Bond named CEO at OceanaGold
OceanaGold [OCG-TSX, OCGT-ASX] has named Gerard Bond as the company’s new President and CEO. He succeeds Scott Sullivan, who will continue in the role of President and CEO until Bond takes up his new position on April 4, 2022.
At that point, Sullivan will revert to his position as chief operating officer and supporter of the leadership transition.
The company said the new CEO brings extensive experience in global finance and the resource industry and has held numerous senior executive roles across Europe and Australia. Most recently, he was the finance director and chief financial officer at Newcrest Mining Ltd. [NCM-TSX] from January 2012 to January 2022, a period of considerable operational, financial and growth transformation.
Prior to joining Newcrest, Bond was with BHP Billiton Ltd. [BHP-NYSE, BHPLF-OTCPK] for over 14 years, where he held various senior executive roles in mergers and acquisitions, treasury, as CFO of the Aluminium business, CFO, and then acting President of the nickel business. At BHP, he was also head of human resources.
Oceanagold is a multinational gold producer with a pipeline of organic growth opportunities and established assets, including the Didipio mine in the Philippines, the Macraes and Waihi operations in New Zealand and Haile gold mine in the United States.
On February 11, 2022, the shares closed at $1.93 and now trade in a 52-week range of $2.84 and $1.74.
The company recently moved to restart its Didipio gold-copper mine after the Philippine Government renewed the Didipio Mine Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) for an additional 25 years.
The Didipio Mine is located on the island of Luzon and is held under a Financial or Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA) with the Philippine government, granting title exploration and mining rights to the company withing a fixed fiscal regime.
At full speed, the operation directly employs over 1,500 workers, of which 97% are Philippine nationals and 59% are from local communities, the company has said.
Didipio has a measured and indicated resource of 1.3 million ounces of gold and 160,000 tonnes of copper.
OceanaGold launched a bid to renew the 25-year permit in 2018. After it expired in June, 2019, the company kept Didipio operating under a temporary license. However, a blockade backed by the local government forced the company so suspend operations a few weeks later.
The mine and associated facilities were subsequently maintained in a state of operational stand-by.
The company said it planned a staged restart of operations utilising stockpiled ore of which the operation has approximately 19 million tonnes available.
OceanaGold has said it aims to achieve full underground production capacity within 12 months. Once it is fully ramped up, the company expects Didipio to produce approximately 10,000 gold ounces and 1,000 tonnes of copper per month at first-quartile all-in-sustaining costs.