Scottish gold miner Scotgold on Monday announced the appointment of a new chairperson, with Peter Hetherington succeeding Nat Le Roux as nonexecutive chairperson with immediate effect.

"Seven years ago, I recapitalised Scotgold and joined the board as chair. My aim from the beginning was to see Scotland's first commercial gold mine in production. That objective has now been achieved, thanks to the dedication and hard work of our executive team. Therefore, I believe this is the right moment for me to stand down as chair,” commented Le Roux.

“Peter Hetherington and I have worked together for many years, and as Scotgold's major shareholder, I am wholly confident that he will prove an effective successor."

Hetherington, a nonexecutive director of the company, is an experienced director, having held the positions of COO and CEO of FTSE 250 trading platform IG Group, and the role of CEO at Schroders Personal Wealth.

Scotgold also provided an update on its Cononish gold mine, which continued to be in ramp-up stage following its first gold pour and production in November last year.

With a new leadership team appointed in April 2021, the second and third quarter of the year has been focussed on de-bottlenecking and the continuous improvement in the availability of the process plant through maintenance practises and planning; including holding the additional spares and applying more optimal prediction of materials handling wear rates. 

During October, the first ball mill reline was planned and completed. About 64 t of concentrate were produced during the month. The concentrate grade is similar to September production, equating to about 6 000 oz of contained gold and more than 2 450 oz of contained silver total production for the month.

With the mill reline completed, Scotgold is well positioned to continue ramping up its gold production output towards design throughput for Phase 1, being 973 oz a month until the end of 2021. The company stated that production for the remainder of the calendar year would be in its guidance range of between 1 300 oz and 1 950 oz of gold production for November and December combined.

Hetherington commented in a statement that it was Scotgold’s intention to be a multi-asset gold producer and that the company would prospect and develop further mines in its licensed area.