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Tembo Gold Corporation (TEM-TSXV) |
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April 13, 2012 Issue |
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The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information |
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CURRENT ISSUE | COVER ARCHIVES | INDEX | CONTACT | FINANCIALS | SERVICES | HOME PAGE |
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With Extensive Artisanal Mining Giving a Clear Indication of Good Gold Mineralization on Their Property in the Prolific Lake Victoria Greenstone Belt in Tanzania, Tembo Gold Corporation is Well Positioned for Future Growth |
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Company Profile:
Tembo Gold is a Canadian
public company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange ("TSX-V") under the symbol
TEM. The Company currently has 100% interest in the Tembo Gold Project,
located adjacent to African Barrick's 20Moz Bulyanhulu Mine in the prolific
Lake Victoria Greenstone belt in Tanzania. Our focus is the discovery and
development of world-class gold projects in Africa. The company has
assembled a highly experienced team with a proven history of developing,
financing, and operating mining projects in Africa. With approximately $13
million in the Treasury, the Company's exploration strategy is to discover
mineral resources as well as continue to look for additional opportunities
that can bring value to the Company and shareholders. |
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Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published - April 13, 2012
Mr. Scott: Tembo is focused entirely on Tanzania, east Africa and entirely on gold exploration. We have a flagship project here, the Tembo project, which has taken all of our attention. The attention however in the long-run would be to look further afield outside of Tanzania. If we are able to secure quality projects elsewhere in east Africa particularly, we would certainly consider them. We have a big project here and we feel that we need to give it a good try, because of this we are not looking at aggressively or actively acquiring other projects and we have a very big drill program planned.
CEOCFO: Will you tell us a little about the Tembo Gold Project? Mr. Scott: The Tembo Gold Project has had about 10 to 14 years of exploration done on it. Most of the exploration was done at a fairly low key with relatively small budgets being allocated on a year by year basis from 1997, when some work started on the ground, to 2008. Each year took small steps forward in the work. It culminated really in 2007-2008 with some reverse circulation and diamond drilling. The project itself is 110 square kilometers of active prospecting licenses. We have the target areas that we want; we hold that ground and we are presently drilling. The work that we have done over the last ten years started off with good quality airborne magnetics and followed up with soil sampling and RAB drilling. All of that really just showed that our project has the right geology and gold is present. Our neighbor immediately to the south and east is Bulyanhulu Mine, which belongs to African Barrick Gold. It is a 20 million ounce total resource underground operation, a narrow vein, this fact and the prospectivity of our ground shows we really need to drill. That area is largely covered by about 10 meters of transported surface cover, so drilling really is the final step to successfully defining an ore resource and discovering a mine.
CEOCFO: What specifically drew you to the Tembo Gold Project? Mr. Scott: I went onto the project myself for a South African mining house in the middle to late nineties. We were just starting to stretch our wings out of South Africa, looking for projects both in East and West Africa. I was responsible for looking for good projects in1997. There was a company that held a large part of the ground we are talking about. I worked on the ground with two companies at that time with the view to signing a joint venture with them. We were not successful in actually negotiating an agreement at that time, fortunately for us now. So, I had seen the geology, I had seen the incredible amount of artisanal mining that is going on. We always knew there was gold on the property, because of the artisanal mining that was happening. But, we had no idea of the extent of it. The country is quite heavily bushed, and being a large property with many artisanal workings, it is quite difficult to get a good handle on how extensive they were. However, the combination of the geology, the proximity of Bulyanhulu, the extent of artisanal mining, really makes it a very attractive exploration project.
CEOCFO: What is the financial picture like for Tembo? Mr. Scott: We have raised, over the past twelve months, $18.5 million, but some of that went to put the company back on its feet. We had to get a relisting, which we completed successfully last week. The money raised was sufficient for us to start mobilizing and preparing for what we intended to do and that is drill. Currently, we have about $13.5 million in the treasury. We do intend to raise more in the next three to four months, and we are hoping to do that on the back of the stronger share price and good early results. We have raised in the past five months $13.5 million, which is really the money that we have in the bank. We raised that at a dollar, and we will hopefully raise another $15 to $20 million in the next few months, and that will see us through the next year and a half to two years of a very aggressive drilling program.
CEOCFO: Is Tanzania the big draw for people to invest or is it more your specific project? Mr. Scott: Tanzania, generally, is still viewed as a good country to invest in from an investment point of view, as the political risk is quite low. The country has never had any civil wars. It has a pretty peaceful population. It has had good growth economically over the last four or five years. It is one of the top performers in Africa, so from an investment point of view it is a good risk nation. From a geological point of view there has been about 50 million ounces discovered in ten years. I believe there is still a lot to be found, particularly in the Greenstone terrain. There has been a lot of activity since the initial discoveries were made, and there are more discoveries in the process of being made now by other companies, so there is a little bit of a resurgence going on. Exploration has remained active in the country since the early to mid nineties when the first discoveries were made. It did fall back a bit with the recession, but there is certainly quite a rush on Tanzania now, not only for gold, but other commodities.
CEOCFO: Is it easy to get the people and equipment that you need today? Mr. Scott: It is now quite a strong mining destination, and there are six operating gold mines in the Lake Victoria Goldfield. There is a history of fourteen years of gold mining. There is a small support industry that has built up quite well. Infrastructure certainly has improved tremendously in the last fifteen years. If there were one Achilles heel now in the country, it would be the power situation. But that should be solved fairly rapidly with exploitation of offshore gas and gas power generation. We have lived through some tough times with electricity over the last couple of years. There is a high dependence on hydropower. But that is now being sorted out by turning to gas generation. As a mining and exploration company, the country really has opened up; the odds have been improved. Our communication is outstanding, for example, cell phone coverage is really quite remarkable, you can pick up a signal and you can download data out in the country. Experienced people in the mining and exploration industry are at a premium and this can be a challenge when manning up a project of this size.
CEOCFO: What do you see as your biggest challenges as you work with the drilling program, is there anything you are on the lookout for? Mr. Scott: One of the challenges of operating in any developing country, and Tanzania is no different, is dealing with the local populations. In our case, we have a fairly large population, because of a long history of artisanal mining on the site. That is one of the challenges that we will have to face and manage well. It is something that most people who hear our story immediately question, because we have nearly 11 kilometers of artisanal mining on the property, historical and current. Our approach will be to build relationships with the local population and the miners and with time to develop a solution to the inevitable potential conflict that you can have between a mining company and artisanal miners, and develop a solution that they fully buy into and that benefits both parties. Of course we will be doing community social responsibility programs and I believe that those should be relationship based and not just money hand-outs, but they must really be a help to the company and produce sustainable development as opposed to just a hand dishing out money. So, we are working closely with the community. It is a challenge, but not one that I dread in any way. I have been here for thirteen and a half years and we have seen various approaches taken to handling artisanal miners and the local populations. It has to be based on a strong relationship and that is where we will be going with our programs. We will be bringing in good people to manage those for us. Other than that, we have the equipment that we need, we have a good contractor for the drilling, and we have good contractors for doing the geological work, technical work. Barring some great wet season, which we do not foresee, we should be able to drill through the whole year. The gold price is good, so not too many severe challenges there.
CEOCFO: There are a lot of projects and companies to choose from, why should potential investors pay attention to Tembo? Mr. Scott: The strength of the Tembo story lies in the fact that we have such extensive artisanal mining on the property, which gives a very clear indication of good gold mineralization. It is almost a no-brainer. In London, there was a group that described it also as a no-brainer. You can virtually walk up and drill. What are the chances of discovery because of that? Really, you can see there is going to be answers in the ground. How big will they be? Obviously, that is a completely different question, but there is no doubt that there is good gold mineralization on the ground. It is being mined quite deep by artisanal miners, and there is certainly going to be ounces, growth, almost without a doubt.
CEOCFO: Final thoughts, what should people remember most about Tembo Gold?
Mr. Scott:
We have a strong team on the ground, which is a contracted team. We are
going to be loading up our own team as well at the same time, starting with
an exploration manager starting the beginning of April, which will lighten
my load a little bit. Therefore, I can focus on the corporate stuff and the
company’s PR and IR. We have a strong team that will keep up the momentum
and hopefully we will not disappoint our shareholders. |
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The strength of the Tembo story lies in the fact that we have such extensive artisanal mining on the property, which gives a very clear indication of good gold mineralization… It is being mined quite deep by artisanal miners, and there is certainly going to be ounces, growth, almost without a doubt. - David Scott |
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