Ferdi Dippenaar: CEO and president, Great Basin Gold
By: Chris Buchanan
Posted: '27-OCT-06 23:23' GMT © Mineweb 1997-2006
MINEWEB: Well a listing on the JSE today of another resource stock. That’s Great Basin Gold listing today. We’ve got Ferdi Dippenaar, CEO and president of Great Basin Gold on the line. Ferdi, you’re already on Toronto and Amex in the States, which is very much like our AltX. How has your performance been on these bourses to date?
FERDI DIPPENAAR: Well, good evening. On the Amex and Toronto Stock Exchange the performances have actually been pretty good. In terms of liquidity we trade probably between 250 000 and 300 000 shares per day. This evening the stock prices go up quite sharply, probably in line with what happened in Johannesburg today. So it's actually done well.
MINEWEB: OK, and on the Toronto side?
FERDI DIPPENAAR: Toronto side as well. That’s where the primary listing is. But we have found that the volume or liquidity is probably a lot higher on the Amex. So just a larger market based in America.
MINEWEB: And now what are your prime objectives with the secondary listing on the JSE?
FERDI DIPPENAAR: Well, the secondary listing I think eventually, should we need the cash, it gives us an alternative in terms of raising capital to actually build the mine. And that would specifically be the Burnstone property in South Africa. What it also does give us is an increased level of awareness with local institutions and shareholders. And I think, thirdly, the fact that two-thirds of our production will be coming from South Africa, the fact that we are building this mine, it's close to Balfour, Johannesburg, Heidelberg – you know, it's really local in more ways than one. We have seen some interest in that, and really we’re just supplying the shares into the interest locally.
MINEWEB: I want to have a look at your various holdings, your various assets. Let’s look at the Burnstone asset in Mpumalanga. Just take us through exactly the situation with Burnstone.
FERDI DIPPENAAR: Burnstone – it's just over a 7m ounce resource. And it's got a mineable reserve of 2.4m ounces. It's Kimberley reef that we mine. It has been well drilled out. I think the one thing that the company has done extremely well – they drilled 261 surface boreholes into the ore body, so the risk associated with mining it is pretty low. The capital cost, because it's shallow, 220m below surface, dipping down to about 700, 800m below as part of phase one, which is extremely shallow as well, means the capital cost is low. It's just over R1bn life-of-mine capital cost. And all in all, you know, we’ve started the project, we kicked off the project from the 7th of July by starting the construction, the portal. Started blasting on the 11th or August. So what we’ve got at the moment, we’ve actually started construction of the mine. And I think that was an important step in the actual delivery of the project.
MINEWEB: Now you’ve got other assets. The one in the United States, the Hollister property, what’s that about?
FERDI DIPPENAAR: Well high-grade silver and gold epithermal vein systems. These are also shallow. We’ve got a decline that has been constructed in Nevada, Hecla, a silver operator wanting exposure into gold is actually earning in on the project. But to give you an idea, it's a million-ounce resource at this stage. On average it's about 42 grams per ton of gold and 225 grams per ton of silver. So it's very different to the Wits Basin, but a lot easier to mine. It's about 200 feet below surface. That’s where we start mining these veins. So you can see both assets are very shallow in terms of ore bodies, and very easy to mine and low risk.
MINEWEB: Right and then the Casino Project in Canada?
FERDI DIPPENAAR: Well that’s non-core at this stage. It is a property. We’ve got our hands full. The one thing we have done as a dedicated management team is apply or appoint the necessary exploration capacity and skills within the company, and we’ve just embarked on a fairly aggressive exploration programme on both properties because we believe there is quite a lot more to find on them. That’s the Burnstone and the Hollister property in Nevada. So the Casino Project has been put on the back burner at this stage and as soon as the other projects are up and running we’ll probably re-look at it again.
MINEWEB: Now finally, you’re wanting to evolve from an emerging gold producer to a mid-tier producer. What is the time frame that you’re looking at gearing yourself up, or bringing yourself into that mid-tier sector?
FERDI DIPPENAAR: Yeah, well we’ve given ourselves three years from the listing today. You know, if I have a look at the production expectations in about three years’ time, probably close to about 300 000 ounces per annum. That does leave a gap of where we’d like to be at 200 000 ounces. So we will be looking at either organic growth or then acquisition to take us to that limit.
MINEWEB: Thanks, Ferdi Dippenaar, CEO and president of Great Basin Gold.
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