White Rock Minerals Limited (ASX: WRM; OTCQX:WRMCF), (‘White Rock’ or ‘the Company’) is pleased to report on its activities for the quarter ended 30 June 2022.

Highlights

Woods Point Gold Project, Victoria

• Diamond drilling at Woods Point that began in October 2021 has identified up to five potential gold production areas at the high-grade Morning Star Underground Gold Mine, with mining on track to restart in Q3 of 2022.

• The Gap Zone represents an area underground with 200 metres of vertical extent between areas of historic mining with historical production¹ of 883,000oz gold at 26.5g/t Au.

  • The first phase of drilling in the Gap Zone returned 0.4m @ 740 g/t gold2 (23 ounces per tonne) from a quartz reef interval with visible gold.
  • A second significant intercept of 0.25m @ 972 g/t gold3 (31 ounces per tonne) in a quartz reef interval with abundant visible gold from the Achilles Reef was reported after Quarter end.

• The Exhibition Reef is a parallel mineralised quartz structure above the Dickenson Reef at the southern end of the mine and located around 4 Level that includes a “high-grade” gold target area that is potentially more than 100m in strike length and up to 40m down-dip.

Red Mountain silver-zinc VMS and IRGS Project, Alaska

• White Rock acquired a new high-grade gold project identified within the Tintina Gold Province, Alaska, during the Quarter⁵.
• Highlights of the White Gold Project from historic exploration include:
  • 19.0m @ 4.0g/t gold including 2.6m @ 11.2/t gold in surface trenching and 27.1m @ 3.1g/t gold from 88.3m including 1.2m @ 23.1g/t gold (WG11-02) at the Shalosky Prospect.
  • 9.8m @ 8.6g/t gold including 3.8m @ 14.3g/t gold in surface trenching and 20.0m @ 2.5g/t gold from 34.4m including 2.2m @ 17.4g/t gold (WG11-05) at the Low Prospect.
  • 18.0m @ 9.1g/t gold including 4.0m @ 33.8g/t gold in surface trenching at the Goldberg Prospect.
  • 28.0m @ 3.0g/t gold including 3.3m @ 16.4g/t gold in surface trenching at the Hunter Prospect.

Mt Carrington Gold and Silver Project, NSW

• White Rock and Thomson Resources (ASX:TMZ) finalised and executed an agreement⁶ to amend the initial joint venture agreement over the advanced Mt Carrington gold and silver
• Thomson will continue to manage the project and fund site care and maintenance costs until the formation of a Joint Venture on a 51:49 or 70:30
• Agreement provides for a two-stage exploration earn-in and option to joint venture agreement focused on exploration activities on the Mt Carrington
• Thomson can earn 51% of the project by spending $5M over three years and will be able to earn up to 70% of the project by spending a further $2M over a further two years under the amended.

Matt Gill, Managing Director and CEO of White Rock Minerals comments: 

The team on-site at Woods Point – our gold mine in Victoria, is making great strides as it continues to drill in-mine targets at the Morning Star Gold Mine. We have already identified five potential near-term mining areas above 9 Level, and recruitment and development to access two of these gold-bearing reefs have already commenced.

"The diamond drill has also been doing a broad-spaced first pass of the under-explored Gap Zone, between 9 and 14 levels. There, we have already hit super high grade – 2 intercepts over 700 g/t gold.

In Alaska, we acquired a highly prospective exploration package called White Gold, with up to eight prospects, where historical results carry grades between 14 and 33 g/t gold.

Alongside this, we signed an exploration earn-in and option to joint venture our advanced gold and silver project at Mt Carrington in NSW. Our JV partner – ASX-listed Thomson Resources – will manage this program and we will be free-carried during this time.

It’s been a busy time for White Rock and we look forward to becoming a gold producer in the next few months."

Corporate

• Appointment of Mr Peter Mangano as non-executive Chairperson⁷.
• Retirement of Mr Peter Lester⁷ as non-executive Chairperson and the retirements of Mr Jeremy Gray⁸ and Mr Christopher Wellesley⁸ as non-executive
• Signed non-binding term sheet in connection with a convertible note and equity facility with Obsidian Global Partners⁹:
  • Obsidian will initially invest $2.5 million; and
  • Obsidian may invest up to $30 million over a 24-month period by way of a combination of convertible notes and new fully paid ordinary
• Placement of 15,979,003 shares raised approximately $2.4 million before costs at a  price of $0.15 per share¹⁰.
• These funds after costs will be used for:
  • Recruitment, re-capitalisation, pre-production development, and commencement of gold production at the Morning Star Gold Mine.
  • Working capital.
  • Red Mountain Care & Maintenance – commitment for further exploration once the Morning Star Gold Mine becomes cash flow.

View the full announcement here.

Read the Conversation:

Casey Porters:

“Hi everyone. I'm here with Peter Mangano, the chairman of White Rock Minerals. White Rock is an ASX listed near term gold production company with three key assets in a number of tier one mining jurisdictions. Welcome Peter. Great to have you here. Thank you Casey. I'm very pleased to be here. Thanks for coming on. Peter. I think we'd love to learn a little bit about your background, Peter, and your experience in the mining and financial market space for everyone listening.”

Peter Mangano:

“Okay. Every time I do this, I sort of feel older and older. I've been in the mining sector for almost 40 years of my life now. I started as a metallurgist way back in the dim, dark ages after I graduated from university, and I spent probably about 15 years of my life. As an operating metallurgist at various mines around Australia. I then moved into a corporate environment in head office, crunching numbers, and then stepped across into the broking sector. I was a sell side analyst for many years. I eventually ended up working with Citigroup, who transferred me to New York, where I became Deputy Head of Research for Citigroup in the Americas.

I came back to Australia some years ago and I joined the buy side and worked with what was then Colonial First State in the global resource and energy fund for about six years. So in one way or another, for most of my life, I've either run mining companies, analysed mining companies, or invested in mining companies. And over that time I've seen operations of mining companies literally all over the world.”

Casey Porters:

“Great. Very interesting. And I think everyone can safely say that you have a lot of experience and are excited to see that you've joined the board of White Rock. Can I ask you what drew you to the company and ultimately made you make the decision that you'd like to join the board?”

Peter Mangano:

“Yeah, look, I look at a number of opportunities like this and, and the key motivator is always the same. It's the assets. I've been doing this long enough to be able to assess whether the underlying assets are good or not, and if the assets are good. You can generally do something with that, and in the case of White Rock, the assets are good, if not to say very, very good. And that was the key motivator. The underlying all bodies that the company has and the potential that those all bodies can give is quite remarkable.”

Casey Porters:

“Most recently, the company announced that they are looking to restart production at the Morningstar goldmine. Can I get your thoughts and just pick your brain at what this means for the company, given the current economic situation and also what the outlook is for the company and its other assets going forward?”

Peter Mangano

“Look, having an operating mine in Victoria is an asset that I think that the market generally undervalues, and there's other projects I've been involved in quite recently in Victoria. We're trying to get an attractive deposit up to the level where it gets granted. A mining licence is hugely difficult, so to actually have an operating mine is an enormous positive for the company.

In addition to which all the assets are in place. So the restart is actually a fairly low cost restart. You don't have a massive capital hurdle of building a mine, um, of building a processing plant and commissioning it. It's all there and ready to go. So the fact that we've got an operation that you compress the button on is a huge positive for the company.”

Casey Porters:

“Yeah, and I think it's really great news too, to hear that the company is deciding to press the button on this. It really helps a company when making that transition from explorer to producer when it has an asset that allows it to really overcome the issues around things such as permitting and supply chain challenges and construction risks and developing a major project. So that all really bodes well. And what are your thoughts on Red Mountain and Mountain Carrington? The company's other two assets.”

Peter Mangano:

“Look, the Mount Carrington deposit was always going to be a very, very small project for the company. It had a tiny footprint, and it was surrounded by other leases, which were held by Thompson.

And it made eminent sense for the company to, um, to take a farm in arrangement with Thompson, whereby it was effectively free carried and Thompson was, was gonna earn a 70% interest in the project. So Mount Carrington has pretty much taken care of in terms of its future development. The Red Mountain deposit is an extraordinarily attractive deposit. It's probably one of the most prospective VMS slash gold deposits I've seen in quite some time. It is crying out for drill holes. It is hopefully where the company will be going in, in the not too distant future in terms of its future exploration activity in terms of adding value.”

Casey Porters:

“Great. Thanks Peter. It's really good to see how much conviction you have behind your views on the company's assets, so thanks for that. What would you say to any listeners who are looking at White Rock as a potential investment?” 

Peter Mangano:

“Look, the market has punished the resource sector in general and the small end of the resource sector in particular over the last few months. This is just the cyclical nature of a cyclical business.

My personal view is that buying assets that are deeply discounted, where the underlying value of the asset is demonstrably clear, is probably one of the most proven ways of creating value over the medium to longer term. And so I joined White Rock on the basis that the assets were so deeply discounted and the upside was so considerable that this really had only one way to go. And I hope to be talking to you at some point in the future and saying there, I told you so.” 

Casey Porters:

“Great. Thanks Peter. We'd love to hear you say that too. So thank you. It was great having you on board with us, and until next time, thanks a lot. For any listeners who would like to learn more about White Rock, feel free to contact any one of our advisors or click on the link in the description.”

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