Pursuit Minerals Managing Director Jeremy Read

? After a few false starts, the zinc boom has arrived

? Bluebush could be another Century or McArthur River

? Pursuit is in talks with the new Century mine owner

Australian explorer Pursuit Minerals Ltd. emerged from the previously named Burrabulla Corp., which went into administration in May 2015, and since being relisted last week, has traded consistently higher than its recent capital raising at 20 Australian cents per share.

On its first day of trade, the company hit an intraday high of 32 cents, with over 9 million shares changing hands before the closing bell, proving that Pursuit's story, so far, is resonating with investors.

S&P Global Market Intelligence sat down with Managing Director Jeremy Read in Brisbane, Australia, to discuss the company's decision to move into zinc exploration and its hopes for the relatively unknown Bluebush project.

What follows is an edited transcript of that interview.

S&P Global Market Intelligence: Pursuit Minerals has had a couple of identity changes during its time but has always remained in the resources space. How confident are you that this latest venture will be successful?

Jeremy Read: What we've done this time around is picked a commodity at the right time. We spent quite a lot of time looking at zinc projects around the world and we've been a believer in the zinc story for quite awhile. It's had a few false starts and now it's actually here. The fundamentals are that price has gone up, supply has fallen and it's looking really good. So it's all about getting the timing right.

I think now we have a big zinc system, which the market really doesn't know much about because it's never been in a junior before. So we brought something new, something fresh to the market at the right time.

The market responded positively on the first day of Pursuit's relisting. Were you expecting such a positive response?

We had a lot of demand in the capital raising. We raised A$6 million and I think we had about A$9 million worth of applications. So we knew there was untapped demand there and you want to bring that into the aftermarket.

The guys that we worked with to help us raise the money did a great job. They've got a lot of networks among the small cap institutions as well.

Pursuit recently started drilling at the Bluebush project in Queensland. How soon before you expect to have first assays?

There's four to five holes. It's a modest size program to start with. The first hole will be finished in probably three or four days' time. We're probably a month away from releasing the first results.

You mentioned that the Bluebush project could be another Century or McArthur River mine. What are you seeing so far at the project?

There's 150 meters of overburden. It will be an underground mine. You only develop it if it's a world-class deposit. The thing about Bluebush is that it is just a massive system. It's probably the biggest zinc system in Australia. It's also a massive pyrite deposit as well, but the drilling that's been done is all really broad spaced.

So there's lots of space but because it's undercover we're having to try and determine where all of those faults are via geophysics and we have to be relatively close to the controlling structures to get the better grades. Our chances of actually doing that from the work that's previously been done are not great. So we can take all of that, lever off all of that information and go in and then target the drilling.

We need 10 meters to 15 meters at 10% to 15% lead and zinc and we need 100 million tonnes of it. That's what we're looking for.

When do you expect to release a maiden resource?

The end of next year.

Are you considering M&A?

There's a continual process of looking to enhance the portfolio. There's starting to be quite a focus back on that northern part of Queensland again. I think it has been pretty quiet for a while with the Century mine closing, but now with New Century being such a success, if that kicks into gear and they start it up again, we've got a zinc deposit that is only 20 kilometers away.

They don't have much hard rock resources, so we're talking to the various players in that part of the world and while we don't need to do anything right away, I think strategically there are some reasons why you will probably see over the course of the next two, three, four years some consolidation in that part of the world.

So there is the possibility of a deal down the track with New Century?

We've had initial discussions with them. They're focused on getting their project up and running, we're focused on getting our drill program done, so we'll have another chat with them.

What will create the best value for us is not necessarily doing a deal with the guys next door, it's going out and finding a world-class deposit. If we can find a way to create some value by doing a deal with New Century or any of the other guys operating in that part of the world, then we would look to do that, but objective number one is to go and find a new world-class zinc deposit and we've got two years funding to do it.