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neWs

Manuka making sweet success

anuka Resources Ltd executive chair- The company then secured a $US14 mil- We’ve got a project which is cash flow posi-
Mman Dennis Karp admits to being lost for lion debt facility from a Hong Kong-based tive and will continue to be so for some time
words at the reaction to his company’s recent lender but was given a strict mandate not to to come and we’re also in the processing of
listing on the ASX. spend any of that money on exploration. Ma- upgrading our 52 moz silver resource at Won-
Following its July 14 debut as the first re- nuka then made plans to undertake a com- awinta.
sources IPO since the onset of the global plete refurbishment and upgrade of the Won- “Internally we believe we’ll be mining for the
coronavirus pandemic, Manuka’s stock has awinta plant with a view towards processing next 5-6 years on what we know, but we do
tripled in value and at one stage in late August stockpiled ore from Mt Boppy. need to have a look at what is beneath the
the New South Wales-focused surface because it hasn’t really
gold producer and silver hopeful been explored properly before.
was trading as high as 71c/share. Both of our projects are very shal-
It could have been a very dif- low and the Cobar Basin is a very
ferent story for Manuka given deep basin.”
the lack of resources floats in the Of the $7 million raised from
queue at the time and the feelings the IPO, $3.58 million has been
of trepidation from Karp and his set aside for Manuka’s three-
team after being forced to post- stage exploration and resources
pone their initial plans to list the conversion programme at both
company back in May as financial Wonawinta and Mt Boppy.
markets around the world closed Infill drilling is the primary focus
ranks. at Wonawinta, although the com-
However, with the resources pany has indicated it will assess
sector showing signs of a fast re- the potential of some “advanced
covery from a low point in March greenfields” targets towards the
and prices for both gold and silver end of the 9,000m RC and dia-
steadily surging, Manuka reset Stockpiled ore from the Mt Boppy gold mine (above) is being trucked to mond campaign.
the dial for a mid-year listing. the 850,000 tpa plant at Wonawinta (below) for processing. Drilling to test for depth exten-
The Sydney-based company Manuka is currently upgrading the existing 52 moz silver resource sions to the Mt Boppy hits is also
subsequently raised $7 million via at Wonawinta, near Cobar in central NSW under way and has already yield-
an oversubscribed IPO as inves- ed encouraging intercepts of 10m
tors threw their support behind @ 34.48 g/t gold from 57m and
Manuka’s impressive start to pro- 14m @ 14.51 g/t gold from 59m.
duction at the Mt Boppy gold mine Manuka was finalising a 3D
and its plans to rejuvenate the model at the time of print to soon
nearby Wonawinta silver project. begin exploring a prospective
In fact, the uptake was so strong 9sq km area which incorporates
a number of investment applica- historical workings at Canbelego
tions had to be scaled back. King, Reid-Rankins and Birthday.
Since listing, Manuka’s share- Karp is supported on the Ma-
holder base has grown from nuka board by former general
about 600 to more than 2,000 at manager for Newcrest Mining
the time of print. Ltd’s Cadia Valley operations
“Given there were no IPOs at Tony McPaul and experienced
the time, we weren’t certain how silver mineralogist Nick Lindsay.
the market was going to take a Haydn Lynch is the company’s
new resources IPO,” Karp told chief operating officer, with Cobar
Paydirt. identity Dave Power also on the
“We were very pleasantly sur- team as general manager, opera-
prised after two days [of launch- tions.
ing the prospectus] we had more than dou- Proceeds from Mt Boppy (existing resource “We’ve kept the team pretty lean to this
bled the high-end of the amount of money we of 320,000t @ 3 g/t gold for 31,000oz) are ex- point in time, but we believe we’ve got all bas-
were looking for. We were actually a bit lost for pected to wipe the company free of any debt es covered and if we find ourselves short in
words, but at the same time very pleased to over the course of the next 10 months. certain areas then we’ll look to recruit accord-
have had that level of support, which has just “Between 1895 and 1925 this was the ingly,” Karp said.
continued on after the listing.” richest gold mine in NSW,” Karp said. “It pro- “We’ve gone from having a care-and-main-
Manuka has essentially been a story four duced 500,000oz at an average head grade tenance crew of two back in December last
years in the making following on from Karp’s of 15 g/t, which for NSW is pretty significant. year to now having 55 full-time employees on
Rescap Investment acquiring the Wonawinta We’re mining the remnants of that. the project. We’ve been running 24/7 with es-
project, including the mothballed 850,000 tpa “Our lenders wouldn’t allow us to spend sentially three crews on shift at the mine. The
processing plant, in August 2016. Almost any money on exploration and I think that is start-up has been pretty seamless.”
three years later the historic Mt Boppy gold the key value proposition that is going to rise – Michael Washbourne
mine was added to the Cobar-based portfolio. from those two projects over the years ahead.

Page 16 OCTOBeR 2020 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT