Bennett starts work on Sirius #2

Former Sirius Resources managing director Mark Bennett said there has been a “tidal wave” of offers from other groups wanting to work with his new exploration company, as he seeks to replicate the Sirius success story.

“I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of incoming offers from a whole variety of other parties, ranging from smaller groups to very, very big groups, who have expressed an interest in partnering with us in some way,” Mr Bennett said yesterday.

“It’s been more than we could possibly pursue,” he told journalists after a Mining Club presentation.

The $1.8 billion takeover of Sirius by Independence Group included the carve-out of new exploration company S2 Resources, which is expected to complete a compliance listing on the ASX midway through next month.

Mr Bennett said S2 has three crucial ingredients for success – money in the bank, prospective ground and the right people.

“We want to do Sirius all over again, if not better, and we believe we can,” he said.

“We’ve got the original crew back together; people who can tolerate risk, people who are committed like their life is on the line.

“Everyone is incentivised and motivated by owning part of the business.”

Mr Bennett said S2’s cash reserves of $22 million would last between two and three years.

That could be supplemented by cash flow from its Baloo gold prospect, if it proceeds to development.

The company plans to start resource drilling at Baloo next week, and was hoping to have a measured resource by February next year.

Mr Bennett emphasised that S2 was aiming for something bigger.

“We don’t just want to mine a little gold deposit near Kalgoorlie, we want to find something significant again, a company maker.

“Our fantasy is, that would provide us, as a company, with enough funding to achieve that bigger objective without hopefully having to raise more money.”

Mr Bennett said an innovative, questioning culture was a key success factor.

“We consciously try to break the stereotypical stodgy, conservative mining industry mould, because we’ve all been in it long enough to see the pitfalls, so we try to do things differently.

“Probably the nearest analogy is the IT companies where there is a lot more crazy stuff happening.

“In exploration, as opposed to mining, you’ve got to have slightly crazy creative people; if you have those people and don’t let them be slightly crazy and creative, you don’t get the results.”

One small illustration of Mr Bennett’s approach is that S2 has moved well away from established office precincts, setting up its new office near the beach at Scarborough.