A message from the Chairman

A MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN

Having joined the Board at the start of the year, it is a great privilege to this month assume the Chairman’s role at Lefroy Exploration.

Over my 37-year career I’ve worked across a broad spectrum of ASX-listed companies in terms of their size, and over that time held roles with exposure to exploration, development, operations, banking and finance.

I am attracted to Lefroy by its strong mix of excellent assets and people. From an exploration perspective, the land package Lefroy holds is extremely prospective and its location between Kalgoorlie and Kambalda places it in the heart of one of Australia’s most prolific mining provinces.

The combination of gold and nickel assets is also appealing, and recent record gold prices coupled to a lesser extent with the improvement in nickel, puts Lefroy in a unique position. The Company has the opportunity to commercialise our gold assets to provide short-term value for the Company and our shareholders, which in turn creates the ability to fund the Company to pursue further activities.

I’m a strong believer in having near-term, mid-term and long-term objectives. At Lefroy we have all these elements in place. In the near-term we look forward to commercialising our existing gold resources to help fund the ongoing objectives of the business. Our projects are ideally located close to established processing facilities and critical infrastructure. 

The medium-term view is to continue our diligent exploration programs to discover more substantial assets, with a long-term view to developing these into mines. And of course, while not currently a priority, we will continue to assess our nickel resources and targets in the background, which have the potential to provide great value in the future. 

We are doing the technical work to achieve all those objectives and support outcomes that build value for the Company and our shareholders. The acquisition of mineral rights over Location 45 a year ago also provides an exceptional opportunity, with the rights held via a long-term agreement and located on freehold land. Location 45 contains existing gold and nickel resources and now form a key part of the growing Lefroy Project. 

The Lefroy team, led by CEO Graeme Gribbin is small but highly capable. Since stepping into the role in February, Graeme’s presentation of the Lefroy story and engagement with the market has been excellent, and I look forward to working with him. 

The Board and Company remain highly conscious of spending shareholders money judiciously and making sure we realise value for them. While the sharp increase in gold price and improved economic circumstances generally have buoyed some in the resources sector, we still haven’t seen that trickle down to the exploration space. 

Nonetheless, I believe that time is near. In the meantime, I look forward to working with the Lefroy team to deliver benefits and outcomes from our programs. Our immediate focus is on planning a regional air core program, which we intend to commence later this month. At the same time, we are engaging with the operators of gold processing facilities in the region, in order to identify options for commercialisation of our existing gold resources.