West Perth-based explorer Zuleika Gold has appointed Jonathan Lea as Managing Director, aiming to use his combination of geology and corporate experience over more than 35 years to drive the junior explorer’s pursuit of opportunities.
Lea’s career spans gold, iron ore, chromite and base metals in open-cut and underground operations in Australia and overseas.
Lea was former chief geological officer at Blackham Resources and has previously worked at managing director level, most recently at Ozz Resources.
Executive Chair Annie Guo said: “With a highly technically focused Board, we look forward to continued exploration success and the accompanying growth of the company’s gold tenement portfolio.”
As part of a Board reshuffle, Guo has moved from MD into the Executive Chair role, whilst Michael Higginson has resigned as a non-executive director, however he retains a seat at the Board table as Company Secretary.
Zuleika has six gold projects in WA – one in development and five at the exploration stage – with the spotlight squarely aimed on the gold-rich Kalgoorlie area.
The company's Kalgoorlie portfolio comprises its flagship Zuleika Gold Project, a total of 230 square kilometres of tenements on the Zuleika Shear that has produced more than 20 million ounces of gold over the past three decades.
Its other major focus of attention is the Credo project, to the east of the Zuleika Shear.
Zuleika has been busy peppering the ground with drill holes with a total of 40,000m of RC and air-core drilling scheduled for the year.
The junior has caught the attention of mining identity Mark Creasy, resulting in a private placement of 100,000 shares at the start of the year.
Creasy tipped in $3 million for the stock, paying a 50 per cent premium to the then 2 cents a share price.
As a result, Zuleika’s stock more than doubled in price during intraday trading, though it has since settled back to 2.2 cents.
The market will no doubt be watching closely to see if the combination of new MD, technically focused board and the backing of uber successful prospector-investor Creasy will propel Zuleika Gold’s impressive exploration activities to a new level.
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By Matt Birney
