David Price - Rockfire Resources Plc

David Price has spent four decades finding mines. His career started the day after his final exams, when Robertson Research put him on a plane to Papua New Guinea to hunt for gold from a helicopter. Since then he has drilled out some of Australia's best known deposits, built and sold gold projects in Fiji and Austria, run an explorer in China, and grown a Greek gold resource from 100,000 ounces to over a million.

Now he is back in Greece as CEO of Rockfire Resources, and the story behind Molaoi is worth hearing. David found it by sorting a database of 750 European deposits by zinc grade and tonnage. Molaoi topped both. Then in 2022 he had historical core assayed for germanium, a metal China controls around 85% of, and the first samples came back at 149 g/t.

In this episode, David covers the path from PNG to the Peloponnese, why time spent underground shaped how he explores, what the Greek government told him about community relations 25 years ago, and how Rockfire puts that advice into practice today. He also sets out the plan: drilling through 2026, feasibility from 2027, and long-lead studies already underway to compress the timeline.

A conversation with a geologist who has seen the whole cycle, several times over.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

When I was studying, I uh was actually doing part-time work with Robertson Research. Robertson Research were uh consulting firm that were based out of the UK of all places. And I was a student uh in my final year, and I I was with Robertson Research on a part-time basis. I think I was, you know, three or four days a week with them. And um, and then uh at the end of my last exam, uh literally the day after my last exam, they had me flying out to uh Papua New Guinea. So um I was um up in Papua New Guinea and uh started my career jumping in and out of helicopters as you do when you're in your early 20s and uh straight into the jungles and looking for gold up in uh very, very remote parts of Papua New Guinea. And went back then when I was fit and healthy. Um that sort of thing was really appealing to a young fella. So that was good fun, really enjoyed that. Uh, with the same group, I was seconded then uh to my first drilling program, and that was up in the Philippines on an island in the Philippines. Uh again, quite a remote island, and it was when the NPA, the new the National People's Party or the New People's Uh Army were very active. So uh I was actually sent into an active war zone back then in the Philippines, and uh we had an RC rig and a diamond rig operating on an island, and um that's where I first became familiar with drilling and drilling techniques and logging, etc. So uh that was there. Then Jakarta, into Indonesia with the same group, Robertson Research, and I was seconded into their office there and working throughout Asia there. So um at the time, a really very, very experienced geologist said to me, make sure you get underground mine experience and open cut mine experience. It was great advice because um what you're trying to do in exploration isn't always clear unless you've worked in a mine and realize you know what does work and what doesn't work as far as um mineralization is concerned. So that was really great. It got me um familiar with the mining techniques and underground and open cut mining techniques. I uh then moved back into exploration um a couple of years later, and I was involved with very large drill out programs as one of the geologists in these large drill out programs. Um we drilled out the windage pit at Granny Smith Gold Mine in Western Australia. Uh, we drilled out um North Big Bell at the Big Bell Gold Mine in Western Australia. Uh I operated uh the um Rab, the initial Rab rig that was at Keringle, which is over a million ounces, and now mined. And uh and then also in Osborne in North Queensland, I was one of the geologists involved with drilling out that very large copper gold deposit, which of course is also now mined. So what that odd time with uh that was all with Plaza Pacific uh out of Canada, and um they actually uh it gave me exposure to really uh large drill out programs, five, six, seven rigs that are operating 24 hours a day. So that was great to get that exposure. Um from there, uh I became regional exploration manager for um Hargraves Resources in New South Wales and working at the Browns Creek Gold Mine and looking after the near mine and uh so the Brownfields exploration and also the regional exploration. So I had a team of about maybe eight or nine geologists uh with me then, and um and then uh from there I I then started my own uh entrepreneurial road. So uh not not every geologist goes down the entrepreneurial road, but uh I decided to do that. So I acquired a um a gold project in Fiji from Climax Mining, and uh I uh sought funding for that and uh was successful in getting funding out of Australia for that, and um then sold that to an ASX listed company. So that was great. Uh I bought a gold, very high grade gold, copper-silver mine in Austria, um, and I bought that from one of the local um local uh uh uh consortiums that were were operating them. They they were actually just exploring it. So I bought that from them. Uh I got funding out of the UK, and ultimately that got sold into an A-listed company. So uh that was all very successful at that point in time. Um and then uh then I went into China. I was um CEO of an Australian gold and copper explorer in in China and spent uh a couple of years, probably two and a half years in China, and that was really great. Um I spent two and a half years in northern Greece. Uh northern Greece, I was the uh the country manager for Greece, and we had the Sapers Gold Project in Greece. That's where my my first uh experience in in Greece occurred. That was about uh the late 90s, about 1998, 99, that that period. And we had bought that from uh from Newcrest. They had about 100,000 ounces of gold when I got involved with that, and then that became uh just over a million ounces at about 12 grams gold. So really, really nice deposit there in northern Greece. Northern Greece has got a lot of great deposits up in there, and and it was it was that time it had exposure to to Greece. And at the time my administration manager was he's a it became a very good friend. We we maintained contact, and uh it was actually uh uh him that that uh helped me to get hold of um of Molly at the end of the day. After Greece, I then went back into uh into Western Australia and I drilled out the uh Mount Holland Gold project in Western Australia and moved that through a scoping and pre-feasibility study. Then I got involved with Yangibana Rare Earth Deposit. I think it's about look, I'm I'm guessing probably fourth or fifth largest uh rare earth deposit in Australia, and I was one of the consultant geologists on that drill out. I then became the senior geological consultant for the drill out of the Earl Grey lithium deposit in Western Australia, which became the third largest lithium mine uh lithium deposit in Australia. And and then uh and then into into Greece. So uh into actually uh the old Papua Mining. So parpior mining had bought uh four of my projects in Queensland, which we still have, as rock fire. And then I was also able to identify the Moly Zinc project from the time that I'd spent in in Greece many, many years ago, maybe 25, 30 years ago, and uh and that um became uh something that we we have since focused on, of course, because it's by far the most advanced project, and um and so far so good. So we're we're drilling away quite happily. And uh today we had an announcement out that we had an appraisal done in the underground. It looks as though the underground is in is in reasonable condition. Um we don't know what it's like deep into the mine. It goes for about 700 meters, the decline, but the guys opened up the the the entrance, the portal, and they they pulled out all of the rock that had been pushed in there to to prevent people going into it, and they had a look from the entrance, and and surprisingly, the concrete collar was still in good condition, the steel supports were all still in good condition, and uh we were quite surprised by that, as were the the mining engineers in in uh in Athens. So that's that's a great sign. It means that uh there's opportunity that we might be able to reuse that.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

I was going to move this on to Maleo because when you first came across the project, did germanium factor as a a key thing, or was it purely zinc?

SPEAKER_01 7:54

No, it was purely zinc. I've got a mineral deposit database of about 750 mineral deposits throughout Europe. I started sorting them based on a commodity, so I sorted the zinc grade, and the highest zinc grade in Europe was Moly. I then started uh sorting tonnage, and the highest tonnage was Moly, and that's what led me to Moly. So we actually I asked my my colleague in in uh Greece, who is now our country manager for Rockfire in Greece, and he then inquired about it, and we then, with the help of Rockfire, took that for an international tender. So at the time uh it was zinc. The government had analyzed for lead and silver, and they we knew that there was high-grade lead and silver, but I'd I'd actually read a geological paper that said that zinc deposits are often associated with germanium, and this is back in 2022. And so when we were sampling the historical core from Molai, I said to the to the guys at site, I said, let's let's analyze for germanium, gallium, and indium. And the there was no indium, so the indium is really uh below detection. There's low-level gallium. Um the the background gallium in the Earth's crust is about 11. 11 to 12 grams per ton gallium in the crustal abundance, and we're getting about averaging 19 to 20 grams per ton gallium. So look, I'm not getting too excited about the gallium. We do have elevated gallium. It's probably the best way to describe it is elevated gallium. Uh, I wouldn't call it necessarily anomalous, to be honest. However, we know it's there, and if we are successful in extracting the germanium, we will definitely look at extracting the gallium as well. But I'm not putting a big song and dance around the gallium because it is really only elevated. And uh and the germanium came back very high grade germanium. We uh I think the first samples we had were about 149 grams per ton germanium in the old course. So germanium was really high grade, and that got us pretty excited. And it's since that the germanium has been added to all of the global critical mineral lists. So um we sort of kicked off the ball rolling there with germanix.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Quite good timing. I think I think it's important to mention with with germanium that it's contextually it's very, very relevant because obviously China controls 85% of the world's supply. That's that's obviously that should be a big red flag for any investor, anyway. The way the world is geopolitically, we need germanium for for weaponry, for night vision, for fiber optics, anyway. You're currently drilling for a made-in-jaw resource. What's the process between now and that point?

SPEAKER_01 10:35

It's just drill baby drill, as they say. Uh, we're just going to keep drilling. And we are drilling. Um, look, to be honest with you, I've been involved with projects uh where Molye is at. And if I had the money, if I had the um the resources, I'd probably have five or six drilling rigs on this by now, to be honest with you. It's it's at that point that we need this type of uh of investment to be able to get this rocking and rolling and to be able to do it in a timely fashion. So at the moment, we've got the one rig, we've elected to buy our own rig, which will arrive. We we still hope it'll arrive in October. That's what we're still being told. But the thing is that there's such a critical shortage of rigs in Europe. Europe is booming for expiration. Our contractor has about 15 rigs and they're fully deployed throughout Europe. And of course, uh, I told the market that we'd have a rig by January of this year, and uh and when January came, which is the date we'd been promised that the uh the drilling contractor said, Look, I'm I can't give you the rig after all because um the company that had the rig decided to keep drilling and hold on to it. So I don't have any rigs. So I it made me look like a bit of a goose, but that's all right. Um we uh we find our own way through it. So we we decided to buy our own rig. I I think that's a great, a very prudent move given the shortage of rigs in Europe and also uh the fact that um you know we're there for a long time. We'll we'll need that rig and we'll be keeping it fully employed.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Yes. You've said previously as well, obviously with drilling in the middle of olive groves. And I I I think it was in a proactive uh interview you said how important it is to preserve those groves. Uh how important is the relationship with the local community and how on board are they with this project?

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Yeah, look, Michael, it's the relationship with the local community is absolutely critical. When I was um when I was with the SAPES project, and this is 25, 30 years ago, I was holding high-level discussions there because we were going through a pre-approval, which is effectively a pre-feasibility study of the project at the time, which which I was leading as as the country manager. And the the government said, look, David, if you've got the local community on side, then Athens will always be with you. It will always uh be with alongside you. But if you have the local community offside, we won't support you because the locals are too important. And and I agree with that. I think it's a great philosophy. I think it was very bold and honest of them to admit that because a lot of governments will will not admit that. And I think it's really great. It's really good at attitude. So we take that relationship very, very seriously. I think because we we are sensitive to their requirements and their needs and their expectations, then it allows us to be able to look at how we can help them. One of the things that a lot of mining companies get wrong is that they assume, they assume that they know what the community wants. And it's completely wrong. We have no idea what the community wants. So our our approach is always to ask the community what they have expectation, what sort of expectations they have from the project, what are they looking for us to contribute to the to the community? And so it's being driven largely by the local community. That's that's really great. Um that approach works, um, and we we hope that that will continue to work. We also promised Athens that we would employ as many locals as we can. So what we do is we we look for positions. Um, we've been looking for a geologist recently. We look locally in Molai. If we can't find anyone in Molai, we then uh expand out and we look in at the Peloponnese. If we can't find in the Peloponnese, we look in without throughout Greece. And of course, then if we can't find anyone in Greece, we would then look internationally. Uh lo and behold, we found a uh a graduate geologist from a little town called Skala. It's about uh 20 minutes from the project. So we've taken that uh geologist on and uh look, we are growing the team. We're taking on young geologists because uh I think that's really great for Greece to be able to have opportunity for these young people. And we do have more experienced geologists who are going to to guide them and uh and mentor them, including myself. So we're we're doing really well with the local community and touch wood that continues, but we'll we'll always be sensitive to their requirements.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

One final question. Rockfire has this 30-year exploration and exploitation license. Obviously, things are ramping up quite quickly now. There's more exploration going on, things like that. If we if we fast forward five years, what does what does success look like for you and Rockfire?

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Uh well uh I think it's it's a big difference to where we are now in five years' time. So we'll be drilling for the rest of this calendar year, and we hope to to start the the feasibility next year. Now, the feasibility is quite a quite a lengthy process. I've I've managed a few feasibility projects in my life, and and including a the pre-approval or the pre-feasibility study for the SAPIS Gold Project in Greece. And uh we submitted that to the Greek government, and it was the first pre-approval study actually approved in in Greece. So, um, and by the way, the Moly license is only the second uh license that's been uh issued by the government, uh, the first one being Sapis, where I was involved with that as well. So look, we've got a good track record. And as far as the feasibility is concerned, there are some very, very long lead-time aspects of a feasibility study. One of them is the is the ecological study. You have to monitor the fauna and the flora for a 12-month period as as basically an environmental baseline study prior to then going into the environmental impact study. So what we've done is um we we've started the ecological study. We actually expect that to be completed by the end of June this year. Um so in a couple of weeks. Um, what we're doing is getting the very, very long lead-time aspects of the feasibility study behind us. Uh, also a hydrology study. So you have to study the water table for 12 months. So we put that in place about, I think it's about nine months ago now, and those studies are almost complete, but the hydrology will be ongoing. So we always monitor the water in inflows and outflows and right through the mining, and then even after the mining, uh, those hydrology studies continue. So look, we're well ahead of the the curve there. Uh and that's deliberate strategy because when we come to our feasibility, we want to try and get through that as quickly as we can, and that means we get these long lead time aspects out of the way.