NQ Minerals Plc (NEX:NQMI) Executive Director Roger Jackson caught up with DirectorsTalk for an exclusive interview to discuss the first bulk shipment of pyrite concentrate from their Hellyer Gold Mine.
Q1: First off, congratulations on announcing the first successful shipment of precious metal pyrite concentrate from the Hellyer Gold Mine. Could you explain for us the significance of this for the company?
A1: The shipment closes the loop on our metallurgy process at Hellyer and convinces us now that our concept of producing three concentrates works and we’ve seen that we’ve been able to produce a lead/gold/silver concentrate to the specification that we thought.
We then made a zinc concentration that would build up the recovery zone to make it saleable and good product to market.
The last product was pyrite and it was important that we can move it because it adds value to us and we’ve seen that now we can make it and fill it of which I believe is something pretty unique and also it’s something a lot of people doubted, and we’re proud of the fact that we’ve achieved what we set out to do.
Q2: NQ Minerals have now delivered three high-quality concentrate products to the market, what’s helped you achieve all this?
A2: We’ve got a fantastic technical team and a good management team at Board level within our company, some really excellent metallurgists and technical process people amongst our team which has made it a lot more fluent. It is a difficult task in extracting tailings and making a product out of it because it is the second time round.
It started out with a concept and we believed in that and we’ve stuck to our process and we’ve finally come out with three sets of products that are saleable and profitable. There was many doubters on this and we’re happy that we’ve done what we said we could do.
We’re also happy because we’ve got strong support from our funders and our off-take partners and of course, our investors.
Q3: As you advance your Hellyer project further, what are the key milestones that investors can expect to hear from NQ Minerals in the months ahead?
A3: I’m not going to give too much away but I’ll just suggest that investors should keep an eye on NQMI space. We have some very good initiatives underway, behind the scenes, and we’re working on those, their value add to what we do and additional products that we now understand and dealt with through Hellyer.
So, we feel that we can bring these products online and they’ll provide significant shareholder value so yes, keep an eye on the NQMI space.
