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adriatic will soon release a scoping study on its Vareš
polymetallic project in Bosnia and Herzegovina
“The reality is we’re drilling out 79,200 ozpa gold.
on defined section lines and Key financials from the PEA were a pre-
we want to report those section tax NPV of $US239-353 million, IRR of 23-
lines so we can put them into 35%, life-of-mine cash costs of $675-783/
a better geological context. It’s oz and life-of-mine AISC of $699-807/oz.
not only for our benefit, but it’s Current resources support an initial mine
also for shareholders’ benefit life of 14 years.
so they can see what is actu- Cronin said there was strong appetite
ally going on as we step north from financial institutions in Europe to pro-
and we step south.” vide development funding for Salave.
Cronin said the regulators in “We’ve kept our costs as light as possible
Bosnia and Herzegovina had to be able to take this forward as far as we
been “extremely” helpful with possibly can,” he said.
guiding the company through “Once the end of October comes and we
permitting applications and receive that terms of reference, I think the
other requirements, giving the share price will start to perform. We don’t
Adriatic team further confi- need to raise capital right now given our
dence an exploitation licence burn rate is very low, but if we want to start
would be granted soon. drilling we’ll probably need to raise some
In Spain, Black Dragon was capital for that, and those discussions have
awaiting government approval been occurring over the last few days.”
of the terms of reference for Cronin insisted the decision to float Black
an environmental permit for its Dragon on the ASX just over 12 months
pany to undertake formal engineering de- Salave gold project at the time of print. ago – and its subsequent delisting from the
sign work as part of its submission for an Cronin spent considerable time in coun- TSX – was correct despite the company’s
operations permit. Some of this is already try last month discussing a range of topics underperforming share price.
being factored into the scoping study. with key government officials, including in- “I still think the ASX is the right exchange
Cronin said the scoping study would pro- troducing them to a Chinese smelter owner for it,” he said. “We see plenty of gold com-
vide the best indication yet as to the optimal who is interested in offtake of the Salave panies on the TSX that just tread water,
development path for the project. concentrate. raising little bits of money here and there. I
“The scoping study has been a lengthy “I think all of this bodes well for demon- think the ASX will embrace it, but it’s prob-
exercise of looking at various options strating that we are quite serious about ably not until we’re through those next de-
around the project, particularly around the building this mine and we are going to ex- velopment milestones.
two mines and how it should be set up,” port the concentrates,” Cronin said. “Mining projects in Europe have always
Cronin said. “There won’t be a new cyanide plant and got a slightly controversial element to them,
“We’ve done a lot of work in looking at the footprint for the project will be relatively but Spain has made a very strong com-
should it be an open pit, should it be an un- small…so I think we’ll be able to progress mitment to its mining industry and that’s
derground, should we be building a plant the project through the environmental primarily been driven by the union support
at Rupice, should we be building a plant clearance pretty quickly. for the current socialist government. And
on the existing Veovača site, or should we “I’ve been buying a bit of stock in Black we know that one of the projects the union
have two plants. Dragon recently, on the basis of my expec- wants to see government support on is Sa-
“Factoring in all of that, we’ve sort of tation the terms of reference will be positive lave, so we’re confident that if we follow the
come to a decision that a plant at Veovača and we’ll be able to move the project and rules and we do the work properly, which
is the right thing to do and then we’ll truck the company ahead fairly swiftly.” we have done, those permits will be forth-
ore from Rupice to Veovača. We expect the According to a PEA released earlier this coming.”
economics there will be pretty robust.” year, Black Dragon plans to develop an un-
While feasibility work is ongoing, explora- derground operation at Salave for $US95 – Michael Washbourne
tion will continue in parallel, particularly at million. Production is based on a life-of-
some untested regional prospects. Other mine plant throughput of 9.19mt, churning
major upcoming programmes include ex-
tensional drilling at Rupice as well as initial
soil sampling of the new Orti licence near
Veovača.
Given Adriatic’s success over the first
18 months of life on the ASX, Cronin ac-
knowledged there was market pressure to
maintain that momentum through this next
phase of studies.
“Some retail investors are a little bit unre-
alistic about exploration, they seem to think
you can drill a hole in a few days and the
assay comes out of a little machine at the
back of a drill rig,” Cronin said.

Black Dragon is applying for an environmental
permit for its Salave gold project in Spain

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT NOVeMBeR 2019 Page 63