Every Project In Mining Needs A Champion That Is A Great Storyteller
In the past, major miners did a tremendous amount of exploration to replace what they mined with new mines. Then they got so big that their own exploration was not enough to replace their old mines with new mines, so they focused on buying mines, development projects and important discoveries to replace their old mines with new mines.
This brought in the accountants and lawyers who ran the numbers and felt that mergers and acquisitions were a better business plan than doing their own exploration. The result was that the people focused on rocks were replaced by accountants, MBAs and lawyers. So over the past couple of decades majors disbanded their exploration teams and now really only do exploration near their current mines.
Back when exploration was a key part of the strategy for majors, their exploration teams had to convince the management in control of the exploration budgets why their project deserved the money over others. Which meant that they had to be great storytellers that were champions of their favourite projects.
Every project needs a champion, take for example Diamond Fields Resources and their spectacular Voisey’s Bay discovery. Their geologists were in Labrador exploring for diamonds, hence the name Diamond Fields. While flying back to camp in a helicopter, they noticed a big rusty coloured outcropping of rock.
When metals bearing fluids make their way to the surface and interact with the country rock they chemically alter the country rock. The alteration around a deposit is a great way to know where to drill, which is why there is an old saying in mining that big deposits leave big footprints, one of those footprints are alteration zones.
Although the exploration folks were out looking for diamonds, they had the pilot land so that they could take some samples from the rusty coloured outcrop of rocks. Those results came back with excellent grades. But, the exploration team still had to convince management that controlled the exploration budget that they needed to drill the nickel target.
They were the champions for the project that used their storytelling skills to convince management that it was a target that deserved to be drilled. It wasn’t easy because the company was focused on diamond exploration. But, they did get money to drill and made the Voisey’s Bay discovery that would ultimately be bought out for $4.3 billion.
When investors think about Voisey’s Bay and Diamond Fields, they think of Robert Friedland. He is a fantastic storyteller that was able to take the Voisey’s Bay discovery and make it a huge winner for investors when it was bought out. Of course, he gets most of the credit, but the reality is that if the exploration team didn’t have eagle eyes to spot that rusty coloured outcrop of rock, then land the helicopter to take samples, and convince management to drill the target it would likely still be a beautiful alteration zone and not a spectacular mine.
Great projects always need a champion that are talented storytellers that convince people that their project deserves funding. When successful they also need a fantastic storyteller leading the company to either sell it to a bigger company for the best price or get the funding to turn it into a mine.
Nothing has changed in the mining business, a project champion still has to be a great storyteller to get the money to drill their project. Of course, it all comes down to drilling with the Truth Machine that makes the discovery, but it is the champion of the project and storytellers that get the money to put the Truth Machine to work.
All the best,
Allan Barry Laboucan
