South Boulder Mines (ASX:STB) has appointed Gordon Tainton as...

South Boulder Mines (ASX:STB) has appointed Gordon Tainton as its head of market development effective immediately.

He has over 25 years’ industry experience, with senior management roles in the physical commodity industry including vice president bulk products at Aslchem International and country manager at European Nickel.

Tainton’s key areas of experience include merchandising and delivery of traded products, inspection and quality control of minerals, metals, fertilisers, chemicals and other agricultural commodities; business development and operational management; commercial roles including establishment of offtake agreements and marketing contracts; mine prefeasibility study management; mine gate to customer supply chain cost optimisation.   

He has also led due diligence teams for the acquisition of operating mines, established offshore export and commercial contracts, and established and managed the implementation of global business strategies that have both increased sales volumes and reduced logistics costs.

Business development jurisdictional experience includes India, Russia, Oceania, South America, Arab Gulf Countries, South East Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and China.

“We are very pleased that Gordon is joining the team,” managing director Paul Donaldson said.

“His experience and knowledge in the areas of fertilisers, bulk commodities and logistics, marketing, sales and commercial, complements our internal skill set, strengthens our team and positions us well for market engagements over the upcoming months.”

Earlier this week, South Boulder delivered a globally significant maiden ore reserve of 1.1 billion tonnes at 10% K2O equivalent at the Colluli Potash Project in Eritrea.

With over 85% of Measured and Indicated Resource included in ore reserve estimate, this provides a very high confidence level that it can be mined while de-risking the project.

The shallow mineralisation of the potassium bearing salts in combination with highly favourable ambient conditions, allows open cut mining of the resource, giving high resource recovery.