Ausgold enters new era
Ausgold has made a number of changes to its leadership team as it takes steps to bring its Katanning gold project in Western Australia online.
In October, Ausgold announced it had been given the green light for two additional mining leases at Katanning.
As Ausgold moves Katanning closer to production, the company has appointed Paul Wheedon to its board as a non-executive director, and welcomed Mark Mitchell as chief operating officer (COO).
Wheedon is a geologist with more than 30 years of international mining industry experience in exploration and mine development and operations in Africa, Latin America and Australasia.
He is the current exploration senior vice president at Fortuna Mining and has previously held executive roles at Roxgold, Newmont and AngloGold Ashanti.
Mitchell is a chemical engineer with extensive mining industry project development and operations experience across a wide range of mineral commodities and jurisdictions.
Moving across to Ausgold from his current role as COO at Merdeka Battery Materials, Mitchell brings extensive gold experience, notably as general manager at Newmont’s Telfer and Hidden Valley mines.
“I am delighted to welcome Paul Weedon to Ausgold’s board – I worked with Paul at Roxgold, and he is a highly experienced and accomplished mining industry professional who will add great value to our business,” Ausgold executive chair John Dorward said.
“With his strong technical geological background, his appointment is also timely, as we have in the past fortnight commenced a 19,000m drilling program across our large tenement package in and around the three-million-ounce Katanning gold project.
“We are also delighted to welcome Mark Mitchell to Ausgold’s senior executive team – a further strong step towards the buildout of the company’s project development capability.
“I worked with Mark at gold miners MPI Mines and Leviathan Resources, and he will add tremendous depth and breadth to our project development and operational capability as we progress the Katanning gold project through the feasibility study and into development and operations.”
Ausgold’s current managing director and chief executive officer Matthew Greentree has stepped down from the role to pursue other opportunities.
“We thank Matt for his contribution to the company over a number of years and wish him all the best,” Dorward said.