Lion One Metals

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Lion One Metals has been operating in Fiji since 2006, when the company acquired the Vatukoula Gold Mine – which has been operating on the island since the 1930s, making it one the oldest and most prolific gold mines in the South Pacific. As part of that acquisition, Lion One also acquired the Tuvatu mine. The company later sold the Vatukoula mine to another company, but as part of the transaction they retained the Tuvatu mine. At the time, Tuvatu was “sitting idle and undeveloped,” according to Patrick Hickey, Chief Operating Officer, but the company saw a lot of promise there.

Patrick, for his part, is a veteran mine builder with over 40 years of experience as an engineer and executive in the design and construction of world class mining, petroleum, and power generating operations throughout the world. He has worked for some of the world’s leading operators, including Mobil in the USA and in the Middle East, Power in the Czech Republic, BHP Oil Refining in Hawaii, Kinross Gold Corp. in Africa and Spain, and Newmont Gold in Indonesia and Peru. He joined Lion One Metals in June 2021. He was brought on to help bring Tuvatu from “exploration into operations” – which is exactly what he’s done.

As previously mentioned, construction of the Tuvatu mine was completed ahead of schedule, with mill construction beginning in August 2022 and commissioning beginning in September 2023. Lion One poured their first gold at Tuvatu on Fiji Day, October 10^th 2023. The ceremonial first pour was conducted on site with over 1000 members of local communities, businesses, employees, and government officials in attendance.

At the time, Walter Berukoff, Lion One Chairman and CEO, commented:  “The first gold pour at Tuvatu is a landmark event in the history of our company. We have successfully transitioned from explorer to producer and have delivered on our promise to build the South Pacific’s newest gold mine in the heart of Fiji.”

Walter also congratulated the entire Lion One team – along with their partners in the local community – for achieving that significant milestone:

“We thank our employees, contractors, local landowners and community members for their hard work and dedication. Completing construction ahead of schedule is a testament to the strength of their efforts and to the resilience of the Fijian spirit. We also thank our loyal shareholders for their continued support. This marks the beginning of our next phase of growth as we look forward to ramping up to commercial production at Tuvatu and to advancing our many other top-quality prospects throughout the Navilawa Caldera.”

Again, construction and commissioning of the Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project was completed at a rapid pace, with the first  concrete pour occurring in August 2022 and plant operations starting just a little over a year later. Achieving that pace is a point of pride for the team at Lion One Metals.

“That was a huge achievement and a testament to all the planning and hard work that was done,” says Ronan Geoghegan, Corporate Development Manager. “It’s a testament to the relationships we formed with the local community and the Fiji government. Those relationships were hugely important and we’re really proud of them.”

In preparing for the Tuvatu project, Lion One Metals also constructed their own geochemical assay and metallurgical laboratory building. That laboratory is located at the company’s Fijian headquarters, approximately one kilometre from the Nadi International Airport and only 17 kilometres away from the Tuvatu mine. The lab is equipped for gold analysis by fire assay with atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS) finish, and can also be utilized to conduct metallurgical optimization test work including flotation and leaching.

Backed by that laboratory and their fleet of eight drill rigs, Lion One Metals is “effectively a vertically-integrated organization,” according to Ronan.

“That’s very unique, especially for a company of our size – especially an exploration company, as we were for so long,” he says. “We can now get results from our drills very quickly. That allows us to be really nimble and really responsive. It allows us to move really quickly.”

“If we drill a hole and we see there’s gold, we can send it for testing and get the results potentially while the drill is still drilling,” he adds. “Then we can adapt and design another drill hole based on those results. Typically, companies like ours would have to wait potentially months to get drill results back, because there are only so many labs that are available and they are usually pretty busy. We typically get our results within a week – and if we have a really important sample, we can get it back within a couple days.” 

Returning to the topic of vertical integration, Patrick points out that in conjunction with the development of the mine, Lion One has also developed a gold processing plant, all the necessary supporting infrastructure, and a state-of-the-art tailings storage facility, which is located 3.5 kilometres away from the Tuvatu mine site.

Once gold-bearing material is extracted from the Tuvatu mine, it is sent to the processing plant to produce gold. This process starts with a two-stage crushing circuit, which consists of a primary jaw crusher, a secondary cone crusher, and a system of three conveyor belts that transport the material between the two crushers and on to the processing plant. Material from the crushing circuit is then fed into an integrated two-stage gravity concentration circuit, after which some concentrates are treated by an intensive cyanide leaching reactor while the remainder are leached using conventional cyanide Carbon in Leach (CIL) technology. Gold is recovered from the gold laden carbon using conventional adsorption desorption recovery (ADR) technology and smelted on site to produce gold doré bars. From there, the leached tailings are treated using an SO2/air process to remove any residual cyanide and are filtered to reduce their moisture content. The filtered tailings are then transported to the company’s tailings storage facility.

The professionalism and efficiency of the whole operation is another point of pride for the Lion One Metals team.

“Lion One has always had the attitude that we’re going to build a world-class operation with world-class facilities, and that’s what we have done,” Patrick says.

Making the right decisions

These days, between the lab, the exploration team, and the operations team, Lion One Metals employs a staff of approximately 400 people in Fiji, in addition to the company’s head office in Vancouver. Communication between those team members is facilitated by a standardized management operation system (MOS), which keeps track of scheduled meetings and functions. Most of those meetings are regularly scheduled and conducted over Zoom, but if an unexpected issue arises and a meeting needs to be scheduled on short notice, the MOS can also address that need in a simple and seamless way.

Plus, Patrick says, “We pick up the phone.”

“If I have a problem and I need to talk to Ronan, or if Ronan has a problem and he needs to talk to me, we just pick up the phone and call,” he explains. “Fortunately, we have such great solid infrastructure here now. We have fibre optic internet and everything else we need. We very seldom struggle to be able to communicate with each other.”

Having that ease of communication is important when it comes to building a strong culture, Patrick believes. He also believes that to have a strong culture, you have to hire the right personnel. Fortunately, he says recruiting for this project wasn’t all that difficult:

“I’ve worked in the Sahara Desert, and it’s hard to recruit people to go work in the Sahara Desert,” he says. “It’s really easy to recruit people to come work in Fiji.”

When building his own team, Patrick says he prioritized people with experience. Because of the location, he says they were able to attract the people looking for their last job before retirement, and they were even able to bring some people out of retirement.

“We were able to attract some really great experienced talent,” he says. “There’s a lot of grey hair on this job. We have people that we can trust to make the right decisions.”

Patrick cites a Mark Twain quote that he really loves:

“Wisdom is the demonstration of good judgment. Good judgment is the result of experience. And experience is the result of bad judgment.”

“So all these guys that we’re working with, they’ve seen it all,” Patrick explains. “They’ve learned what not to do. And that experience saves us lots of money and lots of time.”

To staff the Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project, Lion One Metals has been able to attract a lot of experienced team members, and Patrick says the company has formed some very strong relationships with those team members. Similarly, he says they have formed strong relationships with their suppliers and vendors, including their manufacturing partners as well as their technology partners.

One key partner, for example, is 4Site® – a company with many years’ experience in asset maintenance, that has been providing solutions to mining, power generation, and manufacturing companies for decades. In 1976, they actually developed the first global Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) system – experience that gives them the depth, stability, and the clarity of vision to provide clients with the best, most affordable asset management solutions on the market.

For mining and metals enterprises, in particular, 4Site’s EAM solution offers a full suite of integrated asset maintenance and financial management tools for all stages of the mining lifecycle, from exploration project management to robust maintenance management for a mature facility. With the help of 4Site’s people, processes, and technologies, companies such as Lion One Metal are able to maximize the performance of their assets while also managing regulatory compliance.

Just the beginning

The Tuvatu Alkaline Gold Project commenced milling operations late last year, and so far the company is pleased with the results. The plant is currently capable of processing 300 tonnes of material per day and that plant has been kept busy. By the fall of 2024, the company’s plan is to ramp up to 500 tonnes per day – Ronan says they are already hard at work on preparing for that expansion. Beyond that, their goal is to keep digging deeper and gain progressively more access to higher grade parts of deposit, which will continue to propel the company’s growth. By 2025, they project to have access to an extremely high grade of gold, and from there Ronan says the growth will be exponential.

Moving forward, Lion One Metals’ exploration division is also set up for continued success, as the property around Tuvatu has “a tonne of potential,” Ronan says – and Lion One’s exploration license is extensive, covering not just Tuvatu but the entire surrounding seven-kilometre-wide Navilawa caldera, which is host to multiple mineralized zones and highly prospective exploration targets.

“Throughout the caldera, we have seen some really high grade gold samples scattered everywhere,” Ronan says. “Those samples aren’t just coming from Tuvatu. They are coming from kilometres away in some cases.”

Lion One Metals is very focused on expanding the company’s Tuvatu resource and making further discoveries in the Navilawa caldera. The company sees the mine at Tuvatu as just the beginning.

“The whole point of building this mill was to pay the bills while we continue to explore the broader area,” Patrick says. “We didn’t want to sell to someone else and have them swoop in and do the exploration and then find the big prize – because we know there’s a big prize out there.”

“In scuba diving, there’s a mantra that you learn – ‘plan the dive and dive the plan,’” Patrick concludes. “That’s what we’re doing.  We’ve planned how we’re going to develop this mine and we’re going to stick to that plan as close as we can. Then, as Ronan says, once we hit 2025 we’re off to the races.”

For more on Lion One Metals, including more on their exploration and development capabilities, information for investors, and their latest news releases – and to contact their expert team of mine builders and exploration professionals, including Patrick and Ronan – visit https://liononemetals.com/. Lion One Metals trades on the TSX as LIO, on the ASX as LLO, and on the OTCQX as LOMLF.