Lucky enough to have Wayne Bramwell in the studio with me. Wayne, thanks very much for coming.
We're in a new studio. The old one is next door and we will be still using that.
Respect. All of you people out here are keeping this economy going. So...
Susie Urbanac and Christian Price, they are doing a phenomenal job and I know...
Perth legends. Absolutely. Both legends. And we are, if you like, the Silicon Valley of resources, wearing high viz, which we're all proud to wear, and I think it is a badge of honor now.
That would make a bloody ripper gold processing plant.
Sure. Why are they not doing it?
Does this mining thing look simple behind your spreadsheet? Go. Yeah. Said you should come, you should get out of your Sydney office and come to an underground mine and see what goes on. These are high-tech businesses.
Was it a tearjerker for you if you were honest? I think it would be for me. I'm not an emotional bloke.
I told the people I was with that I had a bit of dust in my eye. [laughter] I take my safety glasses off.
Welcome back to another episode on the Gold Room podcast. This is a bloody special episode today. Lucky enough to have Wayne Bramwell in the studio with me. Wayne, thanks very much for coming.
Excellent. Look, some of our viewers, our longtime viewers will notice that we're in a new studio. The old one is next door and we will be still using that. We've been working on a cool little project in the background for the last probably 6 months. Just trying, Wayne, you know what it's like trying to put all the pieces of a puzzle together to make things work really well. Takes time.
You don't rush these things.
So, we're hoping to roll that out end of February, maybe the beginning of March, but it'll be fun. And I'm sure people will enjoy watching it.
Beautiful, mate. We always start with the life and the times. So, let's really dig down to who Wayne Bramwell is and what led you to be the man running the companies that you're running today.
Wow. [clears throat] Thanks, Josh. That could be a long or a boring story. I'll try and make it short and interesting. Pretty simple. I'm a West Australian, proud West Australian, born here in Perth, grew up here and fell into the mining industry in sort of my 20s. Grew up in Wilton, mom and dad. Dad had two careers in his life. He started life as a butcher and later on bought a taxi and basically operated and owned a cab from about 1969 to the 90s. Mom worked for the RAAF. So like we were a pretty typical family, you know, nuclear family, mom and dad, myself and one sister lived for most of our lives in Wilton. Went to Wilton High School and really sort of probably like most kids in the 80s, you know, fell into high school. The only thing I remember much about high school was I fell in love with surfing and all my friends somehow we were into this thing. We were into surfing and even though we lived, you know, in Wilton, we weren't living by the coast, but all of us sort of started off riding, god forbid, surf mats. I'm not even sure they exist anymore, Josh, but you know, and then got to a point of buying boards and, you know, many years later still doing it.
Did you get a job early years to be able to afford a surfboard or how did you get that first surfboard?
Very much. I'm sort of lucky. I mean, the most valuable things that I think my parents gave me was a work ethic.
You know, as a young kid, even at sort of early days in high school, had part-time work, you know, worked on a Saturday at a butcher shop cleaning up, you know, a lot of their utility.
That was your first job working with the old man, you reckon?
Yeah, I mean on a Saturday cleaning up in the historic days when butcher shops had sawdust on the floor, you know, sweeping up the mess, doing a lot of the back room stuff and then at the same time had a part-time job at the Fremantle markets selling Chinese food. So [laughter] I don't know. I mean always managed had a level of independence because worked part-time from a young age.
So I think that's very valuable, isn't it?
100%. You know, we weren't wealthy.
Do you remember what age that was?
Uh, I reckon 1979, 1980. It would have been in those. So, for me, it would have been early teens.
Yeah. I think it would have been of that age. And I remember on a Saturday morning, I might have earned 10 bucks for a morning's work. But I was a king if you had 10 bucks. I mean, 10 bucks used to go a long way in those days. And you know, in the days of having a passbook, earning 10 bucks, going to the, this is going to be things which the young crew listening to this may have to Google, but then going to a building society to put the money into the bank and writing it in your passbook. I mean, there was some sense of achievement of seeing that balance grow, but that was all about, you know, I guess a work ethic and wanting to build something.
Yeah. Beautiful. So, finished, left Wilton High School, didn't really know what to do. Did you leave year 12?
Yeah, left year 12. Look, I knew I wanted to go to university. I didn't know what I wanted to do. Yeah, so I had this aspiration, you know, none of the family had ever any exposure to mining and none of our extended family were exposed to mining. Didn't really have much visibility on mining at all at high school. It was just not something people spoke about. I mean we were aware of the iron ore industry in those days but that was about it but in Wilton High School, you know, there was no promotion of the sector. Fell into metallurgy at Murdoch which was, lived in Wilton, Murdoch University was close by and I'm sure the proximity to where we live was a bit of the motivation but you know doing not enough research on metallurgy, what I did understand was this was an industry which would allow you to travel, which was, the probability of employment was high because not many people did it and at that stage Australia didn't have enough of those people so they were importing them. So I thought look I don't really know what a metallurgist does but it looks like it's a means to an end to travel and some security over employment.
Were any friends getting involved in doing that?
Not a one. So I'm happy to say that I remember in year one at Murdoch in the Bachelor of Science degree in metallurgy, the other group of people who were there, you know, we all had the same entry, very few knew what it was about and you know some might have thought they were doing a degree in meteorology because people used to ask when we would say what we were studying, people would go, well so do you know what the weather's going to be tomorrow, confusing metallurgy with meteorology and you know we would make sure we can tell you what the weather is. It's got nothing to do with our degree. But yeah, all of the...
That's great for the surfing. That's great for the surf report.
Well, maybe there's a connection there. [laughter] I don't know. But, you know, everyone who went into that degree that year, it was sort of very nonlinear. No one had a great plan that this thing was part of a grand plan. It was all sort of a happy accident for most of us. So, finished that degree. I was a terrible student. Solid 51 or 52 student. Seized to get degrees. It was like, I don't know, I probably like most people of that age, you know, university was full of brand new distractions which we leaned into big time, you know, surfing and live music in Perth where my friends and I were really into that, still are, you know, there were so many...
No, got no musical ability whatsoever, Josh, but a solid supporter of live music. But you know, so it probably took a little bit longer to complete that degree, but during that time, you know, doing vacation work was part of the program and I guess that sort of gave me more of an insight into the sector and...
Do you remember where you went to do that?
Yeah, first vac student job was with then Mount Newman Mining at Newman. And I remember going there for that summer going wow this is next level. There was lots of parts of the business that I didn't really like. I mean it was very, at that stage Mount Newman heavily unionized and Mount Newman was going through a transition and I thought wow this is really interesting but this is a really big machine. I think the second vacation I did might have been at AMC mineral sands in Eneabba, completely different and then you know also worked in gold at Darlot during, for a small Aussie junior at that stage. So you know that was the joy I guess of growing up in Western Australia. I mean we are if you like the Silicon Valley of resources, whatever commodity you want to work in probably except coal you can do it here. So it's a place where you can build a career in the sector because...
Oh and again a diverse career because of the natural wealth within this state. So yeah, you know, on the journey, graduated as a metallurgist, went back into iron ore as a graduate.
So that was at Murdoch. Did they, so you didn't have to go and do, so just the vac work, they send you, do you have to do that in your school holidays?
Yeah 100%. So for those summers in between, you didn't have to do it but it made sense. It was also an opportunity to network and actually earn some money. So as you know even though during university I always had a part-time job, you know that the summer break you could earn a big chunk of money in a small period of time and actually start to understand well iron ore is that something I want to do long term or gold is that something I want to do. So you got to try as an undergraduate, you got to try before you bought and that sort of informed decisions about what you may or may not do when you graduated.
Yeah. Beautiful. So from graduating university, where did you go to next? What was your first job?
First professional job post-graduation was actually with Goldsworthy Mining which owned and operated iron ore mines around Port Hedland, Shay Gap and Goldsworthy. I signed a contract with them in January that year but didn't graduate till midyear. And by midyear BHP had bought Goldsworthy. So I actually signed a Goldsworthy contract and when I finally started in July it was BHP. So yeah, worked on the process plant at Finucane Island which is a little loadout facility that still exists in Port Hedland but you know that was at a time when Goldsworthy was being integrated with BHP. It was one of the oldest iron ore projects and one of the first that started in WA. So it had a long history but yeah it gave me an exposure as a young graduate to a large corporate, how they operate and I think that probably colored my view, certainly informed my view of you know whether I'm a big company person or a small company person.
We've taken a relatively small company and built it into a large company yourself certainly recently. So all of those learning curves that you would have had early on certainly would have helped shape that.
And I think maybe jumping back to a story you and I, you just told me before we started, you know, some of the best learning experiences are the most painful. And as a young graduate at that project, there's a lot of things that I took away of, you know, maybe how not to do things later on.
Yeah. So your first look at a processing plant, what did you think?
That was at Mount Newman in the summer and it might have been the summer of, could have been '84.
Good year, mate. Great year actually.
Baking hot, you know, standing on conveyors, you know, 30 m above the ground shoveling bulk samples off a conveyor belt. Not sure you could do that today under the current work safety laws, but I thought, wow, it was like...
So, just do that. They had lanyards.
100%. Now I don't remember having a harness and being tied to everything but you know myself and the other student were you know shoveling 1 m length samples of iron ore into 44-gallon drums for test work. But you know my main takeaway from that summer was wow this industry, everything is big, was big. Open pit, the crusher was big, the processing plant was big. It was just for someone who in their I guess late teens early 20s was really hard to understand. And I was sort of blown away by the scale of that, the hole on the ground.
And I do remember seeing that pit and seeing a blast in the Whaleback pit going, wow, this is next level. This is not something that a boy from Wilton or many boys from Wilton are going to see and you know, I'm a part of it.
Yeah. Beautiful. What a great start. Mate, I want to get into industry leadership and look, you have done amazing work obviously with Westgold, which we'll get into, but Gold Industry Group. How do you find the time? Because you do, by all accounts, everyone I've spoken to, you're doing a great job there.
Well, look, you're being too kind there. And let me just clarify something. There's a lot of people that came before me at Westgold who had the idea and set this company up. And even today, you know, I'm just one of the people there where the bulk of the heavy lifting is done by those people out there every day wearing high viz underground or on the surface or in our processing plants. I mean, in some sense, you know, I might have a grand title of CEO MD, but they're the ones doing the heavy lifting. So, in some sense, I work for them. And you know, I'm really proud to have this role and to represent this company and I get that pride now by going to site and seeing the pride in the workforce. And like in my journey as a more mature person, you know that you go and see these young people, young and older people, but the young people coming through the sector, you know, they are much more intelligent than I ever was as a young graduate. They've got a plan. I'm not sure I had it. I wouldn't even say I had half a plan. I knew where I wanted to go. Had no idea how I was going to get there, but I thought winging it.
I thought, look, just keep moving.
Momentum is the key here. And I see a very different approach in the workforce. But look, the leadership piece is really important. And even sort of jumping away from my day job at Westgold, you know, the Gold Industry Group I think is really really important. And for me, it's more about paying it forward or giving back. You know the sector, the gold sector is something which you know as a West Australian most of us would know of but don't really understand. It doesn't have the profile of iron ore. You know everyone sees ads on TV BHP and Rio but you know no one sees a Northern Star ad. But you know the sector is somewhere...
Is that something Northern Star should be doing? A bit more TV advertising. Who's watching TV though when...
Well this is it. I mean you know 100%. I mean I don't read a lot of the written press anymore. So, I do it selectively, but I find myself now consuming content more so in formats like you're using, like podcasts. I find I spend more time consuming things that way and very interested in different forms of promotion of which I think the gold sector should do. I mean fundamentally what happens in gold and you know with your background as well, you know there may be a perception out there that gold is a very low tech business, far from true.
Absolutely. And used in all high-tech equipment everywhere. It's used in things that people have absolutely no idea about and it's up to us. So maybe Northern Star can be advertising on here.
And it's the real big companies like you know Northern Star and Evolution. They are doing some fantastic things around tech. I mean the development of the Super Pit and what they're doing now with the big mill. Wow. Whether it's power or that mill, there are some tech pieces there which, a recent discussion with some Northern Star people, I thought, wow, these are stories that just need to be told because it shows now that in our sector, you know, data miners are as important as miners, underground miners, you know, and there's the opportunity for young people coming into the sector. It's not all about wearing high viz, which we're all proud to wear. And I think it is a badge of honor now because when I go to the airport now and see the masses of people queuing up in their underpants to go through customs or through security, I go look, respect, all of you people out here are keeping this economy going. So but yeah there's opportunities in this business, in this industry which I think the Gold Industry Group is a part of being able to tell those stories better. Sorry, I went down a rabbit hole.
That's what I'm here for. Don't worry.
We're not good at telling the stories about this sector and for many years, you know, mining and maybe still parts of the society, you know, mining is considered either a dirty word or has a negative connotation. I mean...
And it should do. I mean we should be proud all of us to whether we're directly involved in mining or indirectly involved in mining because mining has built this state. It's probably, it's built our country. The farmers...
You took the words right out of it. It's built this country.
Yeah. Look, the farmers were important, but and you know the days of Australia riding off the sheep's back, they're long over.
And manufacturing went 30 years ago.
Started too, you know, it's gone.
And you know, I will tip out my hat or our hat to the energy guys and girls as well. I mean, they're important to that, but you know, gold was probably the first extractive industry of any significance in Australia. And you know it's today I think we are now the second or third largest export revenue earning industry. We've gone above coal and you know before we were lower down the pecking order but now gold's contribution to Australia is in the top three, massive.
Back to the Gold Industry Group. What are they doing out there and to what age groups? Where is it starting? Is it at primary school because I know Core Learning Foundation, Susie Urbanac and Christian Price, they are doing a phenomenal job and I know...
Perth legends, absolutely. Both legends.
And their contribution in that space, wow. I mean and there's a story which might not be really well known but you know full accolades to Susie and Christian in terms of the work they've done. And you know to your point, you know the Gold Industry Group and Core and others, the focus is multi-tiered. It's trying to change back to the point of how do we get society to better understand the contribution of mining? You've got to get at people at a young age. I mean, I look at my own experience, you know, I remember seeing a gold mine. The first gold mine I ever saw was on a primary school trip, I'm going to say it was year seven. We went to the northeastern goldfields. And I remember as a kid, you know, standing on the deck of the mine office at Great Fingal, looking into the hole. So, as a year seven kid standing there going, what the hell is this? This is the first mine I've ever seen, even then it was a big hole. And for those who know Great Fingal's mine office, it is a beautiful piece of stone architecture.
What a spin out, Wayne. That all those years ago you went to Great Fingal and now Westgold has...
Well, Great Fingal. It's one of those circle of life stories which I like to tell and it occurred to me when we were committing to restart Great Fingal and I'm standing there close to the same spot but as a much older person going wow I remember being here as a kid looking into this pit going wow this is this mining thing what is it this is a big hole in the ground this mine office is a beautiful piece of architecture whoever built this and loved it. What is this sector about? And then fast forward, let's say maybe 40 odd years to be standing there going, wow, we are now bringing this historic mine back online. I mean, there was a level of...
Was it a tearjerker for you if you were honest? Like, I think it would be for me. I'm not an emotional bloke.
I told the people I was with that I had a bit of dust in my eye. I had to [laughter] take my safety glasses off, but I'm going...
This was one of those moments you go super proud again maybe as a West Australian to think this is the last great reef mine in WA that's never, it operated up to the 20s and here we are as Westgold sort of bringing this thing back online, bringing it back into 2025 as it was when we started the work. You know, I was proud for two reasons. Proud to have been a tiny part of that process, having seen it historically and being a part of the team bringing it back to life.
Beautiful. Mate, let's get into Westgold. The transformative phase.
Yeah. I was thinking about that today. Westgold today is 10 years old and it started, I think its first day of listing was 2017 and it was a collection of assets both in the Murchison and the Southern Goldfields. And for the first seven years, the team of people there, it was a really busy company. You know, it was underground mining, it was open pit mining. There was a lot going on and it had massive momentum. You know, it was probably running too fast for its systems and procedures and, you know, it churned a lot of people because it was really driven about production. Production was everything. By 2022-23, you know, it was producing a lot of gold but not making any money.
I think its focus was on production, production, production and a lot of...
Overheads were just screaming.
It was a lot of it was to do with lack of drilling. I mean it was a collection of mature assets which just needed more drilling and with more drilling you'd have more data and you could make better decisions. So it had a very short planning horizon because it lacked the drilling data that you needed, but it was mining.
But it would have been doing annual drilling programs, right? But just not sufficient.
Well, so I joined the board in 2020 as a non-exec and then you know it wasn't investing the money it needed into drilling to make better decisions and back then never had that sort of surplus capital to do it. So it was a very hand-to-mouth business with a very short planning horizon. And you know that model is not atypical for some big companies or small. It only takes you to one place. It takes you to a place whereby if the commodity price changes, you're out of the game.
So the gold price during those years was not solid.
But you know it got to the point in 2022 where Westgold had produced the most gold it ever done. But that also lined up with its largest financial loss. You know for lots of different reasons the employees plus the shareholders that had to change. So there was a board of management change in '22 which went about resetting the business. So the transformation very quickly when I stepped in was okay what should we be doing? We got to our business is really complex. How do we simplify this business to make it profitable, to make it safe and profitable? Young people come into the business or new people, we have to get them to understand it's not production at all costs. We do not want production at all costs. It has to be safe and profitable ounces or we don't want them. You know, where I see the business now, it's gone from sort of transformation in the last 3 years to a place where Westgold now is still a big business. It's got scale. It's stable and it's now got a stable platform to build growth from. We think in the past and we've all probably built something in our lives whereby if the foundations are weak, trying to stack things on top of it, you end up with a Jenga that falls over. Well, I think we've got this base now in this business and a base of assets, a base of a group of people who now can take this business to the next level.
Well, I can't wait to watch. Let's get into portfolio. Portfolio focus. I did see the other day that Westgold sold off something and or started like a sister company or something, Venturi?
So we've got doing a spin out now called Valiant.
