Otso Gold Corp (CVE:OTSO) (OTCMKTS:FIEIF) said Monday that it has appointed Christopher Towsey as a non-executive independent director to the company’s board and also expects to deploy a mine manager, training safety officer and geologist to the site in Raahe in Finland in the next fortnight.
In a statement, Otso, formerly Nordic Gold, said Towsey brings “significant” geological expertise to the board and will further the board’s commitment to “independence and transparency.”
Towsey is currently managing director of a private geological consulting company. He was an independent director of Black Dragon Gold and until April 2016, a director of Citigold Corporation Limited Australia. He was also a director of Great Mines Ltd and the Queensland Resources Council, the top mining industry representative body in Queensland.
READ: Otso Gold Corp looks forward to realizing value of Finnish gold mine
He has 40 years of experience as a mining and exploration geologist with particular expertise in the mining of narrow-vein gold deposits, ore reserve estimation, geochemistry and in copper and lead-zinc-silver mines.
Towsey has Honours and Masters degrees in economic geology from the University of Sydney.
Brisk new hiring
In a corporate update, the company said it expects to deploy a mine manager, training safety officer and geologist/operational technical services manager (geology, survey and grade reconciliation) to the Otso Gold mine site in the next fortnight.
The mine manager, Peter Gilligan, will be deployed to site and will supervise the drill program and the path back to production. Gilligan has extensive experience in the management of open-pit operations with specific expertise on ore bodies of the type at the Otso mine.
Peter Gilligan has over 30 years of operational and managerial experience in open pit and underground mining in both metalliferous and coal mines, including over 20 years of planning experience in open pit and underground mines. He has a BSc Hons degree in mining engineering and an MBA and is an associate of the Royal School of Mines and a member of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.
Financing endeavors
Separately, the company said its financing endeavors are “well advanced” with preliminary term sheets received and multiple parties completing due diligence.
Otso earlier said it needs C$17.5 million between now and the start of production in July 2020. The company said Monday that it is considering an overall funding solution that “provides the sufficient capital to return to production later this year while reducing dilution as far as practicable.”
CEO Brian Wesson welcomed Towsey and the new technical staff.
“The experience and expertise of the new appointments are focused on ensuring the requisite skill set is in place both at the board level and on site, to return the mine to production, while ensuring world's best practice in mining is applied,” said Wesson.
“The company continues to progress, and we look forward to finalizing a funding solution to complete the drill program to move the mine back to production," he added.
The company owns the Otso Gold Mine near the town of Raahe in Finland. The mine is fully built, permitted, and has all the infrastructure in place, two open pits and is progressing towards a July 2020 restart.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
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