Challenger Exploration boosts board’s Argentine capability for Hualilan gold project

A former Australian ambassador to Argentina is among the three key appointments made by Challenger Exploration (ASX: CEL) as it beefs up its capability backing the growing Hualilan gold project in San Juan province, Argentina.

Brett Hackett, who finished his term at the Buenos Aires embassy in January, will join the board as a non-executive director.

Joining the management ranks will be Sonia Delgado, former secretary of mining in San Juan province. She will take over as Argentina Country Manager.

The third new person, Mike Zivcic, a mining engineer, will take over a Chief Operating Officer.

The appointments come on the back of a 2.8 million ounce gold-equivalent mineral resource (the deposit also containing silver, zinc and lead) with further exploration taking place — and a soaring gold price.

Key knowledge of project details

Hualilan is located 120km northwest of San Juan city in north-western Argentina.

The company describes the project’s logistics as “excellent” with sealed roads just 500m from the project.

Mr Hackett comes on the board with 33 years’ experience as an Australian diplomat, and for past 13 years his main focus has been expanding Australia’s economic and political relationship with Latin American countries. During his stint in Argentina, he promoted Australian involvement with the country’s mining sector.

Dr Delgado, a lawyer, in addition to her role in San Juan’s mining sector, has previously been under-secretary of Planning and Promotion of Mining Development and Chief of Advisors to Argentina’s National Mining Ministry.

For the past six months she has been consulting to Challenger Exploration through her private law firm.

Taking charge of scoping and feasibility studies

Mr Zivcic lives in San Juan. He is an Australian citizen and over the past 12 years has been working in operational and technical role with mines in Australia, West Africa, Papua New Guinea and Argentina, including with Harmony Gold.

He was take the lead role in Challenger’s upcoming Hualilan scoping study, and then oversee the subsequent pre-feasibility and bankable feasibility studies.

He will also be responsible for Hualilan’s event construction and operations.

Meanwhile Mike Funston will leave the board but will remain as Chief Financial Officer and company secretary.

Historical drilling goes back more than 40 years

Challenger notes that Hualilan has had extensive historical drilling with more than 150 holes dating back to the 1970s.

The property was last explored by Toronto-listed La Mancha Resources, in 2004.

That work produced a resource estimate of about 627,000oz of gold at 13.7 grams per tonne.