Segun Lawson, the CEO of TThor Explorations Ltd (TSX-V:THX, AIM:THX, OTC:THXPF), talks Proactive through the progress made by the Nigeria-based gold group over the past year
Segun Lawson: We’ve had a very productive year. We should be producing about 85,000 ounces out of our flagship asset in Nigeria, the Segilola gold mine. It’s been a very profitable year as well, with low all-in-sustaining costs.
We also have a second project in our portfolio, the Douta Project, which we’re advancing through to a preliminary feasibility study (PFS)
Proactive: And you had some very good news this week. Remind us about that.
Segun Lawson: Segilola, being our flagship project has been generating our cash, and we’ve been very pleased with its performance over the year.
It’s been very profitable. We have one last loan repayment to make in a couple of weeks, and we’ll then be completely debt-free.
In fact, we transitioned from a net debt position to a net cash position in Q3 this year.
What that has meant is that we’ve now been focused on extending the mine life, because every additional ounce of gold we find, or every incremental year of mine life, is hugely value accretive to our shareholders.
So, we’ve been doing some additional drilling underneath the pit. We announced a set of results in October, and we’ve now had a second batch of results.
We’re very encouraged by the results, showing high-grade mineralization up to over 100 meters below the current pit design. So, it’s showing very credible signs of mine life extension.
Proactive: Are you going to be looking at underground operations at Segilola?
Segun Lawson: Yes. That was the initial part of the proof of concept for the drilling programs, to transition to an underground mine at some point.
However, when we put everything on the table and looked at our initial studies, the gold price was trading way lower than it is today.
At prevailing gold prices, there is scope to deepen the pit and take that further as an open pit.
So, our first focus is to extend the open pit mine life, and there will be an inflection point to transition to an underground mine.
Proactive: That’s Segilola. Take us through what’s happening at Douta.
Segun Lawson: At Douta, we carried out a drilling program this year, which was successful. We’ve now collected all the data and put it into an updated mineral resource estimate.
That’s going into a preliminary feasibility study, which we’re on the home stretch of completing.
We’ve had to push it back a couple of times, but it’s looking encouraging. It’s certainly going to be value accretive to us as a company.
The final steps involve finalising the metallurgical work and engineering design.
It’s going to be a very detailed PFS, and we hope we’ll be able to fast-track from PFS to DFS.
It’s certainly a project we’re looking to build as part of our organic portfolio, and on the back of the envelope, it looks like it could run for 10 to 12 years.
Proactive: You’re very much focused on West Africa. What other opportunities do you see in the region?
Segun Lawson: West Africa is where we have our expertise and we’ve recently expanded our footprint there.
We went into Côte d’Ivoire earlier this year, picked up a project from Endeavour, and we’re also optioning some opportunities ourselves.
However, elsewhere in Africa, we’ve looked at East Africa and Southern Africa as well and see a couple of interesting projects at advanced stages.
We won’t limit ourselves. If there’s something that’s the right fit, compelling and aligns well with us, we’ll certainly have a close look.
Proactive: Any milestones that we should be looking out for in the short to medium term?
Segun Lawson: Certainly. First and foremost, achieving our guidance of 85,000 ounces at an all-in-sustaining cost well below $1,000 per ounce is our priority. I think that underpins the value of the company.
Secondly, we’ll be looking at studies on taking the open pit deeper and extending the open pit mine life.
We aim to release the remaining mine life results in quarter one next year, so people can forecast how much gold we’ll be producing over the next four to five years and at what cost.
We’ll also have drill results from underneath Segilola and in and around the site, and we’ll have a PFS for our Douta Project in Senegal.