Former Newmont CEO named Pretium Chair
Pretium Resources Inc. [PVG-TSX, NYSE] on Thursday November 14 said former Newmont Mining Corp. President and CEO Richard O’Brien will take over as the company’s board chair following the retirement of Robert Quartermain at the end of this year.
“It has been a great personal privilege to have been involved with Pretium from exploration through to its development as a profitable mid-tier gold producer,” said Quartermain in a press release. “As incoming Chair, Richard brings a depth of understanding of the gold business that will be instrumental in helping the board steward Pretium to its next level of success for shareholders,” he said.
Pretium shares advanced on the news, rising 2.4% or 29 cents to $12.34. The shares are currently trading in a 52-week range of $8.85 and $18.29.
Pretium’s flagship asset is the Brucejack gold mine. Brucejack is a high-grade gold underground mine located in northwestern British Columbia, approximately 65 km north of Stewart. The mine produced 376,012 ounces of gold at an all-in-sustaining cost of US$764 an ounce in 2018. The operation is expected to produce between 390,000 and 420,000 ounces this year at an all-in-sustaining cost of US$775-US$875 an ounce.
In December, 2018, the company received permits from the government of British Columbia, allowing it to increase the production through-put rate by 40% from 2,700 tonnes per day to 3,800 tonnes per day.
A year-round all-weather road connects the mine to Highway 37. Production commenced in the summer of 2017.
News that O’Brien is taking on the Executive Chairman role comes about six months after Pretium announced that it was looking for a successor to Quartermain. Before being named Executive Chair, Quartermain served as Chairman and CEO from October 2010 to December 2016, and as President from October 2010 until May 2015.
“Brucejack has evolved as envisaged when Pretium was launched in 2010, and as a major shareholder, I have full confidence in Pretium’s President and CEO, Joe Ovsenek, and the operating team that he has put together at the company, to continue to deliver full value for all Pretium shareholders from this premier gold asset,” Quartermain said at the time.
Pretium was recently in the news when the company said it had agreed to repurchase a 100% of its Brucejack mine gold offtake contract from Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd. [OR-TSX, NYSE] for roughly $80 million.
The offtake agreement, dated September 15, 2015, was entered into by Pretium as part of the construction financing package for the Brucejack Mine. It applied to sale of the first 7,067,000 ounces of refined gold, which were sold to the offtake purchasers, in each case, at a price based on a market referenced gold price in U.S. dollars per ounce during a defined pricing period before and after the date of each sale.