a pint with guilio...

Hopefully, it's acceptable to post this. Available to anyone by free trial subscription so hope it's ok?
2 Part interview with Guilio on Mining News Premium site. 2nd part published just yesterday.

Enjoy.


SUNDANCE Resources chief executive officer Giulio Casello has more than 30 years experience in the resources industry. In a two-part chat with MiningNewsPremium.net, Casello talks about his career and the challenges Sundance faced after last year?s tragedy.
Sharon Sebastian: What sparked your interest in the mining industry?

Giulio Casello: Well I?ve been in the mining industry all my life and at my age it?s getting to be a fair old time now. I studied engineering and I was employed in 1980 when I finished my studies. I was employed by Western Mining to work on building a plant in Western Australia.

And also I suppose being born and bred in Western Australia and if you do engineering, there is an automatic link between the two and the resources industry. Western Mining was one of the bigger companies at that time and it was a great opportunity.

SS: Can you talk me through your career to date?

GC: It?s a long road between Western Mining and Sundance Resources. I worked with Western Mining for the first five years in Kalgoorlie; then I joined Alcoa in 1986 as an engineer and it was viewed as the employer of choice for many people in the industry. I think a year and a half was as long as I was in the engineering field before moving into maintenance and production. I guess I had a natural inclination toward running plants.

I worked in Pinjarra and I was also the plant manager at Kwinana, which was a fantastic job. It was one of the older refineries but there were a great bunch of people and challenges. Then with Alcoa, I moved to the United States, where I ran the chemicals operations in North America and Europe, which was a fantastic experience. I then came back to run WA operations, which were the three alumina refineries and the two bauxite mines. At that stage, we were producing about 15 percent of the world?s alumina out of old sleepy WA, which was a bit of a blast.

I suppose you can only keep doing operations for so long in your life, as it?s a pretty daunting 24 hour game, so I looked for different experiences. I moved back to the US in 2005 with Century Aluminium. The reason I joined them was because they were a US company trying to get out of the US. So I spent four years looking for bauxite reserves [and] cheap energy wherever you could build an alumina refinery or aluminium smelter.

I lived in the US for four years but probably only spent a year there because we travelled that much. We visited Trinidad because of gas, to Iceland where there is the hydro power and the geothermal energy, the Republic of Congo where there was captive gas and to Jamaica where we had a bauxite operation.

We also went to China, where we ended up buying an anode plant, which was a bit unusual actually – buying something in China as opposed to the Chinese buying something from us. In the smelter business, you need these big black blocks of carbon which get made and that?s what the electricity passes though to make aluminium. We were making anodes in China, shipping them to put into a smelter in Iceland. We were a pretty active business development group at that stage.

Unfortunately the global financial crisis came along. Century had all the right ideas to getting out of the US to cheaper operational spots and Iceland was great, but we still had a lot of operations in the US. I spent my last three months at [the company] actually shutting down plants. I was involved with shutting down Ravenswood and Hawesville, the refinery in Louisiana, the bauxite mine in Jamaica just to keep the company afloat. It was a pretty awful time. The metal price went from about $US3300 per tonne to $1300/t.

By this time I thought it was probably time to head back home and I got a job with Sinosteel Midwest, where I was the chief operating officer. I did that for a while before I got tapped on the shoulder by George Jones to come and run the show at Sundance. Sundance was a good fit; I had been to the Congo, we had a good relationship with the Chinese and I knew Western Australia quite well. I joined the company in November last year.

SS: Following the tragic loss of the Sundance board last year, what were the major hurdles the company faced to get back on track and how did the company deal with these hurdles?

GC: There is no doubt you have to put a lot of credit to George Jones. He was the former chairman of Sundance who had retired. On June 19 last year we lost the CEO and the whole board in that accident.

There are a number of people you have got to give credit to: one being George, who pulled the board back together; the rest was the management team. The team showed professionalism, courage and dedication. To work though the situation and achieve what they have in what is a very short period of time gives a lot of credit to the people here in the office.

They had to battle through that loss of corporate knowledge and the personal issues involved. If anything they are more determined than ever to get this project up, partly because it is in remembrance of the people who died.

A Pint With: Giulio Casello - Part 2
Friday, 13 May 2011

IN the second part of his chat with MiningNewsPremium.net, Giulio Casello talks more about Sundance Resources Mbalam project, the financing involved, the challenges of training a workforce in Africa and his new interest out of work.
Sharon Sebastian: Could you walk through how the Mbalam project is progressing? What have been some of the highlights in getting this project up and running?

GC: Things are progressing very well. There are two mines which make up the Mbalam project, Mbaga in Cameroon and Nabeba in the Republic of Congo. The project is about 500 kilometres away from the coast and is on the edge of the Congo Basin in rainforest.

What our team has done is actually produce a world-class resource out there. They have drilled more than 700 holes and about 100,000 metres of drilling in the middle of the Congo Basin.

One of the highlights was just the amount of work they were able to do and how they were able to do it so professionally. If you have the benefit of getting out there you will find a world-class camp.

Also, unless you have a good asset the rest of it doesn?t matter. And if you have a good asset, how do you get it onto a ship so you can sell it to somebody when there is no infrastructure in this part of the country?

We published a definitive feasibility study on April 6 this year which was one of the major highlights. The study was about building a port, a railway and developing two mines, which is about $US4.6 billion worth of capital. What the [DFS] said was this was a great project with great returns and you were going to pay back $4.6 million worth of capital back in three years.

SS: How are talks progressing with potential strategic partners and for project finance for the project? When do you expect to make an announcement regarding this?

GC: The big step for us in the next few months is to secure a strategic partner and a financing plan to build this [Mbalam project]. Our target is to be in construction at the end of this year. We have a three year construction period which means our target is to get first ore on ship in the fourth quarter of 2014. That may sound like a long way away but it is not.

There?s no doubt we are very China-focused. We believe this is an absolute excellent fit with the Chinese long-term plans of securing iron ore. So, we?ve been talking to steel mills in China as potential strategic partners [and] to construction companies about building the railway and the port.

The material will go to China and will be in direct competition with Australian iron ore. The quality of the ore we are seeing coming out of the Mbalam project is as good as anything that is coming out of the Pilbara at the moment, if not better.

This [the financing] is the last piece of the puzzle before you start building it.


SS: In terms of political risk in Africa, which is once again at the back of everyone?s minds with the change in mining policy in Namibia, what is it like working in the Republics of Cameroon and Congo?

GC: Both Cameroon and the Republic of Congo have been politically stable for many years. Having visited both countries several times, in my previous role with Century and now with Sundance, I have found both countries are safe to travel and operate in. The people are friendly and hospitable.

Even though you see a great variation in living standards, starting from subsistence levels in the forest regions to sophisticated hotel and service industries in the main cities, there is a strong desire by both countries to create industries that offer long-term substantial employment. An ideal combination is that of Sundance?s development expertise and the people of Cameroon. We expect this to flourish further.

There has been political unrest in Africa, a lot in Libya and Tunisia. We have done a lot of political monitoring in Cameroon, and we are not seeing anything that would bring about the political unrest that you see in Tunisia or Libya and we are not expecting to see that sort of activity. We?ve also developed a good relationship with Cameroon and have more than 200 nationals working for us.

Congo is even quieter – they had their elections last year.

All the advice we have had both internally and externally from consultants [is that] none of them are expecting to see the kind of activity we see in Libya, Tunisia or Cote D?Avoir.


SS: Outside of political risk in Africa, what are some of the issues the industry is facing in that continent?

GC: The biggest issue in this region is to get development and one reason is because they are not used to it. Cameroon hasn?t had this type of development in its history. There is no doubt there is a lot of poverty in the country as there is in a lot of Africa. Poverty creates two things: one is mistrust of the people who have things, and two is the lack of understanding of what the potential is. [If] you could bring them all over to the Pilbara and show them the potential it could change a lot of things.

Cameroon and the Congo have the French legal systems, but it is bureaucratic and cumbersome. They are a very inclusive people; they want all levels to understand what is going on. Just getting them to understand what an iron ore railway of this size is takes time and patience.


SS: Will finding or training skilled workers in this region be a challenge?

GC: Training people up to work on the project is a massive challenge. It?s interesting because Cameroon has got a very good school and university system. We?ve actually hired 200 nationals and a number of geologists from [Cameroon].

They?ve all got a great education but all lack practical skills. So, you have geologists who understand all the book geology but have not seen a hole in the ground.

This is our challenge, and as part of the DFS is about how we are going to train up [the workforce]. With operations starting up in 2014, our challenge is to get a good workforce in place by that time.

During construction we?ve got plans for training. There will still be a requirement for expatriates, because you?ve got to bring in that skill-set to train people up, [but] you want nationals running all of this [the project].

There?s big training [required]: working with the universities, the school system and getting them started on training at the end of 2011 and building that workforce up while construction is ongoing.

It is a big challenge in Cameroon more so than Congo, as mining is fairly new to Cameroon.


SS: What has been the most interesting place you have travelled to for work and why?

GC: I have travelled to a few places and this place is not home as home is Perth, but I would have to say Italy. I?m not going to find a mine or energy there but I?ve got most of my family there.

What I?ve discovered is no matter where you go in the world there?s always great places to be.


SS: Do you have any interests outside the industry?

GC: I?ve got a new interest and that?s because I?ve just become a grandfather and my first grandson is now six weeks old. I love footy and have a strong affiliation with the South Fremantle footy club, having being born and bred there.

So I would say my interests outside Sundance are family, footy, golf and relaxing.


End.