Appointment of Key Executives

RNS Number : 4651S

SolGold PLC

14 July 2022

 

14 July 2022

SolGold plc

("SolGold" or the "Company")

Appointment of Key Executives

The Board of Directors of SolGold (LSE & TSX: SOLG) is pleased to announce the appointments of Steven Botts to the position of President of SolGold's Ecuador subsidiaries, Harold 'Bernie' Loyer to the position of Vice President Projects, and Rufus Gandhi to the position of General Counsel and Company Secretary.

Mr. Botts, who will assume his new role on 1^st August 2022 based in Quito, is a Senior Mining Executive, Director, and Consultant with over 40 years of international mining experience in the development of mining projects, socio-environmental management, and sustainable development. Mr. Botts has extensive Latin America experience, having worked in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama and Peru. He is fluent in English and Spanish and holds a Master of Environmental Policy and Management.

Mr. Botts is a deeply experienced leader in cross cultural and international business relations with a proven ability at developing partnerships and delivering projects. Notable achievements include his leadership in the successful permitting of the Antamina project, formation of the Mina Justa project team and taking the project through to a viable Feasibility Study, and the turnaround of Tahoe Peru to a more efficient and value-oriented organisation that achieved safety and production goals under very challenging circumstances.

Mr. Loyer, who joins SolGold on 27^th July 2022 based in Quito, is a Project Mining Executive with over 35 years of international mining experience including  over 20 years' in LATAM, having worked in Peru, Mexico, Chile and Argentina.  A mechanical engineer, fluent in English and Spanish, Mr. Loyer holds multiple patents for the design of process and material handling equipment. 

Mr. Loyer has a proven track record delivering large scale mining projects including Goldcorp´s Penasquito Project in Zacatecas, Mexico, Goldcorp´s Cerro Negro Project in Santa Cruz, Argentina and Torex Gold´s Morelos Project in Guerrero, Mexico. Mr. Loyer spent five years at FLSmidth Minerals based in Copenhagen serving as Vice President, Minerals Technology and Chief Product Officer where he was responsible for all global process technology, manufacturing and material handling. Prior to that he served 15 years with BHP Billiton, spending the last 10 years in Peru and Chile where he held operational leadership positions. Mr. Loyer has served on the boards of various international companies including KOCH-MVT Material Handling, RAHCO International, Conveyor Engineering, Excel Foundry and CEIM Centro de Entrenamiento Industrial y Minero in Antofagasta, Chile.

Mr. Gandhi will start with the Company on 1^st August 2022 based in Brisbane and joins SolGold having previously worked at Gladstone Ports Corporation where he held the role as the first General Counsel & Company Secretary. In addition to several years as a private practice lawyer with leading law firms, King & Wood Mallesons, O'Melveny & Myers LLP and Slaughter and May LLP, Mr. Gandhi has previously been Senior Legal Counsel at APA Group and ConocoPhillips (U.K.) Limited.

Mr. Gandhi has over twenty years of legal, company secretarial and corporate governance experience working in multiple jurisdictions including in Australia, UK, Singapore and the US. He was admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales in 2002, admitted as a solicitor in the Supreme Court of Victoria and received a Practicing Certificate from Queensland Law Society in 2018. He also became a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors in January 2022.

Liam Twigger, the Chairman of the Board wishes to thank Dennis Wilkins for his dedication and commitment in providing Company Secretarial services to SolGold.

Darryl Cuzzubbo, SolGold Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer said: "On behalf of the Board, I am pleased to welcome Steve, Bernie and Rufus to SolGold. We are very fortunate to have them joining us. They bring the skills, experience and energy that we need to assist SolGold to realise its full potential as an organisation. These appointments demonstrate our commitment to growing and developing our business, building on SolGold's past success as we progress through the next phase. Steve, Bernie and Rufus were attracted to these roles because they want to play a significant role in realising the incredible opportunity that Cascabel and SolGold presents for Ecuador as the next Copper frontier when the world needs it most."

By order of the Board

Dennis Wilkins

Company Secretary

CONTACTS

Dennis Wilkins SolGold Plc (Company Secretary) [e-mail]	Tel: [phone]
Fawzi Hanano / Lia Abady SolGold Plc (Investors / Communication) [e-mail] / [e-mail]	Tel: [phone]
Tavistock (Media)   Jos Simson / Gareth Tredway	Tel: [phone]

Follow us on twitter @SolGold_plc

Certain information contained in this announcement would have been deemed inside information.

ABOUT SOLGOLD

SolGold is a leading resources company focussed on the discovery, definition and development of world-class copper and gold deposits and continues to strive to deliver objectives efficiently and in the interests of shareholders. SolGold is exploring the length and breadth of this highly prospective and gold-rich section of the Andean Copper Belt which is currently responsible for c40% of global mined copper production.

The Company operates with transparency and in accordance with international best practices. SolGold is committed to delivering value to its shareholders, while simultaneously providing economic and social benefits to impacted communities, fostering a healthy and safe workplace and minimizing the environmental impact.

Dedicated stakeholders

SolGold employs a staff of approximately 800 employees of whom 99% are Ecuadorian. This is expected to grow as the operations expand at Cascabel, and in Ecuador generally. SolGold focusses its operations to be safe, reliable and environmentally responsible and maintains close relationships with its local communities. SolGold has engaged an increasingly skilled, refined and experienced team of geoscientists using state of the art geophysical and geochemical modelling applied to an extensive database to enable the delivery of ore grade intersections from nearly every drill hole at Alpala. SolGold has close to 60 geologists on the ground in Ecuador exploring for economic copper and gold deposits.

About Cascabel

The Alpala deposit is the main target in the Cascabel concession, located on the northern section of the heavily endowed Andean Copper Belt, the entirety of which is renowned as the base for nearly half of the world's copper production. The project area hosts mineralisation of Eocene age, the same age as numerous Tier 1 deposits along the Andean Copper Belt in Chile and Peru to the south. The project base is located at Rocafuerte within the Cascabel concession in northern Ecuador, an approximately three-hour drive on sealed highway north of the capital Quito, close to water, power supply and Pacific ports.

Having fulfilled its earn-in requirements, SolGold is a registered shareholder with an unencumbered legal and beneficial 85% interest in ENSA (Exploraciones Novomining S.A.) which holds 100% of the Cascabel concession covering approximately 50km². The junior equity owner in ENSA is required to repay 15% of costs since SolGold's earn in was completed, from 90% of its share of distribution of earnings or dividends from ENSA or the Cascabel concession. It is also required to contribute to development or be diluted, and if its interest falls below 10%, it shall reduce to a 0.5% NSR royalty which SolGold may acquire for US$3.5million.

SolGold's Regional Exploration Drive

SolGold is using its successful and cost-efficient blueprint established at Alpala, and Cascabel generally, to explore for additional world class copper and gold projects across Ecuador. SolGold is a large and active concessionaire in Ecuador.

The Company wholly owns four other subsidiaries active throughout the country that are now focussed on a number of high priority copper and gold resource targets, several of which the Company believes have the potential, subject to resource definition and feasibility, to be developed in close succession or even on a more accelerated basis compared to Cascabel. 

SolGold is listed on the London Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange (LSE/TSX: SOLG). The Company has on issue a total of 2,295,152,615 fully paid ordinary shares and 42,250,000 share options.

See www.solgold.com.au for more information. Follow us on twitter @SolGold plc

CAUTIONARY NOTICE

News releases, presentations and public commentary made by SolGold plc (the "Company") and its Officers may contain certain statements and expressions of belief, expectation or opinion which are forward looking statements, and which relate, inter alia, to interpretations of exploration results to date and the Company's proposed strategy, plans and objectives or to the expectations or intentions of the Company's Directors, including the plan for developing the Project currently being studied as well as the expectations of the Company as to the forward price of copper.  Such forward-looking and interpretative statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors beyond the control of the Company that could cause the actual performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from such interpretations and forward-looking statements.

Accordingly, the reader should not rely on any interpretations or forward-looking statements; and save as required by the exchange rules of the TSX and LSE or by applicable laws, the Company does not accept any obligation to disseminate any updates or revisions to such interpretations or forward-looking statements.  The Company may reinterpret results to date as the status of its assets and projects changes with time expenditure, metals prices and other affecting circumstances.

This release may contain "forward‑looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation.  Forward‑looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements regarding the Company's plans for developing its properties.  Generally, forward‑looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". 

Forward‑looking information is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward‑looking information, including but not limited to: transaction risks; general business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties; future prices of mineral prices; accidents, labour disputes and shortages and other risks of the mining industry.  Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended.  There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.  Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such  forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, risks relating to the ability of exploration activities (including assay results) to accurately predict mineralization; errors in management's geological modelling and/or mine development plan; capital and operating costs varying significantly from estimates; the preliminary nature of visual assessments; delays in obtaining or failures to obtain required governmental, environmental or other required approvals; uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future; changes in equity markets; inflation; the global economic climate; fluctuations in commodity prices; the ability of the Company to complete further exploration activities, including drilling; delays in the development of projects; environmental risks; community and non-governmental actions; other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry; the ability of the Company to retain its key management employees and skilled and experienced personnel; and those risks set out in the Company's public documents filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com .  Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward‑looking information. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

The Company and its officers do not endorse, or reject or otherwise comment on the conclusions, interpretations or views expressed in press articles or third-party analysis, and where possible aims to circulate all available material on its website.

 

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