Peel Mining Limited (ASX: PEX): Exploring and Developing Precious and Base Metals in New South Wales, Interview with Rob Tyson, Managing Director

By Dr. Allen Alper, PhD Economic Geology and Petrology, Columbia University, NYC, USA
on 10/24/2018
Peel Mining Limited (ASX: PEX) is an Australian company focused on exploring and developing precious and base metals resources in New South Wales. Since listing in May 2007, Peel has identified and acquired several valuable mineral assets, including the Wagga Tank – Southern Nights project near Mt Hope, NSW, the May Day-Gilgunnia project (includes Mallee Bull) near Cobar, NSW, and the Cobar Superbasin Project (CSP). Each of these projects represents an advanced mineral asset, with excellent potential for future development. We learned from Rob Tyson, Managing Director of Peel Mining, that for the last 10 years the company has been focused on the Cobar Basin and has made three green fields discoveries of high-grade, base metal rich-mineralized systems, and has grown from having a relatively small footprint to having the largest land holding of any single company in the Cobar Basin. According to Mr. Tyson, what makes Peel Mining a good investment is that they are making discoveries, and these discoveries will likely turn into much larger systems over time.

The Southern Nights/Wagga Tank Zinc polymetallic project in NSW's Cobar Basin

Dr. Allen Alper: This is Dr. Allen Alper, Editor-in-Chief of Metals News, interviewing Rob Tyson, who is a Managing Director of Peel Mining. Could you give our readers/investors an overview of Peel Mining, your focus and current activities?

Rob Tyson: Certainly. Peel Mining started 11 years ago. We've been an explorer in New South Wales over that time. Our core focus is out in the area called the Cobar Basin, which is western New South Wales, part of the prolific Lachlan Fold Belt, which hosts a multitude of major resource of precious and base metal deposits. We are in an area that currently has four existing mining operations. It's a base metal rich area, second only to the Broken Hill area in terms of metal endowment in New South Wales. We've been working away for the last 10 years in that area and in that time we've made three green fields discoveries of high-grade, base metal rich mineralized systems, and we've grown from having a relatively small footprint to having the largest land holding of any single company in the Cobar Basin.

We think that serves us well going forward and hopefully we have a number of other discoveries to come over the months and years ahead. We've been working away and have established one major mineral resource and we're on our way towards another at the moment.

Dr. Allen Alper: Sounds great. Could you tell our readers/investors a bit more about your deposits and what information you have found to date?

Rob Tyson: Sure. The first deposit we discovered is called Mallee Bull - in Australia we have a saying as being “as fit as a Mallee Bull” – it means being in good health. Anyway, Mallee Bull is the name of an historic shaft actually right next to where we made our discovery. Mallee Bull is a high grade copper dominant system, a pipe like structure, which is pretty much what Cobar style systems are renowned for. Metal zonation is another common feature of Cobar style deposits, so we see a high grade zinc, lead, silver close to the surface and it transposes into a copper system as we get deeper. We have a global resource of about 6.7 million tons at about 2.6% copper equivalent, so a relatively high-grade copper system.

It's in a 50:50 joint venture with CBH Resources. They're owned by Toho Zinc Co., Ltd., which is a Tokyo Stock Exchange listed, smelting group. CBH Resources owns the Endeavor zinc-lead-silver mine which is about 150 kilometers to the north of Mallee Bull. It is one of the main mines in the Cobar district. We have been working away on Mallee Bull, which we discovered around seven years ago, working towards a development decision. We're in a pre-feasibility study at the moment and hopeful that before the end of the year we'll push the button on the permitting and approvals process to start looking to develop Mallee Bull.

Elsewhere we have another copper deposit, the next one we discovered, called Wirlong. It's about 30 kilometers north of Mallee Bull and it's a copper dominant system as well. It's in a farm-in/joint venture with the Japanese government essentially, JOGMEC - the state owned enterprise.

It’s a copper dominant system also, discovered in 2015. It's pre-resource, but has a pipe like geometry as well, which requires further drilling. It will be certainly part of our focus going forward.

But last year we made our most significant discovery to date on 100 percent owned ground, ground that we acquired from MMG back in 2016. It's a zinc- lead-silver rich mineral system. Wagga Tank was the initially discovered back in the seventies and was drilled tested by various programmes until 1989, however there was no follow up drilling from that time. It was deemed too small for the owners, when it was parked in 1989. We picked it up from MMG 2016, and we and did some follow-up work, the first in almost 3 decades.

That work led us to the view that the system was likely to be much larger than previously considered so we stepped out a kilometer away and found exactly the same style of mineralization as at Wagga Tank. That area we've called Southern Nights, to the south of Wagga Tank. It was named after a Glen Campbell song. Glen Campbell passed away during the period when we made the discovery – we thought it was a fitting name. We've gone on to find that essentially Wagga Tank and Southern Nights is one large mineral system. It's essentially connected. It's about two kilometers of strike now, it's open in each direction, it's open down dip. At Wagga Tank, it is essentially weathered from surface, with an oxide gold zone and then morphs into primarily zinc-lead-silver- rich, massive sulfide system at the base of oxidation.

Southern Nights is a blind discovery. It was sitting under about 100 meters of paleodrainage channel cover, but the primary mineralization kicks in about 120 meters below surface. We have a high grade system at Southern Nights over about 700 meters of strike so far. But the whole system essentially joins up, it's one large mineral system. That's the third discovery, the third string to the bow. To date it looks like the most important discovery that we've made there. We get copper and gold in that system as well and certainly epithermal vein textures.

So there's something a bit different, perhaps not quite a classic Cobar style, perhaps some sort of hybrid style deposit there. But it's our focus. 90 percent of activity is in relation to Wagga Tank-Southern Nights. We completed a lot of drilling over the last 12 months, but we've just finishing a capital raising, right now, to enable us to get back in there. Next step is to put a maiden resource to that mineral system.

Dr. Allen Alper: That sounds excellent. Could you tell our readers/investors a bit about your background, your Board and your Team?

Rob Tyson: I am an exploration geologist, predominantly around base and precious metals. I worked in Queensland and New South Wales and Western Australia. I’ve never really gone offshore – just on mine site visits. But exploration geology is my background and most of our team’s background. Peel’s leadership team is a similar vintage to myself and have been with the company for pretty much since startup. We have a very, very good team of people. We've established a real presence out in the Cobar Basin. We have a station that we rent out there, a farm, and we've had a continual presence there for pretty much 10 years now.

I think as a result we've learned some proprietary information in terms of how to go about successfully exploring for these systems. Also on a practical level, we know who to call when things go wrong, how to be proficient in the environment in which we're operating. The other directors are both entrepreneurial gentlemen. One has a property development background and the other has a media publishing, including mining media, background. They bring a depth of commercial knowledge and dealing, but also have a good understanding of the technical issues that we face as well. We have a longstanding and outstanding technical team and strong commercial and technical presence on the Board.

Dr. Allen Alper: Well, it sounds like you have a great background and you have a very strong Board and Team. That sounds great. What are the primary reasons our high-net-worth readers/investors should consider investing in Peel Mining?

Rob Tyson: Probably number one is that we dominate the landscape, the Cobar Basin area. Number two is that we're very good at what we do, and technically I think we're really strong - I think we're good scientists and explorers. Thirdly is the fact that we've made three high grade discoveries in the last seven years, which speaks to the quality of the rocks that we're actually exploring. Probably the fourth reason is that generally what you find near surface with a Cobar-style deposit tends to be the tip of the iceberg. Take the CSA mine owned by Glencore as an example, they are currently mining at around 1700m below surface. It is also the highest grade copper mine in Australia, which is the fifth reason for being in the Cobar Basin – discoveries tend to be very high grade. We believe the discoveries we’ve made are likely the top of these systems and that they'll go on to turn into much larger systems over time. Probably the next reason is that we believe that the three discoveries we made won't be the last, we think that we're really just getting established in the district. It's still pretty early days. We think we have the ability to make fourth and fifth discoveries in the next 12 to 18 months and we're certainly going to do our best to prove that.

Dr. Allen Alper: Sounds like you have an excellent team and an excellent location, with a great potential for discovery and you are already there and discovering. Sounds like those are very compelling reasons for our high-net-worth readers/investors to consider investing in Peel Mining. Is there anything else you'd like to add Rob?

Rob Tyson: Just thanks for the opportunity to tell the Peel story to Metals News, Doctor Alper.

Dr. Allen Alper: I’ve enjoyed learning about your accomplishments. I know our readers/investors will as well. We’ll publish your press releases as they come out so our readers/investors can follow your progress.

http://www.peelmining.com.au/

Rob Tyson
Managing Director

Phone: +61 (8) 9382 3955
Email: info@peelmining.com.au