Western Areas is not averse to acquiring assets, as its purchase of Kagara’s nickel assets earlier
this year shows. Neither is it nervous to explore opportunities overseas, as its activities in Canada
and Finland indicate. But the criterion that must always be met, whether it is exploring, developing
or producing, is that a deviation from its mainstay nickel business has to represent clear value for
shareholders. Since Kagara, to date there has been no compelling reason to take its eye off the
current winning formula of high-grade nickel ore, low production costs, high production volumes,
strong cash flows, class-leading profitability, and generous dividends to boot.
Under the guidance of its current Managing Director Dan Lougher, successor to exploration
personality Julian Hanna who retired in early 2012, the company is no hurry to switch its focus away
from the potential for growth that exploration in its own Western Australian Forrestania belt offers.
That said the Western Areas’ hallways and mine sites are often abuzz with a host of other successful
corporate activities, such as winning awards, sponsoring breeding programs, and working with
local communities baiting foxes and catching feral animals.
The one certainty in all this industry is that a Western Areas’ day is never dull.
WILDTHING
Western Areas’ safe,
environmental production
DAN LOUGHER
MANAGING DIRECTOR
WESTERN AREAS NL
RARE
BEAUTY
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Western Areas started life as a junior explorer when it listed on the
Australian Stock Exchange in July 2000. Headquartered in West
Perth, the company is also listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Today it is the third largest nickel producer in Australia, with two
of the highest-grade underground nickel mines in the world, Flying
Fox and Spotted Quoll, both within Western Area’s Forrestania
project area, 400 kilometres east of Perth.
As a nickel producer, it achieves that production with some
of the lowest costs in the country, if not the lowest, and the high-
grade nature of its two mines, coupled with its strong production
volumes (31,102 tonnes for FY2012) have ensured Western Areas
produces significant operating margins, and maintains continued
profits through the ups and downs of the nickel commodity price
cycle. The company achieved a net profit after tax of $40 million
in FY2012.
Earlier this year, Western Areas announced a substantial
increase in the Probable Ore Reserve for its Spotted Quoll mine,
and in the process cemented the mine as a “robust, long life,