AMN - DRC: Leadership changes at Alphamin

The board of Alphamin Resources has announced a change of leadership at the company which is precipitated by completing the build phase at the Bisie Tin Project in the DRC and migrating to that of a steady state mining operation.

The change sees Boris Kamstra step down as CEO with immediate effect. Kamstra has led the Alphamin team through its development and mine build phase. The company stated that he had done an extraordinary job in extraordinary conditions.

Some of the team accomplishments under Kamstra's leadership include:

• Negotiating and implementing agreements with all local stakeholders resulting in a constructive working relationship and 'licence to operate' with the local communities and Democratic Republic of the Congo representatives, both local and national.

• Ensuring that artisanal miners vacated the mining site by mutual agreement.

• Building road access to the mining site through nearly 40km of deep jungle.

• Raising the funds needed to develop the Bisie mine.

• Building and constructing the mine, processing plant and related infrastructure on site.

• Building a team that is progressing mine commissioning.

The board reports that Kamstra will continue to serve as an executive director of Alphamin with responsibilities that include investor relations, tin marketing and special value-add projects.

Maritz Smith has been appointed chief executive officer of Alphamin. He has 18 years of experience with all aspects of directing mining operations and is well suited to guide Alphamin through its next phase of operations and corporate objectives.

Smith holds a B-Com Hons degree and is a Chartered Account. Following the completion of his degree, he joined the mining industry 18 years ago as a financial controller in Metorex (Pty) Limited which later listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Metorex was a mid-tier multi commodity mining group that owned and managed mining operations in South Africa, Zambia and the DRC.

His involvement included participating actively with the technical executives, both at head office and on-mine, with primary focus on the financial aspects of the operations.

He was a member of the EXCO team of Metorex and prior to his resignation to join Pangea he held the office of CFO/financial director which included him in decision making on capital projects, the mining company operations and corporate management and listed company reports and presentations.

On leaving Metorex he was offered the position of chief operating officer of Pangea (Pty) Limited where he was able to apply his technical and financial experience gained in Metorex to a more general management role in evaluation and proposing to investors projects of potential interest. Alphamin was one of these projects that has evolved from this evaluation, financing and development stages to the current operational mining company producing a quality tin product to the international market.

Smith progressed to the position of chief executive of Pangea prior to accepting the position of chief executive of Alphamin to take the company forward from the construction and development phase to an income-producing profitable mining company

Alphamin's chairman Mr Needham said: "This planned change in leadership personnel at Alphamin takes place as the mine completes its commissioning and starts to take its place as a significant and responsible producer of tin to the world.

"We are indeed fortunate in having such outstanding personnel as Boris and Maritz ready to lead Alphamin at each stage in the development of this mine."

The plant commissioning at Bisie is progressing along a positive trend line and production metrics have improved over the last three months.

The Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has now contributed its pro-rata share of the previous equity raises, being US$4.6million.

www.alphaminresources.com