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.
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.
60 seconds with Brad Sampson
August 11 - 17, 2008
THREE people who have influenced you/your career?
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.
60 seconds with Julian Ford
August 4 - 10, 2008
THREE people who have most influenced you in your career/life?
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.
60 seconds with David Varcoe
July 28 - August 3, 2008
THREE people who have most influenced you in your career/life?
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.
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?
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.
60 seconds with Garry Frere
July 14 - 20, 2008
NAME three people who have most influenced you in your career/life?
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.
60 seconds with Dario Amara
July 7 - 13, 2008
ANYONE that you think has done extremely well what you're now trying to do?
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.
60 seconds with Mat Longworth
June 23 - 29, 2008
THREE people who have most influenced you in your career/life?
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.
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]?
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.
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.
60 seconds with Roland Hill
June 2 - 8, 2008
THREE people who have most influenced you in your career/life?
60 seconds with Les Davis
May 26 - June 1, 2008
WHY gold?
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.
60 seconds with Wayne Bramwell
May 19 - 25, 2008
THREE people who have most influenced you in your career/life, and why?
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.
60 seconds with Andrew Radonjic
May 12 - 18, 2008
WHICH technologies could most profoundly change the mining industry in future?
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.
60 seconds with Hugh Bresser
May 5 - 11, 2008
WHO are three people who have most influenced you in your career/life?
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.
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?
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.
60 seconds with Tony Polglase
April 21 - 27, 2008
THE three most influential people on your career?
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.
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?
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.
60 seconds with Rohan Williams
April 7 - 13, 2008
WHO are three people who have greatly influenced you in your career/life?
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
60 seconds with Mick Clifford
March 3 - 9, 2008
WHAT'S the best and worst thing about being a geologist?
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.
60 seconds with Rimas Kairaitis
February 25 - March 2, 2008
WHO are three people you’d like to be stuck down a mine with?
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.
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.
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.
60 seconds with Chris Cairns
January 28 - February 3, 2008
WHAT have been the best gold discoveries of recent times?
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.
60 seconds with Matthew Gill
January 21 - 27, 2008
WHO is scarier, Michael Kiernan or David Koch?
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.
60 seconds with Dale Rogers
January 14 - 20, 2008
WHAT is your view on the nickel price in the longer term?
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.
60 seconds with Paul Benson
December 17 - 23, 2007
ARE you confident about the outlook for commodity prices?
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.
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.
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?
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.
60 seconds with Michael Rosenstreich
November 19 - 25, 2007
ARE you a paid up member of the “stronger for longer” club?
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
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.