JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Aim-listed gold miner Armadale has appointed Dr Andrew Tunks as a nonexecutive director, effective immediately.
The Africa-focused company said Tunks was well placed to support its active development strategy, with proven experience in identifying and developing gold projects.
Armadale was advancing its $20-million Mpokoto gold project, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, towards production.
The highly prospective project, with an estimated nine-year mine life, would be a low capital expenditure, low operating expenditure project with a mineral resource of 678 100 oz gold. Production was expected to start in 2016.
“The resource appears to be amenable to gravity separation as the ore is metallurgically simple, with operating costs estimated at $647/oz,” the company said on its website.
Tunks, a qualified geologist with over 25 years experience in exploration and mining, had core expertise in structural and economic geology relating to gold deposits.
As CEO and director of diversified miner A-Cap Resources, from 2006 to 2012, he identified and developed what is now the tenth-largest uranium resource globally, located in Botswana.
Prior to this, as Iamgold’s global chief geologist, Tunks was responsible for many of the group’s global exploration programmes and worked on a number of gold projects in Southern, East and West Africa, as well as South America.
“Tunks has built a prestigious career in identifying and developing gold projects around the world and I am delighted to welcome him to the company.
“His notable experience across the African continent, not to mention his widely supported capital markets network, will prove invaluable as we progress Mpokoto,” Armadale chairperson Peter Marks said.