Alkane Resources (ASX: ALK) has strengthened its management, operational and technical capabilities with the appointment of Nicholas Earner as its chief operations officer and Brendan Ward as its commercial manager.
The appointments come as the company progresses towards production from the Tomingley Gold Project and development of the Dubbo Zirconia Project.
Earner has 17 years of experience in technical, improvement, operational management and executive roles in mining and processing. He will be responsible for the safe and efficient management of the company’s operations at Tomingley and Dubbo.
He was most recently the Executive General Manager – Operations with Straits Resources (ASX: SRQ), where he spent four years supervised up to 1,000 employees in open cut and underground gold mines; an underground copper mine; and an open cut coal mine.
Prior to that, he held various roles over eight years at BHP Billiton’s (ASX: BHP) giant Olympic Dam mine, managing the Concentrator and Hydromet functions which included a substantial solvent extraction circuit as Production Superintendent – Smelting; and as Senior Engineer – Process Control, Instrumentation and Communications.
The company has also appointed Ward to take over as commercial manager to replace Tony Wright, who is retiring at the end of the year.
He will oversee Alkane’s contract negotiation and management; provide logistical support; coordinate project finance activities with the chief financial officer and project bankers, and provide support to the managing director in legal and administrative matters
Over the last 9 years, he has held senior positions as Senior Contracts Specialist and Contract Administrator for major engineering contractors advising in the LNG, iron ore, manganese, nickel, zinc and copper industries.
Ward has specialised in the negotiation, implementation and management of large EPC and EPCM contracts.
Both positions are Perth-based and form part of the team that will guide Alkane through its transition into a significant and multi commodity production company.
Tomingley Gold Project
Construction of the CIL plant and associated infrastructure at the Tomingley Gold Project in the Central West region of New South Wales is well advanced with commissioning scheduled for early 2014.
Tenders have been prepared for mining pre-strip and mining contracts and scheduling optimisation is in progress to reflect lower gold prices.
Final core drilling at the Caloma Two deposit has returned intercepts including 23 metres at 4.05 grams per tonne gold from 182 metres, 7.8 metres at 7.01g/t gold from 81 metres and 9 metres at 5.23g/t gold.
A Resource estimate for the deposit is expected by October.
Dubbo Zirconia Project
Alkane has also made progress with its Dubbo Zirconia Project in New South Wales, with the Environmental Impact Statement lodged with the Department of Planning and Infrastructure in the June 2013 quarter.
It has also signed a Joint Venture Framework Agreement with Austria's Treibacher Industrie AG for the production of ferro-niobium.
Recent market discussions in Japan, China and Europe have confirmed strong interest in the products from the project, which include zirconium (hafnium), niobium (tantalum), yttrium and rare earths.
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