Lionsgold Ltd (LON:LION) Chief Executive Officer Cameron Parry caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss its Indian Gold Portfolio Valuation and Project Update
Q1: Why is the valuation report important?
A1: Well, for three reasons. Firstly, it highlights the fact that there are 3 dozen other prospecting licences, prospecting licences in application and mining licences in application, covering over 900 square kilometres across southern and central India in the portfolio of Geomysore Services India Pvt Ltd, of which Lionsgold owns 20.5%. The second reason, the expected value determined by the independent expert in the report, Golder Associates, is US$7.95 million and the attributable value to Lionsgold of that is equivalent to £1.25 million, which in itself represents more than half the company’s current market cap of £2.25 million at the current 1.1p share price. The third reason, I suppose, that the valuation report is important is because it demonstrates not only the considerable commercial potential of Liongold’s activities in India but also that this is just one element that has been built into the value that is in Lionsgold.
Q2: So, what are the other elements of value if this isn’t a major one?
A2: Well, the valuation report is important for the three reasons already touched on but our major project in India is, of course, Jonnagiri where we have a resource totalling at present 361,000 ounces of gold, of which 214,000 ounces are in the indicated category. At Jonnagiri, our partners Geomysore have been granted a 30-year mining licence to produce 365,000 of ore per year and we have a feasibility study due to be finalised in late June with expressions of interest from contractors wanting to look at developing and operating the mine under contract with Geomysore. If we can bring Jonnagiri on line around the end of next year, that would be the first privately-owned producing gold mine in India since independence, which occurred some 70 years ago.
The other core components of Lionsgold are our Finland Gold joint venture, in which we have a 28% interest and where we aim to be producing thousands of tonnes of gold ore next quarter to generate a couple of thousand ounces of refine gold and revenues for the JV in Q4 this year. And lastly IndexGold.com, our recently released online gold holding and trading platform where individuals can hold part of their liquid assets in physical gold with the same convenience as using an online bank account.
Q3: So, what’s coming up for the shareholders in the market to see from Lionsgold Ltd?
A3: The Jonnagiri economic feasibility study, as mentioned, should be complete by the end of this month, there is the potential for an MDO, a Mine Development Operator contract, to be signed on that project which is one of the ways of addressing the capex requirements of building a mine. We are looking to update the market on IndexGold.com this month as we work through the digital marketing and product development strategy for that platform and lastly, on our Finland Gold joint venture project in central Finland, our JV has 5 prospecting licences and 2 pending covering around 24 square kilometres there with some high-grade gold deposits found from drilling to date. With that one, we plan to carry out a bulk sampling programme of thousands of tonnes to produce a couple of thousand ounces of gold in Q3 and Q4 this year and we’ll have updates on that project accordingly as those activities are carried out. So, in all three business divisions we should have progress to report, I expect, over June and July.
