PanTerra Gold Builds Up Management Team As It Expands Its Latin American Operations

PanTerra Gold (ASX: PGI) has strengthened its management team with the Las Lagunas gold and silver project in the Dominican Republic starting production and the feasibility study for the Azuay mining project in Ecuador gaining momentum.

Danny Brennan will join the company this month to manage the operation of the Las Lagunas Albion/CIL process plant.

He has a broad range of experience in plant operation and supervision, metallurgy, and plant commissioning and was previously the pre-commissioning manager for Fluor on the Anglo American Quellaveco Project in Peru.

Brenna has also worked for Aker Solutions on commissioning projects in Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia responsible for commissioning planning and execution, coordinating work schedules and activities between construction contractors and commissioning groups, developing control system interlock matrix for DCS configuration and reviewing DCS control philosophies.

Prior to this he had roles as Senior Metallurgist in Zambia, Uganda and Australia for First Quantum Minerals, Kasase Cobalt Company Ltd, Pasminco Mining Limited, and Normandy Mining Limited.

Gordon Leslie has been appointed the construction manager for future projects in Latin America with added responsibility for establishing and supervising programs for mechanical and electrical maintenance on operating plants such as Las Lagunas.

He has 34 years experience in process plant construction and maintenance in Canada and Latin America and was for the past seven years the construction manager for Pan American Silver Corp, responsible for the construction of process plants in Mexico, Argentina, and Peru, and the establishment of associated Maintenance Departments.

Prior to that, he was responsible for construction and maintenance of plants in Costa Rica, Panama, and Nicaragua for Glencairn Gold and Greenstone Resources.

Both Brennan and Leslie are fluent in Spanish.

PanTerra has also appointed Natalie Ledington as chief financial officer for its subsidiary undertaking the Las Lagunas project.

She will be responsible for all accounting and administration activities of the subsidiary together with banking relations, bullion sales and servicing the various stakeholders in the project including Macquarie Bank and the Dominican Government.

Ledington has extensive experience in financial and business management. Her roles have incorporated project management, business process evaluation, risk analysis and assessment, system training, and financial control.

For the past five years Ledington has been working in a consulting capacity with major groups in Australia, including Origin Energy and South Australia Health.

The company had in May appointed Andrew Pooler as its Vancouver-based chief executive officer.

With a background in mining engineering and more than 25 years of experience at senior executive level with international mining companies, Pooler will lead the Las Lagunas and will also undertake the expansion of PanTerra's management and development of new projects in South America.

PanTerra will continue to maintain its administration headquarters in Sydney together with a small technical support group while its Vancouver office will be progressively expanded to include management of exploration, engineering, construction, and procurement, as well as operations.

Las Lagunas and Azuay

The company had achieved major first pour milestone at Las Lagunas last month and is now moving to progressively increase gold and silver recoveries to the levels demonstrated in early pilot plant testwork.

The Las Lagunas project is expected to produce about 69,000 ounces of gold and 630,000 ounces of silver annually, with the pilot plant testwork demonstrating expected recovery of 435,360 ounces of gold and nearly 4 million ounces of silver over a six and a half year mine life.

PanTerra also expects a development decision for the Azuay Project in mid-2013, based on the expansion of seven existing small-scale underground mines producing about 300,000 tonnes of ore for a targeted 100,000 ounces of contained gold per annum.

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