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Queensland, as we speak? Increasing roy-
alty rates…but let’s not single any jurisdic-
tion out. It’s all part of the equation, so is the
project and so are the people.”
Quartermaine concurred the average
Australian investor is more comfortable with
opportunities at home than taking on per-
ceived risk abroad.
“I’ve found the Australian market to be
fairly xenophobic, to be frank,” he said. “The
Australian investor has a fantastic mining
industry in its backyard, it doesn’t have to
go overseas or assume risks it’s not familiar
with in order to get exposure to world-class
mining projects. You can absolutely under-
stand the Australian investor tends to stay Quartermaine (right) is looking to guide Perseus towards 500,000 ozpa gold production this
close to home. But I think it has changed year, while de Vries is steering Black Rock’s Mahenge graphite project in Tanzania into the
over a period of time as well.” construction phase
The 2021 edition of the Fraser Institute’s
survey of mining jurisdictions reinstated Despite Tanzania seeing a decline in people are actively looking to buy material
Western Australia to first place for investor policy scoring in the Fraser Institute survey that doesn’t come from China, it actually
attractiveness after surprisingly slipping to between 2020 and 2021, de Vries exuded ticks a lot of boxes.
fourth in 2020. newfound confidence in bringing Black “Cost wise, [we have] a few headwinds,
However, African countries drifted to- Rock’s Mahenge project through to con- but the project is strong enough to with-
wards the end of the index, including Zim- struction. stand it.”
babwe, Mali, South Africa and the DRC, “We’re fortunate that we have a very sig- – Fraser Palamara
and had the highest number of jurisdictions nificant revenue-cost ratio,” he said. “The
in the bottom 10 of the survey. option to bring in grid power takes a lot of
The only African jurisdiction to rank in the that tension away from liquid fuel pricing.
top 10 for investor attractiveness was Mo- “Where we’re positioned at the moment, Watch the full replay on Paydirt TV
rocco, a top-four global fertiliser exporter about to start construction, is absolutely fan-
possessing more than 70% of the world’s tastic. It takes you about 15-18 months to
phosphate rock reserves. build a mine…and with China’s constraints,

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