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Eastinco Mining and Exploration appoints new CEO as it advances Musasa mine site

10:03, 30th October 2020
Francesca Morgan
RNS Newswire
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Eastinco Mining and Exploration (AQSE: EM.P FOLLOW) has today announced the appointment of Simon Rollason as CEO and a trading statement for the quarter ending 30 September 2020. 

Rollason will be appointed as CEO from 2 November 2020 while Charles Bray, currently acting CEO and Executive Chairman will continue his role solely as Executive Chairman. 

Rollason has been involved as a part-time consultant for Eastinco since November 2019, making ‘significant contributions’ with several visits to the Musasa and Huye sites in Rwanda. 

The operational team of Eastincoin Rwanda will now report directly to Rollason following his appointment which will occur once standard due diligence enquiries have been completed. 

With 30 years of international exploration and mining experience, he has worked on a wide range of commodities and geological terranes, to develop and build projects and companies. 

Alongside a BSc degree in geology from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, Rollason has broad corporate exposure ranging from multi-nationals to junior and start-up companies, with a strong operational background in African countries and within the CIS.  

He has operated in open pit and underground mining environments and managed surface and underground exploration on greenfield to brownfield projects and producing assets. 

Commenting on the appointment, Charles Bray, Executive Chairman and acting CEO highlighted to investors that  "Simon is the right leader joining at the right time for EME.” 

He added, “Simon's extensive mining experience in operations and as a senior manager and director for multiple London listed mining companies is invaluable and timely for the start of our operations at the Musasa mine site in Rwanda.” 

In particular, the group believes Rollason’s strong leadership will help its subsidiary, Eastinco Limited make the shift from a development to a fully operational surface mining operation. 

Meanwhile, during the quarter ending 30 September 2020, and since, Eastinco said it has seen progress at and continued to advance its Musasa (Kuaka) mine in Western Rwanda. 

The commissioning of the gravity separation wash plant continues ‘with the installation of the roofing, security fencing and upgrades to the water pumping systems and collection/settling ponds.’ 

Eastinco said the overburden and vegetation cover is being removed from the primary mineralisation, with the processing of this to commence on schedule at the start of November. 

For now, the group said it anticipates that the processing of this ‘primary, pegmatite-hosted mineralisation’ will require additional changes or optimisation to the wash plant processing systems which has different characteristics to the tailings material run to date.  

Eastinco has available cash and cash equivalents of around $0.39m as at 30 September 2020 while operations are anticipated to run at 30-50% of capacity over the month of November 2020 and a similar lower capacity in December due to the holiday period. 

Both COVID lockdowns and travel restrictions means the group is enforcing holiday leave for certain key employees who have been locked down on site and had little to no leave. Eastinco said it anticipates full scale operations to begin after employees return in January 2021. 

More on Eastinco Mining & Exploration  

Eastinco Mining & Exploration is an investment company established in 2012 to pursue the exploration, development, and trading of African industrial mineral assets. Eastinco is listed on the London Aquis exchange, with focus on tin, tungsten and tantalum mining in Africa. 

In its final results for FY2019, Eastinco said 2019 was a year of restructuring in its parent company, EME plc, and investment and development of initial operations in the group’s newly acquired Rwandan registered subsidiary company, Eastinco Limited ("EME Ltd"). 

Eastinco said 2019 was a year of corporate restructuring where it developed a new operational direction. It now has a clear strategy to invest in small-scale producing and near-production assets’, which the group believes can produce near-term revenues.  

To achieve this goal, the Company made the required start-up investment in capital equipment to ready the site for operations in 2020 at the Kuaka Mine site in Rwanda. 

Since the end of FY19, Eastinco has continued with the development of its mechanised wash plant at the Kuaka mine site. The group recently completed the Kuaka site wash plant and are now in the process of commissioning the plant to optimise its productive capability.   

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