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TWST: It’s often helpful to start off by giving a brief overview of the company. Could you give us a brief overview of Avocet Mining (AVM.L)?

Mr. Catchpole: Avocet Mining is a UK company listed on AIM, the Alternative Investment Market in London. The company has been in existence since the early 1980’s and was originally a Vancouver-based company before coming to the UK in 1996. Currently the company is very much focused on gold mining in Asia. It has 100% ownership over a gold mine in Malaysia, called Penjom, which has an annual gold production in excess of 100,000 ounces a year. It has been in production since 1996 and has been the company’s main gold asset up to fairly recently. During this year we acquired an exploration property from Newmont Mining Corporation in Indonesia where we have completed a feasibility study with a view to develop a new gold mine by sometime next year. And most recently we have acquired the interests of a UK company in an operating gold mine in Tajikistan in central Asia. So altogether, on an annualized basis, our gold production will be increasing to 160-170,000 ounces with the addition of the Tajikistan mine and then a further 50-60,000 ounces from our project in Indonesia. Avocet has also historically been known as a tungsten producer but those assets were fully written off last year, and we really only have one residual operation left in the tungsten business -- a mine in Portugal under the name of Beralt. Back in September we signed a deal with a Canadian company to sell that business, which we expect to conclude in February, 2003, leaving us, as I say, exclusively in the gold business.

TWST: Turning to some of your specific mining projects such as Penjom in Malaysia and, is it the North Lanut project in Indonesia - would you walk us through some of the recent successes and problems?

Mr. Catchpole: In Penjom, one of the issues that came up over four years ago was that the mine encountered some very difficult metallurgical problems. The ore turned out to be carbonaceous and for the type of processing method that is employed this caused recoveries to drop from around normal levels of around 90% down to as low as 50%. So there was a real concern that the mine would not survive at all; in fact, at those low recovery levels, it would have been uneconomic to continue. However, we took a gamble and started developing our own process systems which, over a period of time, have greatly improved recoveries. We’re now back up to recoveries that are in the range of 85% which we’re quite proud of because it’s all been done with our own technology -- engineered in-house and done at a reasonable capital cost. We’ve now had over a year’s production without any of these problems so we know we have succeeded. Penjom’s cash costs have been historically high over the last couple of years because we put a lot of money into pre-stripping waste rock from the open pit, which is really an investment towards lowering future mining costs. And we’re now seeing the benefit. Our cash costs are reducing quite rapidly. Last year they were about 225 an ounce. This year they’ll be closer to 200 and for the life of existing reserves they should be about 150 an ounce. So our view on Penjom is that it’s now very much a proven and sustainable operation - technical problems have now all been resolved and it should be a very strong source of cash flow to the company. North Lanut is represented right now by one main gold deposit that was discovered by Newmont in North Sulawesi. It’s a mature exploration project in that it was drilled by Newmont to the extent that there is a known resource there. We have reevaluated the deposit and done more exploration to bring it to a bankable feasibility level. On the strength of those results, we have decided to go ahead with its development. We anticipate that we can get that into production by the middle of next year, producing 50-60,000 ounces. Cash costs should be below 150 an ounce, and it will have an initial mine life of about five to six years. By gold mining standards it’s quite a small project, but we have focused solely on this one deposit which is in a highly prospective, forty-square-mile, concession area. Then once we have established infrastructure on the ground we’re highly confident that exploration will uncover other deposits in the region that we can bring into development as well.

TWST: Currently, what do you see as potential risks with where you are mining in Asia?

Mr. Catchpole: Well I think there’s a perception of certain areas out there as being quite high risk from a political perspective, Indonesia being one case in point. We have people who are very experienced in working in that country, and I think what a lot of people don’t realize is that there are areas in Indonesia that are a good deal less of a political risk than others -- North Sulawesi is a case in point. So you really have to pick your territory in that part of the world, and, just as importantly, gain a relationship with the local authorities. So I don’t view the specific area of Indonesia where we’re at as being high risk. Politically and economically Malaysia is a mature country and very easy to operate in as far as infrastructure and educated work force goes. It is not much different from many Western countries, in fact. Tajikistan is an unusual situation. It’s the poorest of the central Asian republics, but probably the easiest to work in from a political risk perspective, particularly for us because the acquisition we made up there involves a company that has been there since the early 1990’s. It has really been the country’s only relatively successful foreign investor and therefore has a good relationship with the local government. Geographically, the area of Tajikistan we’re in is quite isolated from many of the more troublesome regions -- Afghanistan and some of the neighboring countries. In fact the mine was developed during a local civil war which never adversely affected it.

TWST: Where do you see Avocet in five years?

Mr. Catchpole: Well, I think to survive and grow in this business you really have to be in the half-million ounce plus range. I see us growing internally to at least get to our goal of 300,000 ounces within three years. Therefore, within five years, and with only modest exploration success, we should become a middle ranked gold producer. Also, as the market realizes that this is something that we can achieve, we would be looking at merger and acquisition opportunities to accelerate our growth.