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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