into production, you know, and essentially sort of within two years from where we are today. So it’s really de-risked the project from an overall perspective. So yeah, look, hugely exciting.
A lot of work has gone into it. You know, I’m sort of, you know, we’re sort of standing on the shoulders of a lot of people who’ve come before us and the team, but yeah, look, the team is super excited and we’re really, you know, now sort of getting on with building a mine, which is fantastic.
Lel Smits: Excellent. And if we can look closer at that development to construction process, you’ve got the engineering contracting early works and long lead procurement progressing. KGL is targeting a final investment decision in construction commencement in the third quarter of this year. Can you outline for us those key milestones really between now and first production?
Sam Strohmayr: Yeah, look, you mentioned the sort of the early works activities and that’s, I mean, one of the great things with the Wheaton deal was some early funding.
So you’re right, a lot of the long lead items have already been ordered. So the mills, for example, are ordered. So that’s great.
We’ve sort of got an early start on that. But some of the key milestones is sort of finalising the contract, finalising the mining services agreement for the open pits and then sort of the activities happening on the site. So we’ve got civil works underway as we speak.
We’ve got major sort of contracts afoot or almost ready to sign for the village. That’s the enabling camp to get us going and then the main village. We’ll have about 250-person camps, a reasonably sized operation.
And then we’re sort of getting on with getting ready for construction, which will really be happening in earnest in the new year. And it’s about a sort of 18-month construction period into production, sort of early Q1, late Q2 2028. I think some of the other exciting milestones for us will be starting mining sort of halfway through next year.
We start to do the pre-strip and then we’re stockpiling material ahead of starting the plant up in early 28. So yeah, look, a number of sort of normal milestones, it’s milestones that you would expect as you’re getting a mine up and going. And of course, we’re also sort of actively building out the team.
So an exciting time. We’re recruiting the sort of integrated owners team and then getting into our production team as well.
Lel Smits: Fantastic. And look, that funding package, it also includes 20 million Australian dollars for exploration across the Dubois and Unca Creek tenements, targeting resource growth, mine life extensions, also regional discoveries. How significant do you think this exploration program could be in expanding the long-term opportunity for KGO?
Sam Strohmayr: Look, we see a long life at Dubois. I mean, we have over 30 targets already identified.
And what we have in the reserve is really sort of the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. And look, really exciting that we have a drill rig on site at the moment. It’s a multi-purpose drill rig where we’re drilling one of the areas that we’ve identified through our geophysics program.
And that’s sort of just south of where our first open pit will be. So our geologists are very exciting. We’re sort of getting daily reports about drilling as we speak.
But we see that the whole area is heavily mineralised. So part of our strategy really is to build a mine, but also explore for the next one. And as you mentioned, we have 20 million dollars of exploration.
We see that we can generate a lot of value for KGL by extending the mine life. It’s currently 10 years. And some of the targets we’ve identified are substantially larger from a geophysics perspective than our existing mining areas.
So look, we’re doing the drilling. We’ve got money allocated for it. And we’re really sort of going about that in a very logical manner.
We’ve identified areas from a geophysics perspective, and now we’re starting to do the drilling.
Lel Smits: Sam, thank you for the update from KGL Resources.
Sam Strohmayr: Well, lovely to be here. Thanks very much.
Ends