George Sakalidis, Founder and Managing Director, Magnetic Resources NL (MAU) Discusses Commercialization of Their Large-Scale Gold Discovery, Laverton Region of Western Australia
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By Dr. Allen Alper, PhD Economic Geology and Petrology, Columbia University, NYC, USA
on 4/1/2022
We spoke with George Sakalidis, who is Founder and Managing Director of Magnetic Resources NL (MAU), a dynamic and unique gold company, focused on developing their large scale, 100% owned, advanced Hawks Nest 9 and adjacent Lady Julie gold assets. in the Laverton region of Western Australia. The shallow gold and its proximity to existing mining operations and infrastructure in the region, represents the unique point of difference for investing in Magnetic Resources. Average depth of drilling is only 69m on all projects. Some of the intersections are high-grade, including 25m @ 4.4 g/t from surface. The Company has commenced the 7,500m Lady Julie RC drilling program, targeting mineralization to 300m. We learned from Mr. Sakalidis, that Magnetic Resources has appointed Jefferies, a big investment banking group, and they're doing a strategic review, to weigh ownership options for the Company.
Magnetic Resources NL
Dr. Allen Alper:
This is Dr. Allen Alper, Editor-in-Chief of Metals News, talking with George Sakalidis, who is Founder and Managing Director of Magnetic Resources. George, could you give our readers/investors an overview of your Company, what differentiates your Company, and the most important things that occurred, in this past year, and what your plans are going into 2022?
George Sakalidis:
The Company has been actively looking at gold, over the last four years, at Laverton, in Western Australia. Laverton, West Australia is a very big area, in terms of gold production, over the historical past. Currently, mine production is around 40 million ounces in the Laverton- Leonora Region where there are some very large mines. We happen to be next door to two of the very large deposits at the Wallaby Mine, seven million ounces and Sunrise Dam, which is 16 million ounces, so we're pretty close to those major operations.
In terms of our tenements, there are two main deposits, Hawks Nest 9 (HN9) and Lady Julie and we've been mainly drilling those over the past three years. We've drilled 110,000 meters of drilling and over 1,500 drill holes. It’s defined surface resources over a 2.5-kilometer length, by about 250 meters in width at HN9. We’ve been drilling an area, over a kilometer in length and 200m width at Lady Julie, still finding some very thick high-grade intersections, starting from surface.
In terms of our actual shareholders, we're mainly made up of high-net-worth investors. Fairly good share performance over the past two to three years, we have gone from about 12 cents to $1.40 today. Market cap is around 320 million. Our top four shareholders have 45% of the Company. Our top 20 have 78% or so, very tightly held stock. There are only 224 million shares, even though we listed in 2007. That's sort of a quick snapshot and summary.
Dr. Allen Alper:
My understanding is Management, and the Board are invested heavily in the Company and have skin in the game. Is that correct?
George Sakalidis:
Yeah, Board and Management have 22%.
Dr. Allen Alper:
So that's great! It's good to see that Management and the Board are aligned with shareholders and believe in your project and are investing in your projects. That's fantastic! Could you tell our readers/investors, what your major goals for 2022 are?
George Sakalidis:
Effectively, we've defined two lots of deposits, and the plan in 2022 is to initially put down a 7,500-meter program, with holes down to 250 meters plus, so we can endeavor to find the depth extent of these deposits. The two main ones are Hawks Nest 9 and Lady Julie, but there's a third one called Lady Julie 4, which is two kilometers to the north of Lady Julie. Plus, there's another one called Homeward Bound. We are actively drilling all these sites, trying to evaluate the size of the resources.
But the other thing that's happened is that we've appointed Jefferies, a big investment banking group, and they're doing a strategic review. At the same time, we're opening up a data room for our interested companies that are adjacent to us and elsewhere as well. So even though we're still drilling, we're opening up our data room and allowing our neighbors to have a bit of a look at our resource and the economic value of what we have, so they can come back to us and show their interest in what we have.
Dr. Allen Alper:
Well, that's excellent! That's a great position, to be in elephant country surrounded by large mines and companies and a huge gold mining district. So that's excellent!
George Sakalidis:
Yes, it’s important to emphasize that all our deposits, that we've found to date, actually start from surface. So even though we've drilled 110,000 meters of drilling, where we've defined surface resources. Hawks Nest 9, which is the first one that we've drilled has excellent gold recoveries. We had 93% recoveries, without tweaking the grain size, no sulfides or deleterious elements and very low reagent costs.
Our neighbors, we understand one of them actually uses surface material to blend and that deposit is 0:06:36 looking for other materials, so we think this could easily be that material. The second big producer also is an underground mine, and they're not using surface materials, so this would be quite handy for them as well. The third Company actually has a limited mine life, so we think they'll be interested in what we have.
Dr. Allen Alper:
Well, it's an excellent position to be in. George, could you refresh the memory of readers/investors about your background and your Team?
George Sakalidis:
I'm a geophysicist and I have a bit of a track record in major discoveries. I've done a lot of work for a Company, called Image Resources, and basically helped them find a mineral sand deposit, which we’re mining today and making a lot of money. I think they have about $80 million in the bank, by the end of the year. This discovery with Laverton that we've made, is all brand new. I’m a geophysicist, so I look at the aeromagnetic and ground magnetics and reinterpret and test and have made these new discoveries.
We have worked out the structural settings and laid out soil sampling programs. That's how we discovered the HN9 deposit to start with. It had a three kilometer by 400-meter-wide soil anomaly, ranging between 0.2 and 0.6 grams. That's the one, on which we've drilled over 70,000 meters, in that HN9 deposit. But clearly, what we found was very significant.
Dr. Allen Alper:
Well, that's excellent, that's great to have such a successful background of discovery. George, could you tell our readers/investors the primary reasons they should consider investing in Magnetic Resources?
George Sakalidis:
I think the main reason would be, given the interest in our project from our neighbors, we believe there will be potentially some M&A, which normally is done at a premium to share price, we think that that's a big positive. Secondly, the deeper drilling will uncover the depth extent of these surface deposits, and we think the resource size, in all our former main areas that we're drilling at the moment, will grow. Given the gold space and the gold price we expect to be rewarded by the share price going up.
Dr. Allen Alper:
Those are very compelling reasons for readers/investors to consider investing in your Company. You have a great Team, successful track record and a great region. You already have shown substantial gold, very accessible, over a large region. So that's excellent! George, is there anything you’d like to add?
George Sakalidis:
I think the main game is the gold space. There is one nickel-palladium play that we have. I'm not sure whether your readers/investors have heard of the Chalice Julimar Nickel-Copper PGE discovery, made last year. There is a massive share price increase in that Company from about 20 cents to about $8. On the back of it, there has been a massive pegging rush, over about 30,000 square kilometers. It's literally starting only about 50 kilometers north of Perth. Magnetic has four projects to the east and the Company will be doing some initial drilling work on one of those intrusions. Even though it's not our main game, clearly it is an exciting group of projects next door to, or close to one of the biggest nickel discoveries in Australia for a long time.
Dr. Allen Alper:
It's of great interest to readers/investors, particularly those interested in EV materials, so that's excellent and essential for nickel. It seems huge!
George Sakalidis:
I think there is a lot of money being raised now, especially for these sorts of nickel projects.
Dr. Allen Alper:
Sounds excellent! We’ll publish your press releases as they come out so our readers/investors can follow your progress.
https://magres.com.au/
George Sakalidis
Managing Director
Phone (08) 9226 1777
Mobile 0411 640 337
Email george@magres.com.au
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