Mr. Quick: Okay. Greenwich is a fully listed public corporation on the London Stock Exchange. The company invests in mining ventures, specifically gold mining ventures, and in oil and gas investment. There are two main assets in the company. One is a 49% interest in a gold ore body in Northeastern Greece, where a feasibility study is just being finalized and we hope to develop a mine starting early next year. And the other is a major holding, nearly 8 percent, of another UK public company called Desire Petroleum, which is the main player in oil exploration offshore the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic. So that gives you a very quick picture of what the company does.
TWST: Now, at this point, do you see the company expanding its, what you'd call, portfolio?
Mr. Quick: Well, most of our man time and financial resources are concentrated on getting the mine in Greece off the ground at the moment. And we are or have been a gold exploration company with a number of exploration projects in various parts of the world. We traditionally have had modest revenues from a net profits interest in one of the larger gold mines in Australia. But that mine, the Paddington Mine near Kalgoorlie, is now coming to the end of its life. But we have been successful in our exploration programs and discovered, and now together with an Australian partner, are moving into the development phase. So once that mine gets into production, it will produce some very strong cash flow for the company. The notable feature of the ore body is that it does have a very high grade. The mining grade will be over 18 grams of gold per ton, which on a global basis is really a very high grade. And that means the operating costs of the mine, which will be predominantly an underground mine, are going to be in the lower quartile on the world scale, and even at today's rather depressed gold price that will produce a strong cash flow for the company. And the other driver for growth, I suppose, is the potential of our investment in Desire Petroleum. The first round of drilling offshore the Falkland Islands took place 18 months/2 years ago. And six wells were drilled and, although no commercial oil fields were discovered, some very rich and mature source rocks appeared in all the wells, and it's quite clear that very large volumes of oil have been generated. And the task now is to find where, exactly where, that oil has gone. This is the normal sort of course of events in the exploration, a new basin of course, a new area for exploration. So, we would hope to see some drilling in Desire Petroleum in the next year or two. And we feel the potential for large commercial discoveries is good. It's those two features, I think, which will be drivers for growth, the gold production in Greece and oil exploration in the Falkland Islands.
Tickers included in this excerpt: GRWA.L
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