Page 67 - pd258-March18 mag-web

Orion shines in the
night sky

When all was crumbling around it, Orion Minerals Ltd valiantly Orion’s register which also includes Tar-
held its ground on the ASX, courtesy of a maiden zinc-copper ney Holdings (7.98%), Hargreave Hale
resource from the historical Prieska in South Africa’s Northern Cape. Ltd (6.46%) and Silja Investment & Alex-
ander Haller (5.36%).

Meanwhile, Anglo American plc’s

Global markets were being smashed couraged by the level of interest in Orion. AASMF $1.4 million loan will see it also

in early February and the ASX was on In the 12 months leading into Mining become a shareholder in Orion, which

the way to losing $60 billion of value in Indaba 2017 there were few investors had a market cap of $58 million, $4.6 mil-

one day due to some anxious selling by willing to give Prieska the time of day, lion cash and was trading at 4.5c/share

investors. except for Tembo Capital’s Peter Rux- in mid-February.

However, as most companies were ton, who Smart deems as the best in the “A year ago today we were at 1.8c/

seeing red, it was all green for Orion world when it comes to understanding share and had just found an investor to

on the back of the release of a global VMS deposits. back the company,” Smart told investors

resource estimate at Prieska of 24.2mt With a scoping study to go by, Ruxton and analysts during a pre-Indaba site

for 874,000t zinc @ 3.47% and 297,000t found Prieska compelling enough to sup- visit.

copper @ 1.23%. port and now Tembo is a 19.99% share- “We put together a team that has deliv-

“It was great we outperformed the mar- holder in Orion. ered success; we have some old knowl-

“kets, but I think we were still very nega- Tembo is the major shareholder on edge combined with youthful enthusiasm

tively impacted. On num- and modern technology to

bers like that, people were work with. Technically, the

expecting that we should It was great we outperformed the project is going right and
have doubled our share markets, but I think we were still the South African geopo-
price on a normal market litical de-risking has been

day,” Orion managing direc- very negatively impacted. On numbers great for us, perfect timing,
like that, people were expecting that we just when you want to build
tor Errol Smart told Paydirt. a major project to remove
Smart viewed reaction to

the resource estimate as should have doubled our share price that big sovereign risk dis-
somewhat glass half full, on a normal market day. count over your head is
however, he has been en- very important.”

AUSTRALIA’S PAYDIRT MARCH 2018 PAGE 67