Noricum Gold plc (LSE:NMG) Chief Executive Officer Greg Kuenzel caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the current market, their Schonberg gold project and new opportunities.
Q1: Recent events at your company, could you just give us a brief outline for people that have not been in touch with that?
A1: In May last year, we started drilling work on one of two sites that are the main focus for us at the moment in Austria, a site called Schonberg. It’s historically a copper producing area and we’ve done quite a lot of work there over the last 18 months. We have quite a comprehensive soil sampling program; mapping geophysics and geochemical, and then following the result of all that work, we started a drill program there towards the end of last year. Things have been a little quiet the last couple of months but we have been busily working in the background, we had to recut and re-assay some of the last couple of drills cores from Schonberg so that has resulted in a bit of a delay in getting those results out but we should be getting those back in the very near future and providing other updates to the market.
Q2: So basically it’s all about Schonberg and how that’s going?
A2: Well yes it is but not totally. We have been very busy the last couple of months, even though we haven’t had a lot of news coming out. I guess the company, particularly over the last 12-18 months, has had a strategy that’s not only focussed on our existing projects but also on project-generation and project-acquisition so we’ve had a lot of work going on that overall strategy. We’re trying to progress the current projects as cost-effectively and efficiently as possible, particularly given the current market conditions, whilst also working on a development pipeline of other projects.
Q3: Obviously the precious metals at the moment are not exactly jumping towards the sky and the dollar’s very strong as well. You’re not just a gold company or silver company, is copper going to be a better or a bigger focus for you?
A3: All of the sites that we’re active on in Austria are a multi-element, some more gold than others, others more copper than others, which is the case in Schonberg. We’ve got a broad target range, as I’ve said all these areas are multi-element so I think we see the ability to target not just the one commodity but several and this provides us with a little bit more of a comfort in the current tough market of commodities in general.
Q4: But is it the case that even if we stay exactly where we are in terms of demand or prices or the economies as a whole, you are still a happy company doing its work?
A4: I don’t know if I’d say we’re happy, it’d be much better if market conditions would improve. One of the tough things at the moment for junior exploration companies, such as ourselves, is that there’s a lot of general apathy from the market, the market just doesn’t seem interested in a lot of companies’ results at the moment and I don’t think it’s just us. Often you can put out these results and you just don’t get the response you would like from the market but we’re confident with the strategy which we’ve got underway and we’re confident that we’re going to see some results in the near future and to continue to progress these assets.
Q5: Is it a time where logic would dictate that there are bargains to be had and you may be looking at some adversely priced resources to take over yourself?
A5: Definitely. That has also been a focus of ours and it’s probably become more so in the last 18 months. I’ve got to be honest, in the last 3-4 months we’ve seen a lot more projects being shown around. We’ve always been focussed on Austria and we’ve always had our ear to the ground there. We’ve got a benefit of being a bit of a first mover in the country, there are a couple other companies active there, a lot of private companies active but we’re really one of the only public so there are various things we are looking at. In general, one of the things you see when the markets get to this point is that there are a lot of companies that are either miss-managed or they’re just not getting the response from their market, be it here on AIM or in Canada or Australia so there are definitely opportunities out there.
