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CITADEL Resource Group is hoping Owen Hegarty’s magic touch with copper, which saw him turn Oxiana into one of Australia’s leading mid-tier miners, can be recreated with his appointment as a senior adviser to the junior copper explorer.

Citadel is hoping Hegarty’s experience with the Sepon copper project in Laos and its Australian copper projects, Golden Grove and Prominent Hill, will help the junior explorer bring the Jabal Sayid project online.

Hegarty was the chief executive of Oxiana and is now a non-executive director of OZ Minerals – the company formed by the merger of Oxiana and Zinifex.

Hegarty stepped down from the top role at Oxiana after the merger, with Zinifex boss Andrew Michelmore now filling the position within the combined group.

Citadel’s chief executive Ines Scotland told MiningNews.net Hegarty’s experience in developing large copper projects in countries that “had been off the radar previously” was a boon for the junior.

She said the company had a strong technical team and was looking to tap into Hegarty’s expertise in a general advisory capacity with a focus on corporate structure, community and government relations as well as debt financing.

Hegarty was attracted to Citadel because he could see the company was ambitious and had its sights set on becoming a mid-tier mining company, Scotland said.

“I think Owen can see we have the right project in place to do it, we have the right team, and we’re working in a country which is very pro-mining,” she added.

Citadel is on track to deliver a bankable feasibility study mid next year, and the company is planning to order mills for the project’s plant from October this year.

“We’ve got Byrnecut coming in to refurbish the decline in October, and Swick drilling are coming in to do our in-fill drilling,” Scotland said.

As for funding, Citadel has $28 million in the bank, sufficient funds for the current work program.

Beyond that, Scotland said the company had begun interim discussions with banks in the Middle East and Australia over debt for the project.

“I’m really not concerned about financing, for the right projects you can find finance,” she said.

Citadel’s Saudi Arabian 50:50 joint venture partner CMCI will also be contributing its share of the financing as part of the equity deal over the project.

Jabal Sayid has an indicated and inferred resource, totaling 74 million tonnes at 1.3% copper, and including 52Mt at 1.6% copper and 0.1% Zn, 4Mt at 1.9% copper and 18Mt at 2.2% zinc and 0.4% copper.

The project is 500m from a sealed highway that runs to a deep-water port facility at Yanbu, which has bulk materials handling capacity, and a 3.9km decline is already in place at the project, along with a 100-man camp.

Shares in Sydney-based Citadel were last trading at 29c, up 1.5c this morning