Craig Thomas Email & Phone Number

Brisbane City, Qld, Au

London, Gb

Endeavour's Mana Gold Operation in Burkina Faso consists of a 2.7Mtpa CIL processing plant treating ore from two underground mines and one open pit operation. Site headcount was approximately 1500 people.While maintaining strongly supportive community relationships in an area that was deeply challenged by conflict, terrorism, internal displacement and illegal mining, in 12 months I :• Achieved zero LTI's and reduced Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate (TRIFR) by 50% year-on-year.• Delivered inaugural site audit compliance with Responsible Gold Mining Principles (RGMPs).• Re-designed and then commissioned a new underground mine, reducing go-forward capital development cost by more than US$30M, reducing ore haulage costs by 12%, and accelerating stope ore production.• Determined the hidden cause of major uncontrolled overbreak, dilution and ore loss in secondary stopes in the older underground mine and implemented a mine design solution to regain control.• Developed & implemented robust client-side contract management practices for use with the incumbent underground contractor, and mobilised a second contractor while ensuring similarly robust contract management processes were in place from the outset.

Brisbane, Qld, Au

Aurelia's Peak mining operation near the town of Cobar consists of an 800ktpa processing plant with gravity, intensive leach, flotation, and CIL processing steps producing gold bullion and copper, zinc, and lead concentrates for export. The plant was supplied with ore from two underground mines. Site headcount was approximately 500 people.• Reduced total recordable injury frequency rate (TRIFR) by 50% over two years.• Commissioned commercial production from the new Kairos mining zone and obtained government permitting approval for State Significant Development of the Great Cobar copper project.• Corrected weak client-side contractor management practices with the incumbent underground mining contractor, delivering multi-million-dollar annual savings, and then later motivated and implemented a transition to owner-operations to deliver further savings plus improvements in development and stoping volumes and mine plan compliance.• Improved the mine-to-mill scheduling approach to reduce the frequency of ore-type campaign changes from 2-3 times per week to once per six weeks, within the first six months, improving throughput, unit costs and recoveries.• Designed and implemented a Management Operating System to significantly improve operational execution and compliance with quarterly mining and processing plans.• Implemented a processing roster change to match limited ore supply volumes, reducing processing operator labour costs by 25%

Moved back to Australia at the beginning of 2019. Established myself as a freelance mining consultant while searching for the ideal next permanent role.• Due Diligence assessments for private and ASX-listed companies involving projects in PNG and Africa.• Project Management for two Feasibility Studies for a major Australian mining consulting house.• Six month FIFO assignment at an operating underground copper mine in Africa assisting an Australian private equity owner to turn around poor operating performance plus assisting with project development planning at the asset.

The trip of a lifetime - a family of five driving our Toyota Landcruiser and camping our way from Cape Town to Cairo.

London, Gb

I assumed the CEO position with the Company in a distressed state. Copper prices had fallen by more than 40% from the levels prevailing when Tschudi was funded and trading in the shares had been suspended due to financial uncertainty. I placed the underground mines on care & maintenance in the second half of 2015. In 2016 it became evident that groundwater inflows at Tschudi were to exceed BFS estimates by more than a factor of ten, causing production delays and additional dewatering costs. In 2017 it became evident that bacterial heap leaching of deeper sulphide minerals was not performing as predicted by the BFS.With the Company unable to meet its debt servicing obligations from the outset of my term as CEO, I focused on engaging with the project lender and on ensuring Tschudi continued to perform operationally at above industry benchmark standards while also advancing a strategy to add value by capitalising on our strengths as proven competent builders and operators of African metals projects. After assessing several regional project opportunities, I succeeded in obtaining funding and executing agreements for two project acquisitions - one in Namibia and one in Zambia.After reporting positive progress for the acquisitions, by early 2018 we had managed to increase the share price more than ten-fold despite the ongoing water inflow challenges and the stressed debt position.

London, Gb

After closing its Namibian mines in 2008 due to low copper prices, Weatherly committed in July 2010 to restart two of its underground copper mines near Windhoek and to commence feasibility studies into developing the new Tschudi open pit heap leach SXEW copper project near Tsumeb.I was recruited in August 2010 as Chief Operating Officer for Weatherly, and Managing Director of its Namibian subsidiary companies, residing in Namibia. I was initially tasked with returning the two underground mines to production. First concentrate was produced in February 2011 with production levels ramped up to 6ktpa of copper in concentrate thereafter.In late 2014 I was tasked with commissioning the newly-constructed Tschudi open pit heap leach SXEW copper mine. First copper was produced in February 2015 on schedule, and nameplate production of 17ktpa of copper cathode was achieved by the end of 2015, also on schedule.During the Tschudi ramp-up period I was promoted to Chief Executive Officer of the London-listed parent company in July 2015.

The Ballarat Gold Mine operations consisted of an underground mine beneath the city of Ballarat, designed to provide 600ktpa of high grade ore to a gravity / intensive leach processing plant.Engaged as GM to drive the commissioning and ramp-up to commercial production at Ballarat, leading a team of 580 employees and contractors. Increased manning levels, transitioned original mining & processing contractor employees to owner-miner teams and tendered, awarded and mobilised additional mining contractor. Completed major capital projects including decline development, sinking of 300m vent shaft, tailings dam and other surface infrastructure. Total expenditure of more than A$200m in 18 months. As volumes increased it became clear that the coarse gold resource was grossly insufficient to meet the designed objectives for the project, leading to a decision by the parent company to sell the asset. Managed all on-site aspects of the asset sale process, and ultimately terminated all contractors and employees.

Iamgold Corporation - Mining Manager - Mupane Gold Mine - Botswana - Open Pit GoldPlacer Dome - Mining Manager - Kanowna Belle Gold Mine - Australia - Underground GoldPlacer Dome - Project Manager - Porgera Joint Venture - Papua New Guinea - OP + UG GoldWestern Metals - Mining Manager - Pillara Mine - Australia - UG Base MetalsPlacer Dome - Senior UG Engineer - Porgera Joint Venture - Papua New Guinea - UG GoldMIM - Planning Engineer - Mt Isa Mines - Australia - UG Base Metals