 JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The task of exploring for new mineral deposits is increasingly falling in the hands of junior exploration companies, underscoring their need to attract and maintain a team of passionate, gifted and experienced geologists.
But, with cash-strapped juniors hard pressed to delineate and file compliant resource reports in order to gain investor confidence, the demand for skilled and experienced geologists outstrips the supply, often making it challenging for small companies to file trustworthy exploration results.
It is exactly this area that differentiates a junior explorer from the rest.
“The ability to draw and hire top-tier geology talent can make the difference between a company that soars from one that flops,” gold explorer Westridge Resources president Peter Schulhof said.
The company, exploring the Charay gold/silver deposit in Mexico, has brought on board experienced economic geologist John Dreier as its chief geologist. He has four decades of international experience, including the discovery of the Piedras Verdes copper project, in Mexico, and exploration and discovery of the Little Bald Mountain and Green Springs openpit gold deposits, in Nevada, as well as the Mogollon epithermal gold/silver vein deposit, in New Mexico.
Dreier told Mining Weekly Online that, in recent times, large mining houses have increasingly focused on brownfield exploration to develop existing assets, leaving the risky task of finding new minerals deposits to small juniors.
“Lots of consolidation happened in the past. Miners tend to rather engage in brownfield expansions such as what Newmont and Freeport are busy doing. Large companies are not exploring, they tend to think the reward versus the risk is not worth the effort.
“Junior explorers really are in a niche market, and large companies such as BHP Billiton does not even have a VP exploration, helping to make the significant risk for juniors really worth it when a deal is closed,” he said.
According to Dreier, a successful mineral exploration team requires highly energetic and dynamic individuals with dogged determination, creative energy and a combination of skills, including technical knowledge, experience and networking.
The North Americas’ only vanadium mine developer, American Vanadium, agrees and recently brought on board Ron Espell as VP environmental. He left the world’s largest gold miner, Barrick Gold, to lead the explorer in developing the Gibellini mine, in Nevada, from the project phase to a producing asset.
“Given Espell’s tremendous depth of experience, we are excited to have him lead the permitting of our Gibellini mine. Together with the company’s executive VP environmental Mike Doyle, we are building a top-class operating team. As our mine and corporate strategy is built on green energy, sustainability and environmental leadership, it is critical that we continue to attract the key people to achieve our goals,” American Vanadium CEO Bill Radvak said.
“One has to be smart about developing the most effective mining campaigns that would create investor value with the minimum environmental impact. It is about being smart about reducing mining impacts,” Espell said.
For him, the appeal of an exploration junior is the intimate operating environment, with a small, core team of specialists.
“It is about building up a company from the exploration-project phase and seeing it through to becoming a producing asset, he added.
With more than 30 years exploration experience, Espell told Mining Weekly Online that there is a significant lure for seasoned geologists to work with junior explorers, as it offered ‘hands-on’ opportunities in all the various fields that make up geology.
“At larger companies, one often is ‘pigeon holed’ into performing only one duty, while at a smaller company, one has the opportunity to really get involved on a much more intimate level and contribute to moving the company forward,” he said.
Espell feels he could make a personal contribution and do meaningful work at American Vanadium. He is responsible for obtaining all necessary permits in the proposed timeframe for the company to be successful.
“All the elements of a geologist’s profession comes together at a small exploration company, with the ultimate result being to create sustainable value for investors.”
Another Canadian company, Newstrike Capital CEO Richard Whittall, who is mining for gold and silver in Mexico’s Guerrero gold belt, snared Gillian Kearvell as its VP exploration.
Kearvell is a geologist with 25 year's exploration experience working with both junior and senior companies throughout North America, including 16 years in Mexico. She co-discovered the San Nicolas volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits in Zacatecas and led an exploration team responsible for the El Limon gold discovery.
She affirmed to Mining Weekly Online that the critical differentiating factor to a junior explorer is the ability to draw together the collective experience of a team of geologists to increase the company’s chances of achieving success and attracting investor confidence.
She pointed out that it is the team members’ specific specialisations in the geologic formations being explored that hold the key to successful exploration. Kearvell reiterated that discovery credits for any successful project include a long list of talented and dedicated people.
“It takes a team to find a mine – a team that functions effectively at all levels, with the perseverance to see a project through to the end,” she said. | |