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Alex Dorsch
Alex Dorsch CHN.AX
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Chalice Mining
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Chalice Targets 2028 Decision on A$820 Million Gonneville Mine | Alex Dorsch

📅 Sep 21, 2026 Mining Network and Catt Calls: No Fear Finance 10 MIN 891 VIEWS 38 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS
Stay in the know, join Mining Network's free weekly mining briefs: M&A, financings, drill results and geopolitics. North America, Latin America and Australasia, pick the ones you want. https://miningnetwork.co.uk/sign-up/ Alex Dorsch, Managing Director and CEO of Chalice Mining (ASX: CHN), joins us in Rapallo to walk through Gonneville, the 2020 Julimar discovery about 70 km from Perth. Chalice has invested about A$250 million since the find, including more than 1,200 resource-definition holes. The 8 December 2025 pre-feasibility study set Stage 1 pre-production capital at A$820 million for...

What Alex Dorsch said

Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.

Alex Dorsch, Managing Director and CEO of Chalice Mining, discussed the company's progress on the Gonneville project in Western Australia. He said Chalice has spent A$250 million since the 2020 discovery, including drilling 1,100 holes, and is now at the PFS stage with a bankable feasibility study about 12 months away. Dorsch expects approvals in the first half of 2028, with an A$800 million capex. Funding will come from precious metal streams, particularly gold, and about 60-65% from export credit agencies. He described the metal mix as 45% palladium, 25% copper, 20% nickel. Dorsch argued palladium's downside is limited due to supply constraints, citing Norilsk's 5% production decline, and sees AI data centers as future demand. He also mentioned an interim gold stream and A$55 million cash, with A$25 million for project spending and A$6 million for exploration over the next 12 months.

Key takeaways

  1. Targeting final investment decision after approvals in first half of 2028, about 18 months away.
  2. Gonneville mine capex estimated at A$800 million, with 60-65% from export credit agency debt.
  3. Metal mix: 45% palladium, 25% copper, 20% nickel, with precious metals at 55% of revenue.
  4. Expects approvals in first half of 2028; current cash and liquids at A$55 million.
  5. Palladium outlook positive due to supply decline, especially Norilsk's 5% year-on-year production drop.

Numbers and commitments

FigureWhat it refers toTypeAt
A$250 million Total spent on Gonneville since discovery commitment 0:28
1,100 drill holes Drill holes completed on Gonneville metric 0:28
A$800 million Gonneville capital expenditure estimate guidance 2:37
60% or 65% Proportion of capex from senior debt credit agencies guidance 3:19
55% precious metals Share of revenue from precious metals metric 5:03
45% palladium Share of palladium in metal mix metric 5:03
25% copper Share of copper in metal mix metric 5:03
20% nickel Share of nickel in metal mix metric 5:03
A$55 million Cash and liquids on hand metric 9:18
A$25 million Project spending over next 12 months guidance 9:18

Chapters

  1. 0:00Gonneville history and investment
  2. 2:07Regulatory process and approvals
  3. 3:19Funding strategy and debt
  4. 5:03Metal mix and palladium outlook
  5. 8:29Investment pipeline and exploration

Questions asked in this interview

11
  1. 0:16What's happened since that discovery and where are you going in 2026?
  2. 1:16How much money will it take you to complete all your technical studies and then go build a mine?
  3. 2:00Is that what you're just working through?
  4. 2:31So the public exhibition period ends when, and what's the timeline for that regulatory decision?
  5. 3:08How do you plan to fund that?
  6. 4:54Can you remind me the net metal mix, net of payability and so on, so people think of it as copper and nickel, PGMs — which order is that?
  7. 5:22Have you got a view on palladium?
  8. 7:05So their palladium production is falling?
  9. 7:07Do we know anything about that?
  10. 8:15You got, you know, de-risking the regulatory side, finishing the studies and getting it ready to build. Anything else?
  11. 9:16Well, you've got to have money for all of that?
Sam 0:07 ↗
Alex Dorsch of Chalice Mining. Mate, thank you for coming to the Italian Riviera. It's nice to see you back here.
Alex Dorsch 0:13 ↗
Mate, it's great to see you. Yeah, great to be here. Thanks.
Sam 0:16 ↗
So, mate, I remember well during the COVID year how Chalice was like a shooting star. You discovered the Julimar project 80 k's from Perth. What's happened since that discovery and where are you going in 2026?
Alex Dorsch 0:28 ↗
Yeah, so we had some great success back in 2020 with the discovery. Drilled it out very quickly. Drilled 1,100 drill holes. Spent about 150 million dollars drilling it out over two years. Then spent the next two years really studying the metallurgy, getting that right. And I think 2025 was the breakout year where we really understood the ore body, and we'd really made a substantial investment in understanding the geology, the mineralogy, and metallurgy. So we've spent about 250 million Australian dollars now since the discovery. So we've invested aggressively and it's PFS stage now. So now we're in permitting, doing our regulatory permitting process, bankable feasibility study, which will be about 12 months away, and really getting on with it.
Sam 1:15 ↗
Nice.
Alex Dorsch 1:16 ↗
Yeah.
Sam 1:16 ↗
The two of you guys... [laughter] That's the singing chefs you can hear warming up for the evening session. Welcome to Italy. So, mate, the 250 million dollars, that's a lot. How much money will it take you to complete all your technical studies and then go build a mine?
Alex Dorsch 1:32 ↗
So we've got about 25 million to spend on the project to have it bankable, financed, approvals in hand. So not much more to go. So we've got really the thing that takes the 18 months ahead of us before we're FID ready is the regulatory side. Yeah. So unfortunately, you know, that's just the nature of permitting things in Australia. You know, high quality, large scale project, you can't sort of do it much quicker, unfortunately, than what we've outlined.
Sam 2:00 ↗
And the usual things that all communities care about are power and water and dust and noise. Is that what you're just working through?
Alex Dorsch 2:07 ↗
Yeah, exactly. We went through it. Well, we've started what's called a public environmental review or a Part Four state and Commonwealth process. So it's inevitable. We needed to get absolutely the definition on the project and understand the mitigations. So we've done that and we're about to sort of submit our impact statements or review documents and then really it goes into the regulator's court to assess.
Sam 2:31 ↗
So the public exhibition period ends when, and what's the timeline for that regulatory decision?
Alex Dorsch 2:37 ↗
So we're expecting sort of approvals in hand, it's sometime in the first half of 2028. So that's about 18 months from today, or plus or minus. There will be a public comment period next year. Regulators have been out to site. You know, there's been a lot of engagement already. As you'd imagine, you know, it's a big, long-life project, about an $800 million capex. So we've invested properly and got our mitigations well and truly understood to make sure it gets to the finish line and gets approved.
Sam 3:08 ↗
Mate, the Gruyere Group knows something about building mines in Australia. So I'm sure you're well advised and you've got plenty of counsel around you. You mentioned $800 million of capital. How do you plan to fund that?
Alex Dorsch 3:19 ↗
So we've got a number of byproducts, I guess — gold, cobalt, and platinum — which we're viewing as likely to stream away and raise a bit of capital from those streams. We're engaged at the moment with a number of the large royalty streaming cos, primarily around the gold. We've obviously got a little bit to go before our feasibility study is going to be at the bankable standard. So we'll look to do a sort of an interim stream and then potentially top up a further stream next year when we go for the construction round of funding. So the big component obviously is because it's critical minerals, it'll be Western ECA. So obviously where we send product, we expect the credit agencies of those reciprocal governments to be a big part of the funding solution, as well as obviously Export Finance Australia. So we expect that about 60% or 65% of that 800 million will be funded through senior debt credit agencies.
Sam 4:20 ↗
Wow. So we're talking about sort of KfWs in Germany, doesn't have to be specific, but then US government export banks, that kind of thing.
Alex Dorsch 4:30 ↗
Yes, obviously Canada's got great processing facilities for nickel and copper concentrates. Finland does, Germany does. Asia, obviously Japan, Korea, China. So obviously all the Western agencies we've been very much getting to know and sort of giving them an early look. But really, we'll go to secure that debt once we have bankable fees.
Sam 4:54 ↗
And Alex, what's the metal mix? Can you remind me the net metal mix, net of payability and so on, so people think of it as copper and nickel, PGMs — which order is that?
Alex Dorsch 5:03 ↗
So it's about a 55% precious metals, dominated by palladium, and 45% base metals. But now sort of copper, with copper where it is, it's about 25% copper. So about 45% palladium, 25% copper, 20% nickel, and then there are other three very much byproducts.
Sam 5:22 ↗
And palladium's always difficult to call because of this big Russian sort of conundrum. Have you got a view on palladium?

19 more exchanges in this transcript

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Cite this transcript

APA, MLA, BibTeX
APA

Dorsch, A. (2026, September 21). Chalice Targets 2028 Decision on A$820 Million Gonneville Mine | Alex Dorsch [Interview transcript]. Mining Network and Catt Calls: No Fear Finance. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3039625/

MLA

Alex Dorsch. "Chalice Targets 2028 Decision on A$820 Million Gonneville Mine | Alex Dorsch." Mining Network and Catt Calls: No Fear Finance, 21 Sep. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3039625/.

BibTeX 
@misc{dorsch2026_3039625,
  author       = {Alex Dorsch},
  title        = {Chalice Targets 2028 Decision on A$820 Million Gonneville Mine | Alex Dorsch},
  howpublished = {Interview transcript, Mining Network and Catt Calls: No Fear Finance. CEOInterviews.AI},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {sep},
  url          = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3039625/},
  note         = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}