Company Interview / Far East Gold secures golden investment from China

Justin Werner from Far East Gold (ASX:FEG) highlights a significant milestone for his company. This new investment brings necessary capital and a partner with extensive mining experience. Far East Gold is excited to accelerate exploration projects, leveraging their partner's capabilities to further their portfolio.

Justin discusses Far East Gold's focus on Indonesian projects, including four in Indonesia and two in Australia. Notable projects include Aguilar with a million-ounce gold equivalent resource and Triangle, previously explored by Anglo American. Far East Gold successfully overcomes local challenges, advancing these projects.

Justin mentions a supportive environment in Indonesia and highlights Far East Gold's strong funding position with recent share placements totalling AUD 18 million. The funds will support their ambitious exploration plans, including a maiden resource at Isenberg and further drilling at various promising sites.

Full unedited transcript:

0:00

For? For us, it's a, uh, it's a significant milestone. Um, we're we're obviously a junior exploration company, but we have an excellent portfolio of, uh, of of assets, um, you know, a number of which we believe have the potential to be tier one assets. What this investment does for us is it obviously brings, um, a lot of capital to allow us to accelerate the, the exploration and, and further the projects. But senior also brings a significant amount of mining experience and execution capability. They're the second largest tin miner in China and the largest silver producer. And they have experience in both open cut underground mining that very good uh, technical team. And so, you know, we see them as, as, as an excellent partner to help us take, uh, take our portfolio of, uh, projects forward.

0:52

Justin, can you tell us a little more about that portfolio that you have in Indonesia?

0:58

Yeah. So we we have, uh, four projects in Indonesia, two in Australia. But our focus has really been on our Indonesian projects. Um, two of the projects are what, uh, what what is termed, uh, contract of works. Um, they're they're the most preferred form of tenure in, uh, in, in Indonesia and across all of our projects, we've had work done by most of the majors. So our oiler project in North Sumatra previously explored by Barrick and Newcrest. Um, we were the first company to actually get in and get boots on the ground and drill that project. Our next project, triangle, um, had a significant amount of exploration work done by Anglo American looking for a porphyry copper gold, um, one Aguirre is an advanced project, 1,000,000 ounce gold equivalent resource already and previous work done by, uh, MMG and finally Edinburg, our most recent project, um, again work done by Newmont, Newcrest, Placer Dome, um, all of the majors. And the only

1:57

reason that these projects didn't get advanced by the majors was issues with either forestry History or with the local community. Um, we've been able to overcome all of those, uh, problems. And so we've now, um, able to take the, uh, projects forward. And so, you know, these are significant projects that, uh, the majors obviously were doing work on them because they could see the potential of the projects. Um, but with the team and with the experience that we have in country, um, we've been able to successfully advance these projects. We've got a you picked up a newly quite asset, um, in Papua province. Um, Justin, are there any particular other sort of regulatory or sovereign risks that you need to negotiate at this point?

2:43

Look, we we we we've I myself I've been in Indonesia 20 years. Um, in my other capacity as as CEO of Nickel Industries, you know, we've developed over a little over five years to become the world's largest listed, um, diversified nickel producer. Um, so you know, the, the the opportunity and the ability to to get on the ground and actually get work done and develop mining projects, develop assets. Um, the environment in Indonesia at the moment is actually very, very supportive. Um, and so, you know, we the Isenberg, uh, project, it's rare that you would find somewhere a project of this quality, um, that basically the resource runs from surface. It's, it's very high grade. Um, and we were able to pick it up on, on favorable terms from, from a vendor that, that we've had a long standing relationship with. So, look, I think in, in Indonesia, the best thing you can have or the thing of the

3:43

most value is, is good people and good partners. Um, and, and we certainly have that at Far East Gold. So overall, uh, how do you regard your funding position then with this latest, uh, agreement there in terms of the, uh, the, the place, the share placement plus what, recent $4 million placements as well, where you're at in total then.

4:06

So that that brings us to to 18 million Australians. So we're fully funded for for the foreseeable future, um, to continue with our ambitious exploration plan. Um, Edinburg obviously recently acquired, um, given the historical work that was done there, there was an internal joke resource done to 2004 standards, which, uh, we are going to look to bring up to 2012 and hopefully look to release that to the market in the short term. Um, we think that will be a very good catalyst based on their historical resource. Um, you know, it was it was of a very high grade and, and, you know, well, on the way to, to, to 1,000,000oz, um, and then the triangle project, which is a the project that Anglo American, uh, did a lot of work on the top ranked prospect there. Um, they were unable to drill. Um, we've paved the way for that to be drilled. So we would like to get in there and be, again the first company to drill that. And that's a that's a porphyry copper gold project. Um, you know,

5:06

has the potential to be

5:08

perhaps similar in size as to Ju Bukit Um, which is another porphyry copper gold deposit in Java, which is which was one of the largest, uh, porphyry discoveries made, um, in the last decades. So, Justin, can you get a sense of your timeline then, in terms of development, at least what you're drilling prospects are and beyond that.

5:30

Yeah. So we the the key focus for us will be, um, the maiden, uh, resource at the Isenberg Project. And then we'll be looking to follow that up with, uh, an exploration program aimed on building on that initial resource. And it has tremendous prospects of of the 14 known prospects, only really three have been drilled in any detail, and they're open along strike and uh, and depth. So it will be a maiden George at Edinburg and then looking to continue to grow that resource along with metallurgical test work. Um at it will be drilling those, uh, Porphyry copper gold targets and and you know, that's really looking for for a significant discovery. Um, and then we will continue there to, uh, to work on the drilling at a maiden resource at, uh, at Euler. Um, it's a big system there. It's sort of up to 20km in strike length. Um, and so we're

6:30

getting a better understanding of that system. And then at our one year project, um, we're just advancing that through the approvals to hopefully get that into a mining operation, production phase. Um, and then we'll be able to start doing a, uh, we've been working through a scoping study and then moving into sort of feasibility study stage. So in the pipeline, a number of different projects at different stages. But, uh, this allows us to now sort of hit a number of milestones, particularly in, uh, increasing the, the, the resources that we have, but also advancing the, uh, the projects closer to, uh, towards feasibility and, and then eventually, uh funding for mining.