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Representatives from the Western Desert Aboriginal Land
Council with members of Greatland’s heritage survey crew

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder a little bit, but I think there
is some tremendous aspects of the London listing and access
to capital there, and perhaps that should be celebrated more.”
While it is not as an immediate priority for Greatland as the
development of Havieron progresses, Day says there will come
a time when the company needs to decide what to do with the
remaining projects in its exploration portfolio, including two in
Tasmania and three in Western Australia.
Greatland recently acquired a suite of exploration tenements in
the Paterson to bolster its presence in the region by more than
1,000sq km and has high hopes for the earlier stage Ernest Giles
project, about 250km north-east of Laverton.
Day concedes some projects will ultimately be shuffled out of
Sandvik is providing some of the machinery currently digging
the stable, but quickly points out that has been a key part of the
into Havieron
business strategy of every successful gold company through the
past decade.
assets, but often there can be a better holder who will be more
“It’s a lovely problem to have; that Havieron has such a big
focused, pay them more attention and prioritise them, because
gravitational pull that it can overshadow the rest of the portfolio,”
ultimately all our assets have to compete for capital internally as
he says.
to where we want to deploy the drill rig.”
“I really believe the value in our portfolio is around the future
Day looks back fondly on his role in Northern Star’s journey
exploration success, firstly, with Havieron itself, where I think
from junior miner to Australia’s second largest gold producer
we have a multi-year story of exploration upside and, secondly,
(and ninth globally). While being careful not to draw too many
within the Paterson district and those opportunities in close
comparisons, he firmly believes Havieron is a better launch
proximity to Havieron.
asset than Paulsens was for his previous employer.
“We try to be disciplined managers of our portfolio, so we’re
“The platform we have is extraordinary and the mine life we
constantly looking to upgrade. We spend time, energy and effort
expect to be delivered from Havieron is extraordinary – decades
looking for additions to the portfolio, notwithstanding that another
– which gives you a huge competitive advantage in terms
way to upgrade is to maybe drop some of the smaller assets and
of building a portfolio and becoming a sustainable Tier-1 gold
try to extract value from them, be it in JV or sale.
producer,” Day says.
“For instance, our Tasmanian assets, we actually really like them,
“What’s incredibly exciting is we’ll be a producer in three years.
but they probably just don’t have the scale to sit in a portfolio
We’ll be making gold bars, we’ll be creating operating cash flow
with Havieron where they are simply eclipsed by the pure size,
and we carry the excitement of being able to decide how we
so that’s where you might look at whether there’s something
deploy that operating cash flow, mostly likely back into Havieron
sensible we can do to bring a partner in on those assets. We’d
to make it bigger and better.”
love to keep some exposure to them because we like them as
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