I reread the ASX announcement about the appointment of Craig...

I reread the ASX announcement about the appointment of Craig Jones as Chief Operating Officer and noticed Spartan did not give any of the specifics about CJ's contract of employment. No big deal: sometimes ASX listed companies are upfront and forthcoming about the conditions of employment of their key management personnel and sometimes they are not. Either way it all eventually comes out in the remuneration report which forms part of the annual report. (I don't think that the granting of performance rights requires an ASX announcement, only the vesting of those rights [but I could be wrong])

However what Spartan did have in their ASX announcement is this: "The Spartan Board has approved a package of incentive performance rights that are subject tospecific vesting hurdles and milestones. The Performance Rights will be issued under theCompany’s Employee equity incentive plan". (my emphasis)

My guess is that those hurdles and milestones would have been pulled straight from the Spartan Board's timeline for bringing the Dalgaranga mill back into production. If so, Craig Jones is a man on a mission, a guided missile if you like. A rule of thumb is that newly appointed executives get their first three months to understand what needs to be done and then another three months to start doing what needs to be done. But the gig at Spartan is not CJ's first - he has done similarly for Bellevue Resources and he has previously worked closely with Simon Lawson - so I expect he was full on from day one at Spartan. By giving the job to CJ, the Spartan Board has effectively brought forward their timeline, or at least made it more achievable. I'm interested to see how long it takes for CJ's influence to start shining through in Spartan's announcements and presentations.