We’re here today with Andrew Tunks CEO of Auroch Minerals.
David Tasker: [00:00:09] Are you able to share some of the Auroch history?
Andrew Tunks: [00:00:12] Sure. So Auroch previously had a gold project in Mozambique which was a tough project for a variety of reasons and ultimately decided to move that project on and through that process received about 10 million US and that recapitalised the company and based on that we came up with a new strategy to move into the metals that are crucial crucial to the renewable energy industry.
So our strategy then was to go out and find some new projects focussing on lithium, cobalt which are crucial elements to the lithium ion battery and also copper because we feel that there’s a supply issue coming up with copper and that really relates to the lithium battery renewable energy generated from wind farms. And of course the big disruptor I think will be electric vehicles.
We’re seeing that right through Asia now. Massive increase in electric vehicles and of course they are going to require lithium ion batteries and additional copper. So that’s our focus.
David Tasker: [00:01:21] Some of the recent milestones the company’s achieved?
Andrew Tunks: [00:01:24] So you know a year ago we didn’t have a project. Since that time we’ve acquired projects in the Karibib which is in Namibia which is a lithium project and we haven’t been very active there yet. We’re waiting on some key government approvals.
From there we acquired a joint venture in Portugal and we’ve been active in that project straight away so that’s a deep exploration for copper and zinc targets on the Iberian pyrite belt. And the crucial thing about that is it’s next door to one of the world’s great mines Neves Corbo one of the 200 million tonnes high grade copper and zinc.
So we feel that’s a great project in under-explored part of the belt and we’re just completing our third hole there. So that was our first drilling program as a company since the recapitalisation. And then most recently we’ve acquired. We’re in the middle of the DD at the moment a nine month DD on the Tisova copper cobalt project.
Tisova is fascinating. It’s had a history of mining since the 1200’s. It’s in the Czech Republic on the border with what was East Germany so Saxony and it’s been mined there since the 1200’s for copper for sulphur. it was re-mined by the Communists from 1959 to 1973 but they produced only copper and the copper is just one part of a very big poly metallic system.
They never explored for anything else. Now their are reports from that time describe gold, describe Cobalt, describe silver but they didn’t assay for anything. So we’ve gone back to the old data. There’s an old mine there. 30 kilometres of underground development.
There’s a giant history of mining but very focussed on these copper lenses. We believe that the potential is outside the copper lenses in the wider ore body for cobalt, gold and copper and that’s what we’re about. Well we’ve just started drilling there as of last week and very excited about it.
David Tasker: [00:03:28] And so upcoming milestones for shareholders to focus on ?
Andrew Tunks: [00:03:32] So we’re finishing off the drilling program Phase one in Portugal and we’ve just started drilling in Tisova so there will be results from both projects coming through over the next couple of months and particularly Tisova.
Because of their old history of mining we are exploring an old mine and that’s the best place to find more. We know that we’re going to hit ore. What we don’t know is what the grades will be what the continuity is going to be. But we’re certain that we’re going to hit thick zones of sulphide mineralization.
And then what we have to do is re-assay those to see where the grade is and is it economic. So in a very exciting time.
David Tasker: [00:04:11] Andrew thanks for your time.