Good morning, everyone. Thanks very much for joining us on behalf of Peel Mining ASX Code PEX. It's great to have you along to join us for this Resources Rising Stars Investor webinar. I'm Nicholas Read from Read Corporate, and it's my great pleasure to introduce Peel Mining's new Managing Director, Nick Woolrych, in Sydney to give us an update on the company's growth and consolidation strategy. Nick was appointed as Managing Director of Peel in September, just months after leading US-focused copper developer New World Resources through a hotly contested bidding war, which saw it eventually being acquired by Kinterra Capital for AUD 250 million. Nick forms part of a new, proven leadership team with a strong record of value creation in the resource sector.
This team has hit the ground running, completing a highly successful AUD 21 million capital raising in October, launching a refreshed strategy aimed at unlocking the full potential of Peel's extensive resource base and dominant ground position in New South Wales, and just recently kicked off its first drilling program. Nick's going to run us through all of that. Before he does so, just a quick reminder to everyone that's tuned in: this is intended as an interactive session. Once Nick has finished presenting, please use the Q&A tab on your webinar browser and shoot your questions in, and I'm sure Nick will be happy to deal with them at the conclusion of his presentation. I'll now vacate the screen and hand over to Nick. Nick, great to see you. Thanks for joining us, and we're looking forward to hearing your plans for Peel Mining.
Great. Thank you very much for that intro, Nicholas, and thanks to you and the team at Read Corporate for arranging this event and everything you do for us at Peel. Thanks, everyone, for their interest in Peel Mining. I am very pleased to be presenting the company after being an interested observer in Peel and in the Cobar region for some time. It really is a time where base metals in tier one regions are enjoying renewed attention. Like Nicholas said, feel free to pop some questions in the Q&A, and happy to take any at the end of this. Look, I am fairly new to the company, as Nicholas mentioned, having started about eight weeks ago. I guess the reasons for myself and also Warwick Amos , our CFO, getting involved with Peel are pretty simple.
They really came down to the fact that we've got some exceptionally high-quality assets. I guess most importantly, they're in a region which is one of the places to be at the moment. Peel does have what I call a dominant landholding in the South Cobar area, and it's a company which has a phenomenal track record in exploration, discovering about 65%-70% of the 34 million tonnes of resources identified in the Cobar region in the last 13 years. Peel Mining is a company that's synonymous with Cobar, and especially with leading exploration credentials in the area. Peel has made four major discoveries since 2011, and we do have a high-grade resource base of 23 million tonnes across two major advanced projects and our exploration tenure. To Nicholas's point before, company renewal and refocusing of our corporate strategy is well underway.
We've got new leadership, we've got a new board, we've got a new register, and we've got a new balance sheet, or a strengthened balance sheet following our capital raise. The board and shareholders have given us a mandate to grow and to release latent value for shareholders that's trapped within these assets in Cobar. Probably most importantly, on the back of that track record I mentioned before, we are back drilling. Exploration is something that's in Peel's DNA, and we're not afraid to back the team that's been delivering over many years for the company. I guess if you do want exposure to significant discoveries in a tier one jurisdiction, then I think Peel's probably the company for you. Just to go a bit deeper on the company renewal, we have recently undertaken a very significant board and management refresh.
We've done a significant, a successful AUD 21 million institutionally-led capital raise, and now we're exceptionally well funded to deliver on our mandate. We have a strong and refreshed board led by our Chairman, Ronnie Beevor. Credentials as good as they come in the mining sector, alongside Mark Okeby, Tony Schultz, and Graham Hardie. Our exploration will continue to be led by Rob Tyson, who's been at Peel for many years. Rob's responsible for much of that exploration success I mentioned before. The CFO we had at New World Resources, who was largely the architect of what unfolded there that Nicholas mentioned, Warwick Amos , has also joined us at Peel, and we're leading initiatives in that space as well. We're also very lucky to be supported from U.S. by Canaccord .
Most importantly, we are nearly 30% institutionally held, so predominantly by Australian and North American and European specialist mining investors. Now, that's all good, but what about the assets and where are they? Cobar, in my perspective, is about as good as it gets in terms of mining jurisdictions. We have access to infrastructure, we've got very supportive government, and most importantly for Peel, significant latent processing capacity in the area. We've got seven processing facilities, including two of which are on care and maintenance. All of those are short on feed and set up to handle the sort of polymetallic mineralisation that's so prolific in the Cobar area and in the Peel portfolio. There's a lot of action in Cobar at the moment, and there's a dearth of copper opportunities on the ASX.
Naturally, this jurisdiction is getting a lot of attention from both investors and corporates. There's been recent M&A activity at the CSA mine with it being bought by Harmony off MAC. There's been financings done at Endeavour and Aurelia Metals. There's also been successful capital raisings undertaken by us, Aeris, and Manuka. This is one of the premier mining jurisdictions in Australia, and the level of activities by our neighbors and locally indeed is very significant. I guess our focus as a board of management team is to capitalize on this by looking at how best to unlock the latent value within the Peel portfolio and provide feedstock to regional long-life operating hubs, all of which are currently underutilized. Part of the recent work program since stepping in at Peel has been trying to articulate to the market the makeup of the Peel portfolio.
Essentially, there are three pillars to the company strategy. We have the South Cobar copper project. This comprises the Mallee Bull and Wirlong underground projects. This has been the main focus over the couple of years. High-quality baseline technical permitting work underway and permitting will advance. These are simple conventional underground mining operations that will produce high-quality copper concentrates. We have the Southern Nights Complex. This is a high-grade polymetallic mineralisation comprising the Wagga Tank and Southern Nights projects with huge exploration potential in this large VMS system. We have our exploration and growth. We're hosting nearly 2,500 sq km of tenure in the region. We're drilling now and will continue to do so. We're also looking at other jurisdictions to build out the Peel portfolio, including North America, having recently operated there successfully with New World.
Firstly, to the South Cobar Copper Project. This is both the Mallee Bull and Wirlong projects, which were discovered by Peel in 2011 and 2015, respectively. Both are 100% owned, and there's no royalties or third-party financings in place at these projects. It's a combined mineral resource of 11.3 million tonnes at 2.18% copper equivalent, of which 76% is classified as indicated. It's a very well-understood mineralisation. The last few years have been spent by Peel advancing the South Cobar Copper Project as a standalone development project and building a dedicated processing facility. Just want to be clear, there is a far better path to delivering shareholder value from these tenements, and that is utilising the local infrastructure to develop these projects. We will not be building our processing plant for the South Cobar Copper Project and looking at other ways to release the latent value from these tenements.
Exploration declines are approved at both deposits, and they are located on 100% Peel-owned freehold land. When the time is right, near-term development readiness is possible. These deposits are very well understood. There's been about 470 RC and diamond drill holes totaling about 170,000 meters of drilling. So a lot of drilling across these two tenements. Mallee Bull is consistent, thick, high-grade mineralization from about 300 meters deep, including a shallow cone that hosts zinc, lead, and silver mineralization. Wirlong commences about 200 meters deep and is also high-grade, has a high-grade core. Both deposits remain open at depth and along strike and will benefit from further drilling from underground when the time comes.
Now, I think what has been forgotten by the market at Mallee Bull, but particularly at Southern Nights, which I'll get to shortly, is that some of these holes at these projects are truly exceptional, such as 58 meters at 5% copper at Mallee Bull and 27 meters at 5.3% copper at Wirlong, just to name a couple. I think the likelihood of finding more mineralisation once underground is exceptionally strong at these projects. Preliminary design and scheduling work has been completed, as has met test work, technical work, as well as project design work has been undertaken. Now, we are going through a period of internal review of these pieces of work, including regional processing assessment and looking at how we can rapidly facilitate the developments of these projects.
These are some of the most advanced, highest-grade copper projects on the ASX, and the path to development is well understood from here once the processing group is secured. Turning now to Southern Nights, the Southern Nights Complex. This is a project that Peel potentially has failed in the last couple of years. However, it is clearly an exceptional ore body. There is a polymetallic ore body of nearly 10 million tonnes at about 8% zinc equivalent. We will be refocusing on this project in the coming weeks and months with a view to better understanding and extracting value from this exceptional ore body. This is a 100% owned project and, again, is a polymetallic deposit. Zinc and silver rich, discovered and advanced by Peel.
The project is also located on freehold land with no third-party, JV or royalties in place. Now, Southern Nights is a large high-grade VMS system over about 2 km of strike and about 700 m deep, with potential to produce base metals as well as gold and silver, base metals concentrate, as well as gold and silver dore. Extensive drilling has confirmed thick, high-grade ores from shallow depth with multiple untested targets, particularly in the link zone over here between the two deposits, showing some exceptional intercepts that have never been followed up, such as 47 m at 6% zinc with 26 m at 25% zinc up near the surface as well. Plenty of high-grade mineralisation available. This is a VMS deposit. Think [Rosebreed] and Golden Grove.
As many people know, and we've had the same experience at the Antler project, these VMS projects do occur in clusters. The likelihood of success from further drilling is high. Further drilling in this link zone and around the Southern Nights Complex is planned in FY 2026 to extend resources and attest new high-priority drill areas. Similar to the Cobar Project, the Southern Nights Complex is well advanced technically, with mine design, metallurgy, and initial project studies underway. Similarly, we are doing a first principles review internally to look at how best to release value from these projects. Environmental and heritage work has well progressed, and all the necessary approvals are being advanced.
Turning now to more regional exploration, Peel's allocated about AUD 4 million over the next 12 months at multiple targets across the basin, targeting Cobar style and VMS targets. Our land footprint is vast, and there are multiple opportunities we're currently looking at. I'm going to repeat my favorite stat, which is that Peel has discovered 65% of the 34 million tonnes of resources identified in the Cobar region over the last 13 years. This is at a cost of discovery of AUD 0.10 a pound. We do have the track record, particularly led by Rob Tyson, to find, and we now have the balance sheet to maximize the opportunities across such a large portfolio.
As Nicholas said, that has already started. We are drilling at Nombinnie. We have just completed a 20-hole drill program at Nombinnie, which is about 2,000 m. It is an area that's historically been drilled, and we have the presence of strong oxide and supergene gold mineralization in this historic drilling, as well as a favorable geological setting. Geochemical, IP anomalies, all those sort of indicators that we'd like to see before we target these sorts of systems. Further drill planning is underway, and we'll finalize once we receive the assays and assess the geological data that comes out of this program. We're expecting to release these results from the initial 20-hole program progressively over the coming weeks and into December. Just 10 km away from Mallee Bull, we have a project called May Day, which a lot of you may be familiar with.
This provides strong optionality for Peel to look at a standalone gold project. May Day remains untested below 300 m, and we've planned some deeper drilling to test down plunge extensions, which will take a couple of weeks to complete later this year. May Day's mineralization, our geological team tell us, looks a lot like some of the mineralized areas at the Peak Gold Mine, where high-grade gold occurs between 300 m and 500 m below surface. Importantly, this project is situated on a granted mining lease, and therefore does offer a clear and low-risk development pathway once we get critical mass. Currently, resources are modest at 1.6 million tonnes, however, it is 97% indicated. The mineralization is very well understood where it is at the moment, and like I said, remains open down plunge and along strike untested below 300 m. Another exciting drill program.
I guess in conclusion, Peel does hold one of the most dominant land positions in the Cobar Basin. This is a proven world-class mining region with a lot of interest both internationally and locally from parties in the area and in the base metals market. We have built a substantial high-grade resource base across multiple deposits, and we've got strong optionality for future development processing these projects regionally. The company renewal is well advanced. We now have the right leadership team, a clean balance sheet, and a high-quality shareholder base to support us in our ventures in the Cobar region and beyond. This gives us a clear mandate for growth, both organically through exploration and strategically through regional consolidation, and also offshore where we are looking at opportunities further afield in other tier one jurisdictions.
With the ongoing drilling programs we have underway across our vast land holding, we see significant untapped potential to continue to grow the resource base at Peel and creating value for our shareholders. To me, the opportunity for existing and new Peel shareholders is phenomenal. I feel like the next 12 months we'll be delivering on the potential of this fantastic portfolio of assets. Nicholas, over to you.
Sorry, Nick, just getting my camera back up. Thanks very much for that. Just a reminder to everyone, please use the Q&A tab. We've got Nick on tap here, and he's willing and able to answer questions. Before we get into some of the online ones, I might just start with a sort of a broad one, Nick. Having had a look at the projects and being in the seat now for eight weeks or so, how do you see the sort of, I suppose, key value drivers moving forward? Is it from expanding some of those existing deposits? Is it discovering new ones, or is it more going down the, I guess, the development pathway, whatever that may constitute?
Yeah, it's a good question, Nicholas, and actually a little bit tricky to answer. I think clearly at the Southern N ights Complex, there is opportunity to expand that project through additional drilling. There's a lot of opportunities, and it does get our geology team pretty excited. I was speaking to the team the last couple of weeks to expand that project. It's very high-grade mineralisation, so both zinc and silver rich. There's assays of some of the holes done previously of over 1,000 g silver and 25%-30% zinc. It is an amazing ore body and will clearly benefit from more drilling in that area. That is a clear priority for us at Southern Nights. The Mallee Bull and Wirlong projects, the Peel team has done a phenomenal job advancing those projects to a point they're about as advanced as they can get now without talking about the processing solution.
We have an exploration decline approved. I'm not saying we're going to build an exploration decline. There is one approved, but that means that the project is well advanced down that permitting pathway, which is really good. We have a very good understanding of the mineralisation. We are, like I said, not building a processing plant there. We are doing some internal reviews of the work that's been done to date. We're not progressing the PFS study at this stage until we have a better idea of how we're going to process that material. I guess the third limb to all that is then exploration. Greenfield exploration, finding more deposits across our land holding. I think that's probably a key driver for value in Peel.
Alongside how do we work out how to develop Mallee Bull and Wirlong, it's important to us to keep growing that resource base and give our investors exposure to the exploration credentials we do have. We're trying to get that balance right of both resource growth, but also exploration and discovery. The development side of things is actually fairly low cost, and so most of our capital in that regard will be spent on actually putting holes in the ground and sort of testing our tenure.
Okay, that's great. I think that's a good segue. I think you probably answered this first online question, but let me just double-check that we have dealt with it. The question was, what's the timing of the PFS promised by the previous management?
Yeah, look, we are not progressing that at the moment, Nicholas. We are progressing a whole lot of options around the processing routes and those sort of things, but it seems like it's a bit of an exercise in kind of wasting money, in my view, until you know how this building the underground mine itself is only a very small part of the equation. There's obviously everything else related to that, so infrastructure, tailings, roads, processing plants, upgrades, all those sorts of things that would relate to that. If we were to go and progress the PFS as was done previously, that would not be a good use of our capital.
Yep. No, that makes sense. Thanks, Nick. The next question here, an investor says, how significant is the U.S. shift to focus on critical minerals for Australian projects?
Yeah, that's a really good question. I think critical minerals has become a fairly broadly defined term. Copper, zinc, gold, silver are all now on the critical minerals list. Look, I think having a project in the United States is certainly the gold standard in terms of attracting critical minerals funding and those sorts of things. I guess one thing we learned dealing with the U.S. government pretty significantly when we were at New World Resources was that the definition of security of supply when it comes to critical minerals is not just related to domestic U.S., it is also to friends of the U.S. That does sort of ebb and flow over time, who is a friend and who is not.
I think the main things that we learned were Korea, Japan, Australia—so Korea and Japan from selling capacity and Australia from production capacity, as well as Canada as well—were the main places you would want to be when it comes to attracting both investment, but also offtake agreements and financing and all those sorts of things. When it comes to financing these things, there is a clear focus on countries that are friends of the U.S. It is an important time to be a critical minerals producer or developer in Australia.
Okay, thanks, Nick. The next question here is, does the polymetallic nature of the deposits increase cost production? And if so, how does the company address those issues?
Yeah, that's also a good question. I think one thing to note about the Cobar region is that these are projects that have been around for many, many decades and have been processed for many decades. The style of mineralisation here is well understood. I think anyone who tells you that a polymetallic processing plant is easy is wrong. That said, the track record of all of our neighbors who have got phenomenal management teams doing great things at all their processing facilities is really good. These are plants that were designed for the type of mineralisation that Peel has.
The fact that they are polymetallic, yes, there is an increased cost production. I probably can't tell you the exact numbers versus a single-stream copper flotation versus a polymetallic, but it's not orders of magnitude. Once the capital has been spent and the mills are operational, then the cost of production doesn't necessarily change too much.
Excellent. Thanks very much. Next question here. Don't want to put you on the spot, but it's an interesting one. The investor says, consolidation in the Cobar Basin has been an ongoing topic of discussion in the region. Could you outline some of the scenarios that you see as possible or more likely than others?
Not really, because I don't really know yet. I think I'm the new kid. I guess there are this I've bruised my word back to this slide. As you can sort of see here, the players in the region, we've got the CSA mine up to the north of the town of Cobar, which is owned by Harmony Gold, obviously taken over recently from MAC. Aurelia Metals own the Peak and the Hera projects, as well as the Federation Zinc project, quite close to our tenure. Then Aeris Resources, again, to the north at the Tritton Copper Mine. Now, these are projects, certainly Peak and Tritton and CSA and Endeavour, that have been around for a long, long time. The teams of those companies are all doing terrific jobs with mines that have been around for a little while.
I guess the main point is when you look across that land holding and across those owners, and also it should include Kingston and Manuka in this as well, a lot of those plants are looking for mill feed. We actually have a slide on our investor presentation, which is on the ASX platform. It was too wordy for today's event, but you can look at the capacity of the processing facilities and current run rates and those sorts of things. Now, to their credit, every project in the region has a very well thought out mine plan and how to get to capacity in those processing plants. That is probably what Cobar consolidation means to me, is how do you fully utilize the mill capacity that is available?
It is not about one company owning everything or anything else, it is more about, well, how can we come up with beneficial ways for both parties, for Peel and other parties that are going to see these processing facilities full and producing critical minerals for 8-10 years plus mine life. That is the way we think about these sorts of things. I cannot really answer very well just yet. Sort of danced around a little bit because I do not really know, but it is more about we are looking at how do we, where does our mineralisation fit in the puzzle that all these guys are trying to put together.
Now, for us, it is actually pretty easy, Nicholas, compared to what they are doing because they are all mining. It is a bit harder work, and every day is hard work, whereas we are just trying to find more mineralisation and then work out where it can go. There is a lot of work to do, but we are sort of going through that process now of assessing the best options.
Excellent. Thanks, Nick. Specific question here from an investor. When you talk about Southern Nights, does that include Wagga Tank? And what are the prospects for an open pit in the initial development?
Yeah, I should have been a bit clearer on that. We talk about the Southern Nights Complex now, which is the Wagga Tank and Southern Nights. Wagga Tank over here on the left in this long section and Southern Nights on the right. When we talk about the Southern Nights Complex, previously there have been mine plans that have been put, when you look at it in long section, that sort of include the whole underground area. Yes, obviously, that near-surface mineralisation, which again has some pretty amazing grades, as you'll see on that slide there, have come into the mineralised areas. Now, they are very modest tons, I should say, for now. So there's not a lot of tons in that higher grade zone.
Clearly, when you look at the grade thickness long section, the higher grade core of Wagga Tank is at depth. That said, we should not always be able to look at any sort of near-surface open pits and dismiss them as something that are not useful. They are very useful to us. We have not probably fully got our head around yet as to how the open pit would fit in with the rest of it because it is clearly different dominant metals. Again, it's not dissimilar to other projects in Cobar where they see the type of mineralisation or the makeup of the mineralisation, I should say, change at depth versus what they see at the surface.
The Southern Nights Complex is, we think about it all together and trying to join it up with Rob and the team with this link zone, is a pretty important part of it. Yeah, we're looking at how we're going to deal with the open pit over time. There's a lot of metallurgy and those sorts of things we need to do on that open pit work, and that's all being undertaken.
Excellent. Thanks, Nick. While we're in the nitty-gritty of the projects and the assets, here's a sort of a related question. Is a central hub to treat the existing Peel deposits a more economical option than toll treating ore at underutilized existing mills in the Cobar area?
Yeah. No, Nicholas, we do not think so. I think there are a few ways to answer that question. Look, a polymetallic mill is going to be AUD 100 million-AUD 150 million potentially and has been looked at by Peel in the past, as has a copper-only mill and those sorts of things. I think, firstly, when our market cap is where it is, financing that is very difficult. Secondly, where do you put it? Thirdly, if we can avoid going to be hundreds of millions of dollars on a processing plant, we should do that. There is a better way to shareholder value, in my view. I appreciate not everyone might have that view, but that is certainly based on what I am seeing.
Also, frankly, market feedback from others who know the area as well is we think that's the best way home to go and look at other ways to get to realize value from the projects.
Excellent. That's very clear. Thanks, Nick. We've gone through most of those questions. There's just one more which I was throwing you under the bus again here, but I'll ask it anyway. The question is, what's a realistic price target for PEX? And then the investor says, yes, I realize that's a near impossible question, but feel free to give it a crack. To throw a few prompts, copper-depleted landscape on the ASX, record copper prices. What's your ambition for the company, I suppose, is what I'm asking.
Yeah. Look, ambition for the company is pretty multifaceted. I guess, firstly, from an enterprise value point of view, AUD 70 million for 22.9 million tons of 2.2% copper equivalent is woefully undervalued. I think I sort of see there's a lot of value to be had by investing in Peel shares now, and indeed, I'm doing that as well. I think I'm not going to put a price target on it. Paul Howard and Mike Millican and Michael Scanbury from Euros have done that. They're very significantly above where we are now. I've been told we're not allowed to put them on the slide, but I can tell you they're very significantly north of where we are now. I think today we're around that AUD 0.12 mark, Nicholas, which is good. I think we did touch sort of below AUD 0.06 not that long ago.
There's a lot more to come here. I think we are in one of the best copper-producing or base metals-producing regions on the planet, frankly. I used to say that about New World and Antler, and it was probably true there as well. I think that's what I kind of look for with these projects is in the right real estate. We have a very well-understood, well-advanced ore body in one of the best parts of the world to own that. There is a lot of value from AUD 73 million enterprise value. We are well funded. We have the best exploration team in the region. Yeah, I am not going to say a price target because some people tell me I have got it too low.
Yes. No, good answer. Thanks, Nick. Those broker notes are out there, so that is good reading for investors and shareholders. Look, that is great. I think we've dealt with all the questions. So, Nick, do you want to just a couple of final words to wrap things up?
Yeah. Look, I've pretty much done it. I think deliberately, and sorry to flick through the slides there, deliberately I put my contact details on every single presentation. So my email address, my phone number's there. If I don't get back to you straight away, I will endeavor to do so as quickly as I can. Always happy to take calls from shareholders, always happy to answer questions. And I just think that, yeah, I think over the next 12 months, it's going to be an exciting time at Peel. A lot of exploration activity. There's a lot of interest in the area. All of our neighbors are doing terrific things on the deposits as well. So it's a good time to be in Cobar.
Happy to take any questions. Thanks again to Read Corporate and Nicholas and everyone for arranging this webinar, and hopefully do one again soon.
Absolutely. Thanks very much, Nick. Really appreciate your time. Thanks, everyone, for joining us. I'll quickly just mention as well that Nick and the Peel team are participating, for those who follow, the Resources Rising Stars Network in our summer series in Sydney on the 2nd of December and Melbourne on the 4th of December. Anyone who's listening in and would like the opportunity to catch up with Nick in person, come along and catch up with the company there. That's at the Sofitel in both cities. Thanks very much for joining us today. A recording of this will be released shortly, and we appreciate your attendance. Have a great day. Thank you.