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OPERATIONAL REVIEW
DIGGeRs & DeALeRs PReVIeW MACA.NET.AU

29Metals: The people’s company

y his own admission, 29Metals Ltd 29Metals was last year’s biggest re- “With the borders coming down, we’re
Bmanaging director Peter Albert has sources float, raising $527.8 million to able to get people moving and share
been “so flat out” enhancing the syner- bring Golden Grove (Western Australia) knowledge that little bit more easily. We’ve
gies between the Golden Grove and and Capricorn Copper (Queensland) back had commercial teams from the West
Capricorn Copper operations that the into the public spotlight after several years across at Capricorn Copper very recently,
impending first anniversary of the com- in the private sphere. sharing information and identifying sys-
pany’s listing on the ASX was not even The decision has been more than vali- tems that we can improve on across the
on his radar. dated with 29Metals trading 34% higher business.
29Metals will celebrate its first full year than its listing price at the time print and “A lot of that, of course, has already been
in the public arena on July 2, but it has only comfortably outperforming peers such taking place over the last nine months
been over recent months that Albert and as Oz Minerals Ltd (up 5%), Sandfire Re- or so, but to be able to get the operating
other key members of the company’s man- sources Ltd (down 15%) and Aurelia Met- teams together is just so invaluable.”
agement team have been able to set foot als Ltd (down 22%) over the same period. While operational excellence was an
on both sites due to hard state borders and 29Metals was on track to meet produc- obvious core value for 29Metals across
longstanding travel restrictions. tion guidance for FY2022 despite a chal- its first year as a public company – both
To that end, Albert knows immediately lenging March quarter which saw lower Golden Grove and Capricorn Copper were
who to credit for the base metals miner’s than expected copper output due to ongo- owned by revered private equity firm EMR
very successful first 12 months on the ing labour constraints, supply chain dis- Capital prior to the IPO – a less document-
bourse. ruptions, COVID-related absenteeism and ed but equally important ambition for the
group was organic growth.
A successful drilling programme at Cer-
vantes, a near-mine opportunity at Golden
Grove, delivered a more than 100% uplift
in resources while exploration at Xantho
Extended and Gossan Valley also contin-
ues to return encouraging results.
“We’ve come further down that path than
I could have hoped for a year ago, espe-
cially at Golden Grove with the Cervantes
results coming through and the work we’ve
been doing in terms of how we integrate
those projects into our longer-term mine
plan,” Albert said.
“This is the backbone of the growth at
Golden Grove that we’ll see coming over
the next 5-7 years. It’s a tremendously rich
orebody and we’ve put a lot of effort into
supporting the optimisation extraction of
that orebody with a paste fill plant which is
about to be completed and will be commis-
sioned in the September quarter.
“Golden Grove has been going for 30
years and, I’ve said this a number of times,
I won’t be surprised if it goes for another
30 years.”
EMR Capital remains the largest share-
The 29Metals workforce was critical to its successful first year as a public company holder in 29Metals with a 45% interest,
while other foundational investors such as
“Good people,” he told Paydirt. “These extraordinary seasonal weather on the Yara Capital Mgt (8%), AustralianSuper
past two years have tested a lot of us east coast. (8%) and Ausbil Investment Mgt (7.4%)
and without good people, we wouldn’t be Albert was anticipating a much better continue to back the group and in some
where we are today. June quarter with the company now able to instances have actually increased their
“We came through the IPO with an in- freely move key personnel from one opera- original holdings.
ability to travel so we had to rely on our tion to the other following the removal of the The arrival of 29Metals to the public
people across the business and it was hard border to WA. sphere has to an extent partially filled a
fantastic they stepped up to the plate. “We want to build on the synergies that im- gap in the market for an established pri-
We actually didn’t recruit a lot of people mediately started when we brought the two mary copper producer. While both Golden
because we already had tremendously assets together and whilst we’ve all existed Grove and Capricorn Copper produce a
strong teams and at the end of the day, on Zoom and Teams for far too long, there is suite of other commodities such as zinc,
that’s what it all comes down to.” no substitute for face-to-face,” he said. gold and silver, the red metal is largely

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