Interview with Legacy Minerals (ASX:LGM)

We spoke with Legacy Minerals‘ CEO Chris Byrne about his exiting suite of exploration projects, including the first modern exploration work in about a century on the old Harden Gold Field near Young, NSW. Legacy Minerals (ASX:LGM) is currently completing its ASX IPO.

Transcription below.

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Stuart: Hello, and welcome to “Stocks Down Under.” My name is Stuart Roberts and I’m one of the editors of our publication. And with me today, on the afternoon of Wednesday the 4th of August, 2021, is Chris Byrne, who is the Managing Director of Legacy Minerals. Chris, welcome to “Stocks Down Under.”

Chris: Thanks for having us, Stuart. It’s a pleasure to be here today.

Stuart: Now, Legacy is just lining up to raise $7 million in its IPO, post-money $16 million market capitalization. You’ve staked out a number of very interesting projects in the Lachlan Fold Belt, which, obviously, is growing increasingly fashionable right now. And the one that’s got me interested is the Harden Gold Project. You are resurrecting a historic mine that was worked in the 19th century to the early 20th century, which back in the day produced 55,000 ounces and it’s virtually lain idle for 100 years now. Tell us what you want to achieve in your Harden Project.

Chris: Sure thing, Stuart. Harden is…it’s exciting for us. It’s a historic, high-grade, you know, gold mine, 55,000 ounces and an average grade of 24 grams per ton, so significant in terms of that high-grade mineralization. And the old-timers’ work is pretty aggressively…up until the first World War, and, you know, they had the big cyanide plant and about 150 men were working on it. And since then, it’s been virtually untouched. So there’s been no modern exploration until Legacy Minerals come along. We’ve got some fantastic results from soil sampling that we’ve done down there recently. Gold in the soil was grading up to 5.9 grams per ton, multiple hits over half a gram. So it’s a heavily mineralized district. It’s what we did expect, knowing that the alluvial production in the young grade at Adara was around 500,000 ounces. But it’s really exciting. Post the IPO, it’s one of our high-priority dual targets. We plan to get in there and really test underneath the mine workings there. There’s been no fresh drop drilling. There were some drilling that was done in the 1980s to assess a [inaudible 00:02:12.243] cut and they did some very shallow rab drilling. And again, they did intercept some significant mineralization. So it’s really wide open for us to get in there and get stuck into the drilling. And we’re quite excited, particularly when you look at these high-grade, narrow vein systems. There’s a few other big name explorers chasing them. We’ve got Sutton out at West [inaudible 00:02:33.150], and more importantly, O’Reilly purchased [inaudible 00:02:35.646] in November of last year for $200,00…$200 million. I’ll correct myself. And that’s important to show the potential of these high-grade, you know, that’s a Granadara Hostess system, in terms of their mineralization and their potential. So we’re really excited to get stuck in there.

Stuart: Yeah, and that’ll be a change in what the world is favoring the Lachlan for. As you know, talking previously, Cadie has had all the running now. So we’ve got the emerging companies going after a different kind of mine.

Chris:Yeah, I think it’s quite exciting because, yeah, as I said, the focus on the Lachlan Fold Belt has been on bulk tonnage deposits, and certainly within our Legacy portfolio, we do have those style of mineralization. We’ve got our copper/gold core-free related target up near Cadie, Blainie and our Cobar style. But we mix that, importantly, with our epithermal. We’ve got high-grade carbonate-based metal mine at Bauloora, which we’re planning to drill immediately post the IPO. We’ve got these high-grade mineralized from surface in at Harden as well so we quite balanced out our portfolio to really appeal to the traditional Lachlan Fold Belt, you know, the classic style deposit. And I guess these high-grade, low-cost intensive, you know, cheaper targets that we’re, sort of, trying to hit.

Stuart: So let’s talk a little bit about Bauloora. Obviously, a poly-metallic deposit there. And by the looks of it, more walk-up targets than you know what to do with in the near term. What’s your plans there?

Chris: Yeah, so Bauloora’s exciting. It’s one of the largest low sulfination epithermal systems in New South Wales. And to put that into context, 90 kilometers away is Cowel’s Evolutions, Cowel Mine, 11 million ounces indelible. So what we’re seeing at Bauloora is a mineralization that’s present across a 27 square kilometer alteration footprint. It’s mineralized on the surface. We’ve got just numerous targets across this [inaudible 00:04:37.284]. We’ve got vein systems up 2 kilometers long, 5 meters wide, grading up to 40 grand a ton in rock chips. We’ve got the Bauloora Mine, which is our first target that we’re planning to draw across the IPO. And they’ve got some incredible bonanza silt grades from Stanton that was done in the ’50s, Zed Lead Zinc Mine, up to 3700 grams per ton silver, over 50% plus lead zinc in some of the assays. So really quite high-grade and it’s just an incredible system. And the drilling, it’s been very, very sparsely looked at from previous explorers. So we’re quite excited to really get in there, model it, understand it and drill it out.

Stuart:And it’s interesting, way out at Cobar, you’ve grabbed an interesting piece of ground right next to the Pitgold Mines that are building a really [inaudible 00:05:25.994] amount. What’s the motivation there?

Chris:Yeah, so we moved into Cobar and it’s essentially why we founded the company Legacy Minerals. We saw a lot of free ground and a lot of opportunity out there. So Cobar in 2017, tied up by some of, you know, the biggest borers. We’ve got Glencore out there. There wasn’t a lot of new [inaudible 00:05:44.667] in the region necessarily. CDX as well, mining’s biggest of the players. Since we moved in, there’s been a huge amount of activity. So we’ve got [inaudible 00:05:56.240] Resources there, [inaudible 00:05:58.232] recently bought their [inaudible 00:05:59.238] OPI operation online. We’ve got Peel Mining heading towards production across some of their satellite deposits. So it’s really exploded as a region, you know, for mining activity, for significant, you know, investment from both miners and explorers. And so we’re quite excited to be in the midst out there. And we really, again, moved early on in the piece and based off some good new interpretation of the mineralization style in the Cobar Basin that came out from the geological survey of New South Wales. So we’re excited there. It’s elephant hunting, but it’s an area of New South Wales where, you know, discoveries are more likely to get converted to mines and less likely anywhere else.

Stuart:Yes, it’s very gratifying. When I first got interested in the resources sector, people would often talk about the Cobar basin as being elephant country. And, yeah, some of those elephants are now being bagged, and more to come, God willing. Now, you’re not a base metal guy by trade. You studied engineering and a lot of your career was in the coal industry before you got this company started. Tell us how we got Legacy Minerals up and running.

Chris:Yeah, so my background is in mining, in coal mining, but I’m an engineer by trade. So I’ve worked in, I guess, mining operations…

Stuart:I saw from your resume, by the way, you spent a bit of time in the Hunter Valley, which is where I’m from. So I’m glad you got out of there without spending too much time.

Chris:Well, yeah, the mines have got shut down, sadly. I didn’t have much choice in the matter. But we definitely saw an opportunity, you know. It’s a lot less contentious, obviously, exploring the, you know, base metals, the gold/copper space. And as an electrical engineer, I definitely saw the demand, you know, many years ago for, you know, copper, in terms of the global supply chain issue that’s really come into fruition now in terms of the EV market. So that’s how we saw that opportunity to go in copper space and, in particular, the Lachlan. We thought it was very under-explored. And that’s how we’ve sort of ended up with this great package. So that’s the background in terms of how I got involved. And we take the lens, what I like to say, we balance out, you know, the pure exploration that’s in the team with, I guess, the corporate side of have a good mining and corporate background that apply a pretty close lens as to projects that we can see as being potentially feasible mining or resource down the track.

Stuart: Now, if we’re having this conversation a year from now, what do you hope to have achieved, apart from getting listed on the ASX, which is a near-term opportunity?

Chris:Yeah, that’s a good question. A year from now, we’ve got three drill campaigns planned before the end of the year, so Bauloora, and then we’re drilling out the two strikes in mines at Harden and [inaudible 00:08:43.236]. From there…well, in conjunction with that, we’re doing some parallel, you know, targeted generative work across Cobar, Fontenoy and Rockley. Whether or not we choose to go back down to Bauloora and Harden to do some additional or follow-up campaigns, we’re not quite certain. We’re fairly confident around the mineralization, due to some of the historic intercepts and production. If our initial drill campaigns warrant us to look at follow-up campaigns or even resource definition campaigns, that’s a good outcome within the next year. But again, due to the high-grade, consistent results that are being got from previous explorers, there’s a level of confidence there that that’s where we might be in a year’s time.

Stuart: Well, Chris Byrne, Team at Legacy Mineral, well done on assembling such quality, sort of, projects, and here’s to a successful float for Legacy. Now, you reminded me before you started that “Friday Beers with Marc and Stuart” is one of our brands here at “Stocks Down Under.” So since you’ve got some copper play, I brought along Rustadon Red IPA to celebrate. So I’m going to have a drink in honor of the IPO. What are you drinking, Chris?

Chris:Yeah, well, I am drinking a Heineken. And I will confess it is a zero strength so, not the 7% I think that you…

Stuart: All right, I’ll have to do the drinking for the two of us.

Chris: But yeah, thanks for having us on the show today [inaudible 00:10:12.253]. It’s good to have a chat.

Stuart: Good luck to you.