From the corporate news release issued on January 5:
Alderon is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Danny Williams, QC, former Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, as Special Advisor to the Chairman of Alderon. Mr. Williams served as Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador from October 2003 until November 2010, retiring from the position at a time when his government had an approval rating of over 80%.
Alderon is developing its 100% owned Kami Iron Ore Project located within the Labrador Trough, next to the mining towns of Wabush, Labrador City and Fermont. The Kami Project currently hosts an NI 43-101 indicated mineral resource of 490 million tonnes at 30.0% iron and an additional inferred mineral resource of 598 million tonnes at 30.3% iron contained within three zones: North Rose, Rose Central and Mills Lake. Up to an additional 18,000 m of infill drilling will be carried out during the 2012 Winter Drill Program with a view to upgrading a substantial portion of the currently defined inferred resource to the indicated resource category in preparation for the completion of a Feasibility Study in Q3 2012.
Based on the recently completed Rose Central Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA"), Alderon plans to commence commercial production in 2015 at a rate of 8 million tonnes per year ("Mtpa") at a concentrate grade of 65.5% iron. Alderon has initiated the Federal and Provincial Environmental Assessment Process and the registration documents include a provision to increase planned production from 8 Mtpa to 16 Mtpa as part of a second phase capital expansion.
Alderon expects the development of the Kami Project to provide significant economic benefits to Newfoundland and Labrador including the creation of over 1,500 full time jobs over a period of 20 years including 268 jobs directly at the mine and concentrator, 1,254 jobs indirectly for local service and support groups and 768 temporary jobs during construction. These job creation forecasts are based on the 8 Mtpa production scenario only.
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It's only after all sorts of information that isn't about Danny Williams and his new appointment that you get a comment from Williams about his appointment.
From the way this news release is written, the most important thing to know about Danny is that he was Premier and left the job when he had a really high approval rating.
Interesting.
So anyway, Williams will see some familiar faces at Alderon.
Brian Dalton is on Alderon board of directors. Regular SRBP readers will remember him. Dalton is president and chief executive of Altius. They made a proposal on financing the Lower Churchill. And when a refinery project Dalton was backing had some financial difficulties no less a person than Danny Hisself dragged Kathy Dunderdale to the Middle East in an unsuccessful effort to scare up some investors.
Danny likely also knows John Baker, who is also a director of Altius among other things.
If Danny drops by the offices, he will likely smile when he sees Gary Norris, Alderon’s executive vice president of government and community affairs. You see, Gary used to work for Danny as Clerk of the Executive Council.
Gary retired the same time Danny did.
Try playing six degrees of separation in Newfoundland and Labrador.
You’d be lucky to get two steps.
- srbp -