A one-time Mineral Resources lieutenant has taken the top job at Core Lithium after signing off on a round of redundancies at the rare earths hopeful he used to lead.
Paul Brown will take the reins of struggling battery metals miner Core Lithium in June as the company mulls its options for the Finniss mine in the NT, which has been at a standstill since January amid low spodumene concentrate prices.
Mr Brown left Hastings Technology Metals — a Perth company trying to start up a rare earths mine and build a processing plant in the Gascoyne — after undertaking a sweeping structure and cost review at the business earlier this month.
Hastings’ executive chair Charles Lew confirmed to The West Australian that 19 roles had gone as part of the restructure finalised earlier this month. It has left about 40 people working for the company based in St Georges Terrace.
The organisational restructure was a prudent business decision that “aimed to preserve cash in the current market conditions while finalising funding for future growth”, he said.
The company had “taken a range of measures to proactively respond to market conditions and is now suitably positioned to progress final project funding and strategic partnerships”.
The rare earths hopeful was among the companies caught up in a string of mining construction cost blowouts over the past three years. Costs to develop its flagship Yangibana project have steadily crept up to the $1b mark.
In mid-2023 Hastings split the build into two stages to try and reduce upfront spending and tap early cashflow from concentrate production that will be used to complete the project. It had about $24.9m in the bank at the end of March.
![Paul Brown, Mineral Resources.](https://timesofsydney.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/43b7f75ce0036663af722e0d7e2f1d5166ab3c48-161x229-x62y0w562h800.jpg)
Yangibana has already been backed by the Federal Government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility for $220m. Mining billionaire Andrew Forrest provided about $150m in debt funding to the company in 2022.
Mr Brown said he would focus on an operational review of its flagship Finniss and opportunities for an exploration program.
“I look forward to working with the Core senior team to transform the way we work as we look to continually improve and develop a sustainable lithium project,” he said.
Mr Brown started with MinRes in 2015 running the company’s Iron Valley operation in the Pilbara and oversaw the recommencement of operations in the Yilgarn with the Koolyanobbing iron ore mine. He eventually led its lithium division and left in 2022. He led Hastings for about nine months.
Hastings shares closed the day down 3.45 per cent at 28¢.
Core Lithium closed more than 6 per cent lower to 16¢.