Kairos Minerals Ltd managing director Dr Peter Turner discusses the company's Mt York Gold Project.
Proactive: Now we're going to talk about the Mt York Gold Project in the Pilbara. Can you talk us through what the project is and why you're so excited about it?
Dr Peter Turner: Well, we're really excited about it for a number of reasons. One is that probably a lot of people have not really heard about Mt York in the past. That's partly because the company has been strategising last year and doing deals. But effectively, the gold project is a 1.4 million ounce gold project. The important thing to note, and what distinguishes us from our peers, is that the mineralisation is largely contained in a single open pit. The metallurgy is very clean. But there's enormous upside in terms of the resource. So I've mentioned it's 1.4 million ounces, but we think, with all the technical work that we have and the deal we've done with Pilbara Minerals, our neighbour to the north, we feel that this project is going to grow significantly.
Proactive: And you've mentioned in the notes that the consistent mineralisation is over three kilometres. So it's quite substantial?
Dr Peter Turner: Yeah, it's very substantial. We've drilled it out — not in any great detail — but certainly what we see is that the mineralisation is consistent along three kilometres. We can put a hole into what we call the main trend, comprising three prospects called Main Hill, Breccia Hill, and Gossan Hill. We can put a drill hole into any part of that three kilometres and we can hit mineralisation. And that's quite unusual for gold projects. It's very unusual to have consistency like that, and that really helps when we come to develop the project — in terms of mining and development.
Proactive: And, fully funded too — you’ve got A$12.4 million in the bank. So all ducks are in a row here?
Dr Peter Turner: Well, not just A$12.4 million in the bank. We also expect another A$10 million to come from a deal that we did with Pilbara Minerals at the end of 2024. So not only are we fully funded moving forward on the 20,000 to 30,000 metre drill program that we're about to start, but also through to the completion of the feasibility as well, which is moving forward quite nicely.
Drilling to start shortly
Proactive: And you're about to start drilling — that's coming up fairly shortly. What do you hope to achieve through this upcoming drilling program?
Dr Peter Turner: Well, the drilling is going to hopefully satisfy two things for us. It's going to test our ideas and strategy to make this into quite a large project. We already consider it to be a large project at 1.4 million ounces. But our strategy is to grow the resources well above that. Secondly, we want to convert the lower confidence resource category material into a higher confidence category. That means moving inferred resources through to indicated resources. We'll do that by drilling deeper parts of the mineralisation, extending along strike, and targeting some of the high-grade pods that we found at the end of 2022.
Proactive: And one of the priority areas there is the Main Hill extension. Can you talk us through what that deposit means to you?
Dr Peter Turner: We've already mentioned that the Mt York Gold Project is three kilometres long. But we know that the mineralisation continues onto the Pilbara Minerals ground. We've negotiated with Pilbara Minerals — and are still negotiating — to get access to that additional 1.5 kilometres of mineralisation. We know it's there from some reconnaissance drilling Pilbara have done. At the end of last year, we signed an agreement. We sold them a non-core licence to the north, and in return we negotiated to acquire the gold and base metal rights to that additional portion. We're very excited. We're in the latter stages of negotiation to complete that transaction and gain access to the ground. The geologists here are really excited to see what’s across the boundary, and we plan to put in detailed diamond drilling to extend those resources, which are not currently part of the resource estimation.
Opportune moment
Proactive: So really, a lot for investors to look forward to. It's going to be a busy year.
Dr Peter Turner: Certainly. It's going to be extremely busy for us. We're cashed up, we've got the drill program lined up, but importantly we've got a project that we think is really going to grow. And I think the news flow coming through this year is going to change the way people have previously seen Kairos.
We'll be putting out new press releases, new drill results, and ultimately a new resource estimation a little bit further into 2025.
Proactive: Lots to look forward to. Just one final question — Kairos is an interesting word. Can you talk us through what it means?
Dr Peter Turner: It’s a biblical term. From what I understand, it means “the right moment” or “the opportune moment”. We feel that 2025 is probably our kairos moment. We've got a lot happening. We want to grow the resources, we want to move toward development, and we're well-funded to do that. So let’s see if 2025 is our kairos moment.
Proactive: And you've got a corporate video on the website that explains everything?
Dr Peter Turner: Yes. I certainly urge people to look at the website and check out the corporate video. It really does sum up in a few minutes who we are, what we're about, what we're trying to achieve, and gives some perspective on the company’s valuation. We're excited about who we are and what we're doing this year.
Proactive: Peter, good luck with all the work to come. Thanks for your time.
Dr Peter Turner: Thanks very much.