Nevada Copper hires new CEO

VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Development company Nevada Copper has appointed former Barrick Gold senior executive Matthew Gili as its new president and CEO, the company announced on Wednesday.

The TSX-listed company’s flagship Pumpkin Hollow project was recently re-engineered and the company expects to be in production within 15 months. The project is believed to be only fully permitted, shovel-ready copper project in North America of any scale.

Gili, who comes directly from Barrick, will take up his new responsibilities at Nevada Copper on May 1, and he replaces former president and CEO Giulio Bonifacio, who retired on February 15, but remains on as a non-executive director.

The mining veteran brings with him more than 20 years of experience in the mining industry, having served in a variety of senior executive roles at Barrick and Rio Tinto.

He holds a Bachelor's degree in Mining Engineering from University of Idaho and an Idaho professional engineer certification.

The company has also recently announced the hires of David Swisher as VP of operations and Timothy Dake as GM for surface construction.

The company has earlier this year closed construction financing and recapitalisation transactions that raised C$128-million, empowering the company to transition to the construction and production phases at Pumpkin Hollow.

Positive results from a November 2017 technical report had outlined two development scenarios comprising a 5 000 t/d underground project and a 70 000 t/d openpit and underground integrated project. The high-grade underground mine has an existing production-size shaft and infrastructure in place, with production targeted for 2019; and the second option revolves around a large-scale openpit project with significant resource upside and optionality to pursue a staged-development plan.

The company has also garnered strong endorsements from mining industry heavy weights, with the recent appointment of Vedanta CEO Tom Albanese and mining analyst Ernest ‘Ernie’ Nutter joined the board to assist the company with corporate, technical, operational and financing strategies in advancement of Pumpkin Hollow.