Page 12 - pd289-Dec20-mag-web_Neat

neWs

Stevens shows steely

resolve for Coda

he sense of relief was obvious in Chris scribed within a matter of hours.
TStevens when Paydirt recently spoke with It was not uncommon for IPOs to close as
the Coda Minerals Ltd chief executive. quick as they opened in 2020 and the real
Stevens has worked tirelessly seeking to challenge for the wave of new shopfronts on
appease Gindalbie Metals Ltd shareholders the bourse is just beginning.
not interested in participating in a South Aus- Stevens believes Coda will now start to
tralian copper explorer after they had origi- flourish on the back of the work done behind
nally signed up for exposure to the iron ore the scenes prior to listing.
sector. “As a general industry comment, it is going
To make a tricky situation even more fickle to be an interesting challenge separating the Chris Stevens
for Stevens, the world had just started to come good projects, and really focusing on those hosted copper mineralisation at Elizabeth
to grips with the global COVID-19 pandemic. good projects, especially in gold,” Stevens Creek in the first instance, while Stevens said
“Nobody really knew where things were said. the IOCG potential across its tenure could not
going, the market reacted very strongly and “I think Coda has a huge advantage in hav- be ignored.
I remember coming back as the market start- ing already spent the best part of $6 million on “Emmie Bluff, which is already at potentially
ed to go and we were right in the middle of the tenure even before listing and then listing significant scale, is open to the north- east,
a voluntary share sale facility where we were with a solid cash balance. We came out of the north-west and to the south unconstrained by
looking to help those former Gindalbie share- IPO with an even better cash balance and an drilling for a good 5-6 km.
holders exit their holding and brokerage some exploration model based on geophysics and “We are definitely a group that likes to as-
fairly small holdings in the company,” Stevens advanced targeting; this is lower risk explora- sess the value of every next hole, we like to
said. tion in my opinion, it is not greenfields. I think understand why we are doing things, at what
“In some ways we couldn’t have picked we are getting better at explaining our explo- cost, what we expect from it; we do a lot of risk
worse timing to do that.” ration model, which I think will be reflected in assessment but not in an analysis-paralysis
Fast forward to October and Coda suc- the market.” type of way. We have had the opportunity to
cessfully completed an IPO and joined a Coda has assembled a land package at do that detailed work and now it is about get-
growing throng of new entities on the ASX. the Elizabeth Creek copper project in the ting the drill rigs turning,” Stevens said.
While part of the ASX IPO class of 2020 Gawler Craton covering some 700sq km in In addition to Emmie Bluff, targets such as
(see the February 2021 edition for a special the Olympic Dam copper province. the early stage Hannibal prospect are exciting
IPO feature), Coda is somewhat the alterna- Elizabeth Creek – 158,000t copper and Stevens with the chief executive backing in
tive kid in the playground with its copper ex- 9,400t cobalt indicated resource – is 100km his team’s systematic approach to exploration
ploration focus in SA. south of BHP Ltd’s Olympic Dam copper- in the region as opposed to the “haphazard/
West Australian gold floats have brought gold-uranium mine and 50km west of Oz Min- ad hoc” attention given to the area in the past.
sexy back to the IPO sector, however, Ste- erals Ltd’s Carrapateena copper-gold project. “We have done our exploration model, test-
vens isn’t fazed by the market attention af- Emmie Bluff – the flagship copper-cobalt- ed it and then taken that exploration model
forded to the cool kids in town. silver prospect at Elizabeth Creek – has been and applied it to other parts of the tenure we
Stevens’ confidence in Coda’s SA strategy subject of RC drilling and diamond drilling on believe is prospective for Zambian-style sedi-
appears well supported, given the $8.5 mil- a double shift basis recently. ment hosted copper deposits. We have also
lion IPO (before costs) was fulfilled oversub- Coda is chasing Zambian-style sediment-
been working on the IOCG potential, which
is much more expensive, deeper, higher risk
but higher reward. The three priority IOCG
targets [Emmie Bluff Deeps, Elizabeth North/
Chianti North and Elaine] are some of the
best I have ever seen and we are really ex-
cited by that,” Stevens said.
“Good solid mineral inventory from the me-
dium risk, high reward, Zambian-style sed-
iment-hosted copper is the No.1 aim for us
and then the much higher risk, higher reward
stuff is in our IOCG prospects.
“There is a lot of stuff on this tenure and it is
about trying to understand where to look; it is
the first time to my knowledge that someone
has got an exploration model together, espe-
cially the Zambian-style mineralisation, and
started to apply it.”
– Mark Andrews
Coda might be new to the ASX but it comes equipped with copper resources
in South Australia
Page 12 DeCeMBeR 2020 - JaNUaRY 2021 aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT