Triple Plate Junction

 

Triple Plate Junction plc is a gold and mineral exploration company which listed on AIM (the Alternative Investment Market) in 2004, having completed a fundraising of £4.2 million.

 

The company has secured highly prospective exploration areas which have the potential to host world class gold and copper-gold deposits.

 

TPJ will use its assets to build a significant gold producer, based on continuous identification, assessment, analysis and negotiation of controlling interests in first class gold deposits and areas with exceptional exploration potential.

 

Overview

 

JV status and Ownership

Partner	Project	Current Share %	Share after current  work programme %
Newmont	Morobe	49.00%	30.00%
Barrick	Wamum	12.14%	12.14%
Newcrest	Manus Island	75.90%	15.20%
Gold Anomaly	Crater Mountain	36%	18.6%
N/A	Pu Sam Cap	70%

 

 

 

About Papua New Guinea

 

As an emerging market, Papua New Guinea does not possess a fully developed business and regulatory infrastructure that would generally exist in a more mature market economy. The current government is attempting to address these issues and has many open forums on the reforms in which the TPJ Group is an active participant. However, the country has not yet fully implemented the reforms needed to create banking, judicial and regulatory systems that usually exist in more developed markets. Consequently, operations in Papua New Guinea involve risks that are not typically associated with those in more developed markets. The environment is such that the landowners and other interested parties can attempt to obstruct the normal business of a company. Accordingly, the stability and success of the Group's business will depend upon the Government's ability to institute supervisory, judicial and other regulatory reforms.

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Morobe

 

 

 

Overview:

 

TPJ currently holds a 49% interest in Morobe which is located in a major, emerging gold-copper district in west central Papua New Guinea where the venture’s managing partner, Newmont, is initiating advanced exploration on at least one prospect with multi-million ounce gold potential. 

 

Location:

 

Morobe comprises exploration licences covering 3761 square kilometres centred on the town of Wau in Morobe Province and adjacent to historic gold mining areas and recent major discoveries, including: • The Morobe Goldfields in the Wau district which, since the 1920’s, have produced over 3.5 million ounces of gold from alluvial and hard rock mining operations. • The Hidden Valley mine which commenced operations in 2010 with an annual production capacity of 250,000 ounces of gold and significant silver credits from a resource containing 5.8 million ounces of gold. • The Wafi-Golpu project which is expected to double its reported resources to 30 million ounces of gold and 8 million tonnes of copper (see TPJ press release, 10th March 2011). • Other gold discoveries in the 1980’s including Hamatu (1 million ounces) and Kerimenge (1.8 million ounces), both in the Wau district.  

 

Ownership:

 

A joint venture agreement was signed with Newmont in December 2008. It granted Newmont Ventures Limited, a subsidiary of Newmont Mining Corporation, the right to earn a 51% managing interest in the JV by spending US$6 million on Phase 1 exploration, and a further 19% on the earlier of spending US$9 million on Phase 2 exploration or on delivery of a feasibility study, either to occur before 23 December 2014. TPJ may then elect to have Newmont fund its share of mine development in exchange for which Newmont earns a further 5% interest. If either party’s interest dilutes to 10%, that interest converts to a 1% NSR royalty. Newmont advised TPJ that it had met its Phase 1 obligations on 23 September 2010 and has elected to proceed with Phase 2 (see TPJ press release, 24th September 2010). Accordingly, TPJ now holds a 49% interest in the JV.

 

 

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Wamum - Joint Venture with Barrick

 

 

 

Overview:

 

TPJ is contributing towards maintaining its current 12.14% interest in Wamum while the venture’s managing partner, Barrick, undertakes an overview of the venture’s prospects which lie in the same area of Papua New Guinea as TPJ’s Morobe JV. 

 

Location:

 

Wamum’s exploration licences cover an area of 1962 square kilometres lying largely within the Morobe Province and to the north of TPJ’s Morobe JV. Its boundaries are about 2 kilometers to the west of the giant, gold-copper, Wafi-Golpu project and 35 kilometres to the south-east of the Kainantu underground mine whose resource estimate in 2006 was 2 million ounces of gold at a grade of 20.2g/t. Kainantu was acquired by Barrick in 2007. It was shut down in 2009 but remains the administrative centre of Barrick’s exploration efforts in the region. Within the Wamum tenements is the Mount Victor skarn deposit which produced gold from a small open pit operation in 1987-90.  

 

Ownership:

 

Wamum originally comprised a 618 square kilometre exploration licence owned by TPJ for which a letter of intent was signed in September 2007 granting Barrick the right to earn an 80% managing interest by spending AUD$5 million on exploration within 5 years. Having earned that interest, a joint venture agreement was signed in May 2009 granting participating interests over an expanded tenement area of 80% to Barrick and 20% to TPJ. If either party’s interest dilutes to 5%, that interest converts to a 1% NSR royalty. Barrick has continued to explore Wamum with TPJ electing not to contribute to its interest such that, by the end of 2010, TPJ’s interest had diluted to 12.14% in the JV.

 

 

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Crater Mountain

 

Joint Venture with Gold Anomaly

 

 

 

Overview:

 

Highly encouraging initial results from a drilling campaign on one of the venture’s prospects in central Papua New Guinea is likely to lead to an expanded drilling programme to define a resource which the venture’s managing partner, Gold Anomaly, has targeted at 30-75 million tonnes at 1-2g/t gold. TPJ’s participating interest going forward is likely to be about 19%. 

 

Location:

 

Crater Mountain comprises exploration licences covering 307 square kilometres straddling the border between the Chimbu and Eastern Highland Provinces. This region is in the centre of the New Guinea Orogen, an extensive geologic zone that makes up the mountainous spine of Papua New Guinea. The western portion of this zone encompasses the world class mining operations of Porgera, OK Tedi and Grasberg. To the east lies the emerging gold-copper mining districts of Kainantu, Wafi-Golpu and Hidden Valley in the vicinity of TPJ’s Morobe and Wamum joint ventures.  

 

Ownership:

 

A joint venture agreement between TPJ and a predecessor of Gold Anomaly was signed in August 2007. It granted Gold Anomaly the right to earn a 51% interest in the property for AUD$1 million of its shares and the expenditure of AUD$583,000 on a Phase 1 exploration programme and a further 19% interest for a programme of bulldozer access and benching and a minimum of 750m of diamond drilling in a Phase 2 programme. Thereafter, Gold Anomaly and TPJ would spend in proportion to their interests or dilute at the rate of 1% per AUD$50K spent by the funding party down to a non-diluting interest of 10% carried to completion of a bankable feasibility study. The PNG State has the right to purchase up to a 30% interest in any discovery arising from the licences slated for development.

 

Gold Anomaly met its Phase 1 obligations in 2008. Upon satisfaction of Phase 2, TPJ interest will be about 19% with residual interests of about 11% held by New Guinea Gold and Celtic Minerals under an earlier joint venture agreement with TPJ.

 

 

Manus Island

 

 

 

Manus consists of exploration licences covering 674 square kilometres which is more than half the area of Manus Island. Manus Island lies to the north of the Papua New Guinea mainland and to the west of a chain of islands hosting a number of gold and copper deposits. These include the massive epithermal gold deposit, on Lihir Island and Panguna’s majot porphyry copper-gold deposit on Bougainville Island. 

 

Ownership:

 

TPJ currently holds a 75.98% participating interest in Manus. The other interests are held by Pacrim Energy (13.43%) and Golden Success (10.59%). In November 2010, TPJ finalised a joint venture agreement with Newcrest which granted Newcrest, as the JV manager, to earn 80% of TPJ’s interest by funding AUD$6 million of the project’s exploration expenditures over 5 years including AUD$1 million over the first 2 years. This would leave TPJ with a 15.2% interest with its other partners each holding a minimum of 10% should they elect not fund their share of expenditures.

 

 

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Vietnam Overview

 

Vietnam Presentation

Download the Vietnam Presentation

 

About Vietnam

 

Vietnam is in the process of implementing far-reaching economic and legal reforms and it is difficult to predict or anticipate future developments, as the Vietnamese legal structure is expected to undergo substantial change in the future.

 

In January 2007, Vietnam became a member of the World Trade Organisation. The economy of Vietnam, although continuing to be one of the fastest growing in the world, is still substantially less developed than those of other geographic regions such as Western Europe and the United States, and as such the laws and regulatory apparatus are in an early stage of development.

 

Vietnam is in the process of revising its Mineral Law, and it is not yet clear to what extent the outcome will encourage or discourage foreign investment in the country’s minerals sector. In addition, the time taken to obtain approvals to undertake business activities in Vietnam may be substantial.

 

 

Pu Sam Cap

 

 

 

Overview:

 

As the 70% owner and managing partner of this venture in northwest Vietnam, TPJ is conducting a drilling programme to identify the likelihood of a high grade, near surface, +500,000 ounce gold resource by the end of 2011. 

 

Location:

 

Pu Sam Cap originally comprised exploration licences covering 154 square kilometres in Lai Chau Province in northwest Vietnam. In December 2010, a new exploration licence was issued under the provisions of the Mineral Law totalling 27 square kilometres covering the best prospects discovered to date. They lie close to the junction of three tectonic plates whose boundaries encompass a number of significant mineral deposits in South China, Vietnam and Laos, including several porphyry copper and epithermal-style gold-copper deposits.  

 

Ownership:

 

TPJ currently has a 70% interest in Pu Sam Cap under a joint venture agreement with Vietnamese central and provincial state companies whose interests are carried to completion of feasibility studies. From 1994, a predecessor of TPJ and Normandy, which became part of Newmont, had conflicting interests in Pu Sam Cap which were finally resolved in 2003 with the formation of TPJ as a joint venture partner with Newmont. Newmont relinquished its interest in 2008 in an arrangement that including gaining an interest in TPJ’s Morobe project in Papua New Guinea.

 

 

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Chris Goss-Non-Executive Director

 

Chris, 62, BA, MA, retired in May 2010 from the IFC (International Finance Corporation), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group and a leader in project finance in emerging markets. Since 2006 he worked in London leading the IFC's business development for mining, oil and gas companies and managed the relationships with major IFC clients headquartered in London, including Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Lonmin. Prior to that he led IFC mining transactions in Africa, Russia, Central Asia and Latin America. Earlier in his career, Chris was with the Commonwealth Secretariat, advising African governments in natural resource policy and negotiations in Ghana, Tanzania, Mozambique and Swaziland.

 

 

Tony Shearer- Non-Executive Chairman

 

Tony, 61, FCA, was until 2005 Chief Executive of Singer & Friedlander Group plc, before which he held a number of senior executive roles in leading financial institutions including Finance Director and Chief Operating Officer of M&G Group plc and Deputy Chief Executive of Old Mutual International. He has held non-executive positions on the boards of AIM, UK Official List and TSX companies, including, from 2002 to 2008, Chairman of Uruguay Mineral Exploration Inc (now Orosur Mining Inc), an AIM and TSX mineral exploration company.

 

Fraser McGee -Chief Executive

 

Fraser, 38, is a solictor and specialised in corporate finance work at prominent City law firms before he moved to the in-house legal teams of two investment banks. He worked for RAB Capital PLC's Special Siuation Fund, a major globally focused natural resources investment fund, where he was responsible for investments into and working with the management teams of a wide variety of mining businesses. His experience includes developing and growing small cap mining companies for the beneft of shareholders.

 

 

 

Major Shareholders

Shareholder	Percentage %
Newmont Ventures Ltd	25.39%
Frank Brewer	5.77%
TD Waterhouse	4.29%
Close Asset Management	3.90%
HSBC Bank Hong Kong	3.54%
Melanesian Resources Ltd	3.54%
Newmont Ventures Ltd also hold 5,000,000 Warrants at 1.2 p per share.
Since the Placing on 27th September 2011 only Newmont Ventures Ltd and Frank Brewer have advised us of any change in their holding, and these %s are reflected in the table above. Accordingly the other holdings in the table above are based on the number of shares held, and the number of issued shares, before the Placing, and may have been diluted or may have been increased as a result of the Placing.

Last Updated: 26th Ocotber 2011