05:06:49 EDT Thu 28 Mar 2024
Enter Symbol
or Name
USA
CA



IC Potash Corp
Symbol ICP
Shares Issued 172,874,654
Close 2015-05-07 C$ 0.285
Market Cap C$ 49,269,276
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IC Potash appoints Okita as CDO, CTO

2015-05-08 07:54 ET - News Release

Mr. Sidney Himmel reports

IC POTASH ANNOUNCES APPOINTMENT OF INDUSTRY EXPERTS TO ENHANCE DEVELOPMENT OF OCHOA PROJECT

IC Potash Corp.'s wholly owned subsidiary Intercontinental Potash Corp. (USA) has appointed Dr. Patrick Okita as chief development and technical officer. The company also announces that it has retained Graham Wheelock and Kevin Burford to assist with the development of the Ochoa project, subject to all required government, regulatory and other approvals.

Sidney Himmel, president and chief executive officer of ICP, stated: "We are delighted to have Messrs. Okita, Wheelock and Burford join the ICP team. Collectively, these gentlemen bring 89 years of applied leadership in mining, including mine development, operations and optimization. With the addition of Patrick Okita, Graham Wheelock and Kevin Burford, ICP has the expertise to take the Ochoa project into production and to bring potassium sulphate to a worldwide market."

Dr. Patrick Okita, PhD

Dr. Okita has 29 years of experience in the international mineral and energy industries. Dr. Okita's key roles are application of geochemistry and ore forming processes to resource characterization and mineral processing, supply-demand analysis and resource development strategy. He has conducted exploration and evaluation of deposits and prospects across 26 mineral commodity groups including: potash, phosphate, borate, iron, manganese and barite, as well as sediment-hosted lead-zinc and copper, coalbed methane and mineable oil sand. His experience includes working in 23 countries where his responsibilities included large-scale remote field exploration activities, business management, and government liaison.

Potash is a particular focus for Dr. Okita and his experience ranges from basin-wide and regional-scale evaluations, through delineation drilling of mining reserves to feasibility studies. His work related to potash includes evaluation of resource and development criteria for dozens of the producing, prospective and generative projects throughout the world. Dr. Okita's significant accomplishments in the past 10 years have included his participation from inception in the definitional work on BHP Billiton's potash projects in Saskatchewan and Ethiopia; leading exploration and resource definition for ICP's Ochoa project in New Mexico; and exploration, production, and asset sale of coalbed methane properties in West Virginia.

Dr. Okita has held technical and management positions with the U.S. Geological Survey as research scientist, BHP Minerals (now BHP Billiton) as worldwide exploration manager for industrial minerals, and is currently a principal economic geologist with Upstream Resources. Dr. Okita has a PhD in geology from the University of Cincinnati, an MSc in geology from Louisiana State University, and a BSc in geology and biology from the University of Rochester. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the U.S. National Research Council.

Kevin Burford, BAccSc (honours)

Mr. Burford is a chartered accountant (South Africa) with 28 years of experience in the mining industry having worked for De Beers Consolidated Diamond Mines, Anglo American Corp., Xstrata and Gem Diamonds Ltd. in various strategic and operational leadership positions covering capital and debt markets, shareholder relations, finance, treasury, business strategy, risk management, governance, supply chain, IT and internal audit. In the early part of his career he held various financial positions at the De Beers Finsch mine in South Africa and the Namdeb Diamond Corp. mine in Namibia, during which time he was involved in or had financial oversight responsibility for multimillion-dollar capital expansion projects, including the Finsch mine underground development project, construction of Namdeb's Elizabeth Bay and Auchas mines, as well as its offshore mining capability through its deepwater mining contractor, De Beers Marine.

Thereafter he assumed the role of group manager, finance, for the De Beers group, during which time he had financial responsibility across the operational and exploration divisions of the company. This included financial leadership and management of 11 different mines in various countries covering open-pit, alluvial, underground and offshore mining operations. A key part of this role was the oversight of all capital expenditure covering stay in business, replacement and expansion capital for existing mines as well as new projects. During this time a key focus was on production growth, unit cost improvement, profitability, cash delivery and the effective deployment of capital.

Shortly thereafter he helped found Gem Diamonds. In his role as the chief financial officer he had executive responsibility for the company's listing on the London Stock Exchange in 2007, raising approximately $600-million (U.S.) of new capital. During his tenure he served as a member of the board of directors and as either chairman or director of all operational and project development companies forming part of Gem Diamonds. The group deployed the capital raised on the acquisition, development and expansion of various companies and mines in Lesotho, Australia, Botswana and Indonesia. During this time the group raised additional equity capital and debt in order to pursue its growth strategy.

Mr. Burford retired from Gem Diamonds in 2013. Mr. Burford will assist ICP in capital and project finance raising and mine development, areas in which he has extensive experience.

Graham Wheelock, MSc

Mr. Wheelock is a seasoned mining professional and geologist with 32 years of experience in the gold, heavy minerals and diamond industries throughout the world. He spent the formative years of his career as a geologist and mineral resources manager with Anglo American and De Beers working in 25 countries. Later he served for eight years as assistant general manager and acting general manager at De Beers's Namaqualand mine in South Africa, with responsibility for a work force of 2,300 people and a 4.5-million-ton-per-year mining and processing facility. He was subsequently appointed architect and manager of De Beers's global diamond supply model at the De Beers's corporate headquarters.

In 2005, after leaving De Beers, Mr. Wheelock co-founded Gem Diamonds with seed capital of $10-million (U.S.). Gem Diamonds listed on the main board of the London Stock Exchange in 2007 with a market capitalization of $1.2-billion (U.S.). He became its first resident executive director in London. Charged initially with its business development strategy, he led Gem Diamonds' acquisition of the Letseng mine, producer of the biggest and most valuable diamonds in the world, as well as a number of other mines and development projects in Africa, Australia and the Far East. In 2008 Gem Diamonds employed 3,500 people and had revenues of $296million (U.S.). Mr. Wheelock was a member of the team that successfully doubled Letseng's production to 5.5 million tons per annum, increased annual diamond output at the Elledale mine in Australia from 150,000 to 600,000 carats, and constructed the underground Gaghoo mine in Botswana from scratch. In 2013, Mr. Wheelock left Gem Diamonds to pursue interests in other sectors of the mining industry.

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