Armed with two high-growth Australian battery metals projects and the mining contract for Bellevue Gold (ASX:BGL), Beament highlighted ESG and future facing transition metals will remain key themes as the world continues down its decarbonisation path.
“You look at the line-up of this conference, for the first time ever about 75 per cent of the presenters here over the next two days are in future-facing transition metals,” he added.
“And 25 per cent precious metals – a real amazing change.”
DVP is developing the Sulphur Springs Project in WA’s Pilbara region, comprising 17.4Mt in resources featuring high-grade copper (1.3%), zinc (4.2%) and silver (17g/t).
The assumed copper and zinc prices in the 2018 DFS are now ~60% higher, he said, with final approvals expected to be received in the second half of 2022.
“This is an amazing asset and the reason why I recapitalised the company – I wanted to get into the future-facing clean transition metals… we need them, I can’t emphasise that enough,” Beament explained.
“We are in a 30-year bull cycle in these commodities guys – go back six months ago and most people thought we could transition the world’s energy needs in three or four years.”
The company’s other asset is the recently acquired Woodlawn asset in NSW for A$30m upfront and A$70m in success-driven milestone payments.
“The previous owners spent $340 million dollars building this and there’s a comedy of errors,” he said.
But what drew Beament to this project is its past production.
“When you buy an asset, you always look behind yourself before the GO’s tell you the future – this thing produced 14 million tonnes at 20 per cent zinc equivalent.
“Put that into today’s revenue terms guys, the payability, recoveries, all that – that is about 12 billion Aussie of revenue over 20 years, about $600 million a year.”
