Click for larger

Davis on the fast and narrow

August 11 - 17, 2008

IF LES Davis is afflicted with “ex-WMC manager’s” syndrome, he’s not exhibiting the symptoms. Whether he can restore the health and vitality of another significant old gold field in Western Australia remains to be seen, but he’s not sticking with a standard prescription on that front either.

Read full article

Click for larger

Discovery's new Maun

August 4 - 10, 2008

BRAD Sampson’s honeymoon period at the head of a public company appears to be far from over, with this week’s $A8.2 million equity raising by Discovery Metals affirming investor support for Discovery’s strategic course. It’s a path that has taken the Australian mining engineer back to a part of the world that produced both the high and low points of his career.

Read full article

60 seconds with Brad Sampson

August 11 - 17, 2008

THREE people who have influenced you/your career?

Read the full article


Zambezi takes early action on hangover

August 4 - 10, 2008

A WHITE knuckle ride is what it feels like for an engineer overseeing an aggressive exploration program on ground said to have world class potential. However, after the big party of the past few years for the exploration sector, the white knuckle ride Zambezi Resources’ Julian Ford refers now also features a hangover.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Julian Ford

August 4 - 10, 2008

THREE people who have most influenced you in your career/life?

Read the full article


Looking for the right partner

July 28 - August 3, 2008

NICKEL heap leaching has been an alluring prospect that to date hasn’t actually amounted to a great deal. The rather low profile GME Resources is aiming to change the status quo in a big way, and the key to its success, according to the company’s managing director David Varcoe, is pretty much the same as for any other mining project – quality and quantity.

Read the full article


60 seconds with David Varcoe

July 28 - August 3, 2008

THREE people who have most influenced you in your career/life?

Read the full article


Lynch mob on the move

July 21 - 27, 2008

PETER Lynch is an admirer but not an imitator of Andrew Forrest. The so-called “Twiggy” of Australian coal is most definitely his own man and has runs on the board – going back to his university days in Sydney – to prove it. Nevertheless his vision for Queensland’s Galilee Basin is every bit as grand and visionary as that which has transformed Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Peter Lynch

July 21 - 27, 2008

GIVEN your popularity at university, if you weren’t in mining would you be in politics?

Read the full article


Bugs, bucks and disbelief

July 14 - 20, 2008

INTERESTING times in China for Garry Frere, the managing director of ASX-listed Pacific Ore. A feasibility study for a heap leach copper and copper-zinc development using Pacific Ore’s BioHeap technology is now underway, and the implications, if successful, will clearly be company changing. Naturally the sceptics aren’t convinced. Not yet anyway.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Garry Frere

July 14 - 20, 2008

NAME three people who have most influenced you in your career/life?

Read the full article


Registered builder

July 7 - 13, 2008

NO time to waste. It’s the catchphrase of the moment for Western Australia’s expanding resources sector and, supposedly, a new generation of workers – Y. It could certainly be the motto of newly listed engineering and project management group Emerson Stewart and its managing director Dario Amara.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Dario Amara

July 7 - 13, 2008

ANYONE that you think has done extremely well what you're now trying to do?

Read the full article


Heron turns bird of prey

June 23 - 29, 2008

HERON Resources’ Mat Longworth has a big year ahead of him. His mission: find a financier for the proposed Yerilla nickel project, and buy an operating mine. Both objectives look significant challenges in the current environment, but the company’s track record in recent years should give Heron shareholders cause for some confidence.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Mat Longworth

June 23 - 29, 2008

THREE people who have most influenced you in your career/life?

Read the full article


Life after death

June 16 - 22, 2008

WHEN he left Australia Harry Anagnostaras-Adams, who spent nine years at the helm of junior gold miner Gympie Gold, was perceived in some quarters as a failure. The company went into receivership. A long battle to make the problematic Gympie gold field in Queensland a success was lost. It has taken nearly five years for Adams to get a serious shot at redemption.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Harry Adams

June 16 - 22, 2008

WHAT is different about the view of mining in that part of the world [Spain versus Australia]?

Read the full article


Punting on a fast track to production

June 9 - 15, 2008

PETER van der Borgh doesn’t like to give too much away – like many of the current crop of corporate colts, he’s wary of the stewards at the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. He does, however, think he’s on a winner at Dargues Reef in south-eastern New South Wales.

Read the full article


Banking on a golden run

June 2 - 8, 2008

WHEN it comes to pedigree, Roland Hill has a classic mining bloodline. Add to that his extensive financial market experience, and the unprecedented $A122 million backing by a first-tier investment bank last year of the modest looking mining company he heads starts making sense.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Roland Hill

June 2 - 8, 2008

THREE people who have most influenced you in your career/life?

Read the full article


60 seconds with Les Davis

May 26 - June 1, 2008

WHY gold?

Read the full article


Tin underpins good fortune

May 19 - 25, 2008

SOME serendipity seems to have been at play when metallurgist Wayne Bramwell was introduced to a promising tin project in Morocco. And with the metal now looking a very promising commodity space to be in, shareholders of the company Bramwell heads, Kasbah Resources, could be in for some good fortune themselves.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Wayne Bramwell

May 19 - 25, 2008

THREE people who have most influenced you in your career/life, and why?

Read the full article


An eye on production

May 12 - 18, 2008

IN CHOOSING a career path, Andrew Radonjic liked the idea of being a geologist – but zeroed in quickly on mine geology – and moving around. His predisposition towards establishing the economic credentials of mineral deposits, without initially getting caught up in solving any bigger geological puzzles, currently has him regularly traversing the country between his home-base of Perth, Western Australia, and the west coast of Tasmania.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Andrew Radonjic

May 12 - 18, 2008

WHICH technologies could most profoundly change the mining industry in future?

Read the full article


Bresser heads Overland, and snow

May 5 - 11, 2008

WHILE he may have once chosen a university in sunny Queensland rather than study in the cooler climes of Tasmania, geologist Hugh Bresser has had no qualms about taking the company he heads into Canada’s rather frigid Yukon Territory given the cold, hard cash offered by an advanced zinc project.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Hugh Bresser

May 5 - 11, 2008

WHO are three people who have most influenced you in your career/life?

Read the full article


Just getting started

April 28 - May 4, 2008

FIVE years into his tenure at Intellection, CEO Calvin Treacy doesn’t yet have his foot flat on the accelerator pedal, which is saying something for a company last week recognised by a leading Australian business magazine as one of the country’s 100 fastest growing start-ups.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Calvin Treacy

April 28 - May 4, 2008

NAME 2-3 people you regard as mentors, or people who have influenced you in your career?

Read the full article


Building in Brazil

April 21 - 27, 2008

THE severe skills shortage means having an operationally experienced, practical and well-connected executive heading a company focused on a region reportedly chock-full of development opportunities is an alluring mix. The trifecta in this case is Cornishman Tony Polglase, Avanco Resources, and Brazil.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Tony Polglase

April 21 - 27, 2008

THE three most influential people on your career?

Read the full article


Path leads to bigger future

April 14 - 20, 2008

IF students completing mining engineering courses are just pursuing $A100,000-a-year jobs in the industry they’re not doing it for the right reasons, says a former Western Australia School of Mines graduate, Andy Caruso. He should know. Seventeen years after getting his first job in the industry, Caruso is at the helm of a public company on the verge of making a multi-billion-dollar move from exploration to project development.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Andy Caruso

April 14 - 20, 2008

WHAT would you be doing if you weren’t working in the mining industry/in your current role?

Read the full article


Give me another Higginsville ... later this year

April 7 - 13, 2008

GIVEN that it looks like it is going to make a big success of its first acquisition, it won’t surprise to see Avoca Resources and its managing director Rohan Williams swamped by a deluge of corporate and project opportunities in the second half of 2008 after the Higginsville gold project begins pouring gold.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Rohan Williams

April 7 - 13, 2008

WHO are three people who have greatly influenced you in your career/life?

Read the full article


Bills sees high probability of success

March 31 - April 6, 2008

THERE has been nothing half-hearted about Emmerson Resources’ bid to put Tennant Creek back on investors’ radars. That intent was reinforced when experienced former WMC and BHP Billiton executive Rob Bills stepped up to the CEO/managing director’s plate in September last year.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Rob Bills

March 31 - April 6, 2008

THE past few years has spawned thousands of listed exploration companies, many of which now face very different equity/finance market conditions. Is the spawning season over? What happens next?

Read the full article


Digging deeper for deals

March 17 - 23, 2008

ROB Brierley is able to call on an attractive and important blend of mining and market experience as he scours the globe for a company-making acquisition for Australian minnow Carbine Resources.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Rob Brierley

March 17 - 23, 2008

WHO have been the three most influential people in your life and on your career to date?

Read the full article


Golden touch

March 10 - 16, 2008

PETER Marrone, who emigrated to Canada with his parents in 1965, once dreamed of being a doctor. But after a career as a corporate lawyer specialising in mergers and acquisitions with Toronto law firm Cassels Brock and Blackwell, and a spell running the investment banking business of Canaccord Adams, he now heads one of the most exciting gold companies in the industry.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Peter Marrone

March 10 - 16, 2008

IF China is set to be the world’s No.1 gold producer in five years, which countries will be No. 2 and No.3?

Read the full article


Egypt enters golden era

March 10 - 16, 2008

FOLLOWING his father around the backblocks of Wiluna as a child in the early 1980s fostered Josef El-Raghy’s love of the mining industry. And it’s probably as appropriate a preparation as any in Australia for harsh, hot environments, given El-Raghy now sits atop a company developing a plus-10 million ounce gold project in the Egyptian desert.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Josef El-Raghy

March 10 - 16, 2008

Who have been the three people who have most influenced you and your career to date?

Read the full article


Clifford finds himself a career

March 3 - 9, 2008

MICK Clifford could have ended up an architect but for the length of a queue at a careers night. Instead, the low-key geologist was closely involved with the best gold discovery in Australia for the past decade and now has his hands on a huge copper-molybdenum project in the USA.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Mick Clifford

March 3 - 9, 2008

WHAT'S the best and worst thing about being a geologist?

Read the full article


A NSW story

February 25 - March 2, 2008

GEOLOGISTS such as Chris Bonwick and Julian Hanna have made a pretty good fist of running mining companies. Rimas Kairaitis would still rather be out in the bush than stuck behind his office desk, but he’s warming nicely to the task of transforming YTC Resources into one of what he sees as an emerging wave of New South Wales-focused miners.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Rimas Kairaitis

February 25 - March 2, 2008

WHO are three people you’d like to be stuck down a mine with?

Read the full article


The all rounder

February 11 - 17, 2008

TALENTED people invariably achieve success at whatever they turn their hand to and the affable, modest and sporty Michael Anderson at Exco Resources appears no exception. Meaning, market vagaries aside, patient shareholders of the budding copper junior can look towards the future with some real optimism.

Read the full article


Digger or dealer?

February 4 - 10, 2008

THOSE who’ve pondered what might happen when a dealer replaces the “digger” at the helm of leading single-mine gold producer Dominion Mining may not have long to wait for an answer. Enter the dealer, Jonathan Shellabear.

Read the full article


Salt Creek backs fresh outlook

January 28 - February 3, 2008

THE callow Australian gold sector has a true believer in its ranks who thinks it has the potential to return, at least part-way, to some of its former glory. Naturally, Chris Cairns, the managing director of Integra Mining, thinks the company he heads is one of the contenders, with a major commitment to exploration excellence the key criteria for success.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Chris Cairns

January 28 - February 3, 2008

WHAT have been the best gold discoveries of recent times?

Read the full article


Gill relishes chance to build a leader

January 21 - 27, 2008

SIX months ago Matthew Gill stood at the bottom of the Hill 50 gold mine – about 1.6km underground – with Monarch Gold director John Davis thinking, “what the hell am I doing here?” Now that he’s officially in the seat as managing director of Monarch, Gill, one of the people at the centre of the Beaconsfield mine drama that erupted two years ago, is in no doubt about what he’s got to do next.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Matthew Gill

January 21 - 27, 2008

WHO is scarier, Michael Kiernan or David Koch?

Read the full article


Rogers ready to be a miner again

January 14 - 20, 2008

WITH veritable rivers of cash on offer at current nickel price levels, it is little wonder Albidon backers are keen to see the company’s Munali project in Zambia brought into production pronto. Cue Dale Rogers.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Dale Rogers

January 14 - 20, 2008

WHAT is your view on the nickel price in the longer term?

Read the full article


A mining engineer at the gate

December 17 - 23, 2007

TROY Resources looks to have pulled one out of the hat (or should that be out of the horse!) with the appointment of Paul Benson as the company’s new CEO. Mining engineer Benson has a classy CV, with his M&A experience shaping as significant as Troy targets a growth phase and a new era as an Australian and Canadian listed miner.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Paul Benson

December 17 - 23, 2007

ARE you confident about the outlook for commodity prices?

Read the full article


Metallica boss now has timing on his side

December 10 - 16, 2007

THE depths the market plumbed during the dark days of the late 1990s and early years of this century neither scarred the youthful looks of Andrew Gillies at Metallica Minerals nor dulled the ambitions of a managing director whose influences are among the crème de la crème of the Australian resources sector.

Read the full article


Vital pick-up

November 26 - December 2, 2007

WILL and Oliver Haslam know their dad is moving to a different type of mining company. He’s been managing more than 700 staff. Soon he’ll have 26. But that may not mean they get to see more of him.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Andy Haslam

November 26 - December 2, 2007

IS THE Beijing Olympics the finish line for the current mining boom, or just another marker?

Read the full article


Beyond first Bass

November 19 - 25, 2007

A GEOLOGIST whose experience spans the gamut from grass roots exploration to mine production, and one whose CV also entails some six years as a banker with Rothschild seems like the sort of person who might have a few clues about running a company in the resources sector.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Michael Rosenstreich

November 19 - 25, 2007

ARE you a paid up member of the “stronger for longer” club?

Read the full article


Batten down the hatches

November 12 - 18, 2007

CLIVE Jones has had mixed fortunes pegging mineral leases under Rio Tinto’s nose. The joint managing director of Western Australia iron ore explorer Cazaly Resources may have missed out on Shovelanna – the highly contentious WA property he thought he’d secured. But, with help from university mate Peter Batten, Jones is having a much better time of it in Namibia.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Peter Batten

November 12 - 18, 2007

IS THERE a moral or ethical question mark over exporting uranium to Russia, China or India?

Read the full article


Making the grade

November 5 - 11, 2007

YOU can’t overlook a name as synonymous as this one is with the Australian mining industry but, pedigree aside, this young managing director has traits that mark him as one to watch.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Matt Gauci

November 5 - 11, 2007

WHEN will significant uranium company consolidation get underway given the hundreds and hundreds of uranium companies worldwide that were spawned in 2005 and 2006?

Read the full article


The musical deal maker

October 29 - November 4, 2007

COVENTRY would have seemed a dreary world away to a 10-year-old boy after he moved to the “paradise” of northern Zambia with his family in the late 1960s.

Read the full article


60 seconds with Mark Stewart

October 29 - November 4, 2007

IS URANIUM the solution to global warming, or the most likely cause of the end of the world?

Read the full article


ReGENERATION

October 22 - 28, 2007

STARTING this week, HighGrade will produce a series of articles on the new generation of company chief executives, financial and technical leaders, and operations managers making their mark in and on the industry. For professional and personal insights, and perspectives on mining’s future, look out for ReGENERATION each week in HighGrade.

Read the full article


Flanagan and Flannery, saving the world

October 22 - 28, 2007

DAVID Flanagan could be the CEO of a big company. He’s got a $A32 million exploration budget for this year and $A90 million in the bank. He started advanced community consultation and environment management programs for a transition to mining before drilling even started at the company’s tenements. And he’s about to move into Newmont Mining Corp’s old 750sq.m office in West Perth – over the road from his current 220sq.m digs.

Read the full article