Searching for gold and copper in the Cobar Basin

Glen Diemar, Managing Director of Australian Gold and Copper Limited (ASX:AGC), provides an update on the company, discussing drill targets, plans and outlook.

Peter Milios: We're talking with Australian Gold & Copper, ASX code AGC. We welcome to the network AGC Managing Director Glen Diemar. Glen, welcome to the network.

Glen Diemar: Good day, Peter.

Peter Milios: Glen, for new investors, can you tell us a bit about the company?

Glen Diemar: Yeah sure, Peter. AGC was born a couple of years ago. We IPO'd in January 2021. We had seven drill ready projects all through New South Wales. We think New South Wales is a great jurisdiction. We're based out of Orange; we have our exploration office there and we have a corporate office in Perth, but our focus is New South Wales and growing resources in New South Wales. New South Wales has got the Cadia mine; the giant gold copper mine, we've got North Parks, we've got Cowal, owned by Evolution. So it's a great place to explore some of the best mines in the world. For AGC, we're based in the Cobar Basin. It's an incredible basin, multi commodity; gold, copper, lead, zinc. So it's semi-diversified in its deposits and you've got some of the great mines on the ASX there.

Peter Milios: Glen, the company has now identified five new drill targets in the South Cobar Basin. Can you explain the techniques that were employed to identify the targets?

Glen Diemar: We took a bit of a scientific approach with this and we looked northward to the major mines in the Cobar Basin. We said, "Well if you were to explore them today, how would you find those?" IP geophysics, called 'Induced Polarization' geophysics, and lead in soils, we'll find almost every one of them. And the new discoveries that are coming south, closer towards us, that have been discovered in the last 10 years have all been found by IP geophysics and lead in soils. It's quite incredible. So we've employed those same methods here in the South Cobar Basin, where there has been no geophysics done like this and very little exploration. It's quite incredible. The mines in the north were discovered in 1870. It's a mature mining district and it's hard to find big new deposits in mature mining districts. So we've just come south and we've opened up this whole new region in the south and we think we've got some great, great potential to grow a major mining company down there.

Peter Milios: What are your drilling and testing plans for the five targets?

Glen Diemar: This is exciting! Just today we announced that we've secured a rig and we'll be starting drilling there in mid-September. Well, the rig is coming down in mid-September. We're going to start with Hill Top; which is our priority one drill target. We always like to start with our best first. Why not? Consistent gold at surface over 450 meters. We've got big IP chargeability targets and big lead in soil targets. And then we will move to the other four targets as well, which are all IP soil geochem. But we've been working here for two and a half years now, so we've worked out the belt. There's been very little expiration over the years and I think all five of these targets have really got some solid potential to deliver fantastic results.

Peter Milios: The Cobar Basin has seen several high profile discoveries recently by other companies. How do AGC's targets compare to some of those discoveries?

Glen Diemar: Brilliant. The Federation deposit owned by Aurelia Metals (ASX:AMI) in the north, that is one of the highest polymetallic grade discoveries in Australia. Some of their drill holes are 20 meters at 50 per cent; lead plus zinc and a hundred grams gold. Just incredible stuff. So for us, coming off a market cap of $5 million, you think about what a drill hole like that could do to our company. Those were discovered on IP geophysics and soil geochem, just like we're doing, and our deposits look very similar to that.

Our non-exec director, Adam McKinnon, used to work with Aurelia for eight years as the general manager for Aurelia Metals, for geology, and he led that discovery. Now he's on our board and he really likes our five targets. He was also business development geologist for Aurelia Metals. So he's seen all the deposits in the district and he's on our board. He likes our targets and he's vetted them and we're really excited about September and upcoming drill programs.

Peter Milios: And lastly, Glen, what M&A activity, if any, are you seeing in the region?

Glen Diemar: Good question Peter. It's a hot region at the moment because copper is on the forefront of everyone's mind. We all understand that there's a massive copper deficit coming. New York listed Moneybox, called Metals Acquisition Limited, came down and purchased the CSA copper mine from Glencore for a cool $1.1 billion US. It's quite amazing. The transaction's just completed. And just a couple of weeks ago, Metals Acquisition announced their first drill results to ever come out of the CSA mine in 28 years because Glencore never announced results. So their first drill results, they announced, I think it was 24 meters at 14percent copper. This is what the Cobar Basin can deliver. The footprints of our deposits look to be about the same as the CSA copper mine and this is the highest grade copper mine in the world. It is just a fantastic target. So for us, you can get high grade hits for investors and that can have a great effect on your share price and the company and also the region as a whole.

Peter Milios: Glen, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk with you today.

Glen Diemar: Thanks Peter.