Transcription of The Stock Network Interview with Far East Gold (ASX:FEG), Managing Director and CEO Shane Menere
Lel Smits: Far East Gold is advancing a quality portfolio of six copper and gold projects across Indonesia and Australia. During the quarter, the company delivered high-grade drilling results at the Eidenberg project, expanded mineralisation zones at Sewer and North Bermal, progressed permitting milestones, and recommenced drilling at Mount Clark West in Queensland following a wet season pause. I’m joined today by Managing Director and CEO Shane Menere to discuss the latest drilling success, regulatory progress, and how Far East Gold is positioning for sustained discovery-driven growth across its portfolio.
Shane, welcome to the Stock Network.
Shane Menere: Thank you, Lel. Thank you for having me, and it’s great to be here.
Lel Smits: Great to have you on. Now, you’ve delivered very high-grade gold hits at Sewer, including visible gold, and the system remains open in multiple directions. In simple terms, how big do you think this could get? And also with North Bermal also returning strong results, could Eidenberg potentially host more than one meaningful gold deposit here?
Shane Menere: Oh, yeah. Look, at Eidenberg, and in particular Sewer, where we’re exploring and drilling in detail now, we’re seeing exactly what you want to see in emerging gold camp. So we’ve got those high-grade intercepts, visible gold, as you’ll see behind me in the background, mineralisation that’s open in multiple directions and structural continuity. If a couple of the last announcements wanted to be reviewed by anybody, you’d see the extremely high grades that we’re seeing, over 100, 150, and in one case, 280 grams per tonne.
So there’s really exciting stuff for Far East Gold. But the key point is not that this is a single narrow vein story. We’re intersecting those broad zones with those very strong grades and clear structural controls.
So the system remains open along strike at depth and laterally, and that tells us that we’re really in that expansion mode. And North Bermal, you touched on that, that reinforces this thesis level. So it’s a separate target with that broader Eidenberg district that’s also delivering the meaningful gold intercepts, be it a lower grade area than sewer, but that’s a great life of mine, open pit, some horizontal potential as we move into project development and then ultimately start to look at what production might look like.
So the big picture is that Eidenberg is shaping up as a district scale opportunity and not just one isolated deposit.
Lel Smits: Excellent. And when it comes to news flow, with drilling underway, as you said, at sewer and North Bermal and progressing plans at KwaPulu and key permits now secured, how does this set the company up for steady news flow? And also really from your perspective, how important is having multiple drill programs running at the same time?
Shane Menere: Yeah, so one of the strengths of Far East Gold right now is portfolio momentum.
And so with drilling underway at sewer and North Bermal, we’re advancing into KwaPulu, as you said. Critically, we’ve secured those key permitting milestones. So that matters because Indonesia is de-risking through compliance and the fundamentals.
So running multiple programs allows us to create that steady, predictable news flow. It reduces reliance on any single result and builds that layered growth story. So it also shows operational maturity.
We are not that single asset explorer portfolio of four Indonesian assets and two in Queensland across copper and gold. So we’re managing this district scale strategy with multiple shots at a goal. So investors, for investors, that translates into sustained discovery driven growth rather than isolated announcements.
Lel Smits: Brilliant. And closer to home, Shane, at Mount Clark West in Queensland, early drilling has identified signs of a potential copper gold system and the permit has now been extended to 2031. What would you need to see in upcoming assay results to confirm this could be a large scale copper discovery and what are your immediate priorities here?
Shane Menere: Yeah, Mount Clark West is tended to an exciting thing. It gives us that copper or copper gold exposure in Queensland, which diversifies the portfolio geographically and commodity wise. So early drilling has identified alteration and mineralisation structures consistent with that potential copper porphyry system. That permit was extended through to 2031 recently by the Queensland government and that’s a significant de-risking milestone because it gives us time to test everything properly.
So we’ve proven that there’s mineralisation, copper mineralisation at Mount Clark West. There was a previous historical intercept of over 100 metres at 0.1% copper, which is lower grade, and there was a 14 metre section of that that was 0.23% copper. So that’s approaching those economic grades and it’s our job to now, you know, prove that higher grade hopefully with these assays that are upcoming.
So we’re looking for those scale indicators now and strong copper grades over meaningful widths and alteration vectors to take us into a stronger theory and geological continuity that supports that larger system model. So if all of those elements come together, we’re not talking about a smaller current. We’re talking about early stages of defining a scalable copper and copper gold system.
Lel Smits: Well Shane, thank you for the update from Farrie Skuld and look forward to hearing more as the year progresses.
Shane Menere: Thank you, Lel. I appreciate the time.
Ends