It was not a great day to kick off Diggers & Dealers – and I am neither talking about the weather nor about any bouts of ‘food poisoning’ picked up from too many Swan Golds on Sunday night.
Keynote speaker Kim Beazley might have tried his best to reignite Cold War 2 – “WA is the northern most State [in Australia]. Potentially the most vulnerable, and potentially the most worth attacking.” – though it was the capital market that put a cold freeze on the first day of Diggers 2024.
With the S&P/ASX 200 suffering its worst day in more than four years, it was not the sort of backdrop companies promoting anything from gold and rare earths to nickel, lithium and niobium wanted.
It was a shame for the WA1 Resources (ASX: WA1) team, whose Luni niobium discovery in the far-eastern Pilbara region of Western Australia has been one of the talking points leading up to Diggers. And WA1 boss Paul Savich’s presentation did not disappoint, so maybe the company’s 14 per cent share price rout yesterday is a buying opportunity today.
There is nothing like a good discovery to get the market excited – over the past decade, think Sirus’ Nova nickel find, Chalice Mining’s (ASX: CHN) Gonneville PGE hit, the two-lives-and-counting Spartan Resources’ (ASX: SPR) Never Never and Pepper gold deposits at Dalgaranga and, of course, WA1’s Luni.
Niobium has attracted no shortage of players wanting to follow in WA1’s footsteps, and there are a fair few dropping it into conversation in and around Diggers.
There will no doubt be more exciting niobium news from within the exploration ranks before Diggers comes to a close tomorrow evening.
So notwithstanding an adverse capital market – and the fact 60 Diggers delegates didn’t make it to the start line until lunchtime, courtesy of their flight carrier’s decision in Perth on Sunday to unexpectedly and without warning downgrade the plane size and kick paying customers off the tarmac – the mood in and around the Goldfields Arts Centre yesterday was excellent.
Proud Wonguthu man Linden Brownley delivered a typically brilliant Welcome to Country, crowned by him and family members breaking into song, before Bomber Beazley used his keynote for a broad discussion about, well, everything.
The Labor royalty and former ambassador to the US is always good for a few throw-away lines so it was pleasing for him to acknowledge Federal opposition leader Peter Dutton’s presence at Diggers, along the lines of “he has the toughest gig in politics, I hope he keeps it”.
Dutton, with an enormous entourage of Federal police and fellow State and Federal Liberals in tow – there might have been more coppers than Liberal parliamentarians – faced the Diggers media scrum before later being whisked off to a Liberal Party luncheon organised by none other than Kalgoorlie’s pollie whisperer, Ashok Parekh.
“It wouldn’t be Diggers without politics,” one attendee quipped, clearly oblivious to the good old days when Diggers was a political no-go zone. WA Mines Minister David Michael joins us tomorrow.
By that stage the Diggers organisers, renowned the world over for how rigid they are with keeping to the schedule, managed to claw back the 30-minute overrun from the opening session.
Morning tea was over a bit quicker – though those wanting a whirlwind VR tour of gold still managed to enjoy a swivel at The Perth Mint booth.
Day 1 was dominated by some of the industry heavyweights telling their story on the auditorium stage.
Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST) COO Simon Jessop kicked off proceedings by highlighting that – half a world away – our athletes were all chasing gold – “something rare and precious. And at Northern Star we have lots of it and it’s the place to be”.
Later in the day Westgold Resources (ASX: WGX) boss Wayne Brammell also talked up the gold theme, promising lots of upside from his company’s just-completed merger with TSX-listed Karora.
One of the assets that now belongs to Westgold is the Beta Hunt mine – remember when it was a nickel mine before one of the underground drillers in 2018 discovered massive gold stones in the Father’s Day Vein?
Deep Yellow’s (ASX: DYL) team made clear that uranium in Namibia was going to be its priority focus while Ivan Vella, the one-time senior Rio Tinto executive now in charge of IGO (ASX: IGO), made his Diggers debut with a – for IGO followers – new-look presentation.
“This is exciting,” Vella told the audience. “Go gentle on me.”
The crowd did.
As for last night, nothing was easy.
See you at the Gold Industry Group breakfast this morning, the hottest ticket in town.
