Kairos beefs up management

Mineral explorer Kairos Minerals has beefed up its management with Peter Turner to take the reins as Managing Director and Klaus Eckhof taking a seat as Non-Executive Chairman. The addition of the duo reflects the company’s commitment to accelerating the exploration campaigns at its WA lithium and gold projects.

Turner’s appointment will be effective from the May 23 and Eckhof has already commenced his role.

With an already substantial resource base at Mt York, we will apply smart exploration with the aim of growing the resource significantly. It is a large mineralized system in a tier-one location.

We are equally excited by the lithium potential of Kairos’ Roe Hills project in what is a highly prospective place for finding fertile LCT (lithium-caesium-tantalum) pegmatites. We have a huge land holding with promising lithium-in-soil anomalies waiting to be drilled.

Turner has more than 25 years of experience in the resources sector, having worked in WA, Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

The new Managing Director is known for leading exploration teams in the discovery of the Tarra gold deposit in Indonesia, the acquisition and successful exploration of the Houndé gold deposit in Burkina Faso and the resource development and scoping study on the Telimélé iron ore deposit in Guinea.

He also brings an in-depth knowledge of worldwide gold deposits to the table, having worked in specialist technical teams in companies such as Perseus Mining, Placer Dome Asia Pacific, Delta Gold and Goldbelt Resources.

Kairos says during his career, Turner has developed techniques for targeting new deposits and an ability to extend existing mineralisation that will serve the company well.

In a similar fashion, Eckhof is a renowned geologist with more than 20 years of experience developing mineral deposits around the world – having accrued a series of successes in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Notably, Eckhof was founder and Executive Chairman of the lithium explorer, AVZ Minerals – now possessing a market cap in the billions as it develops what appears to be shaping up to be one of the largest hard rock-lithium deposits in the world, the Manono project in the Congo.

Also in the DRC, Eckhof launched Moto Goldmines and led the charge in delineating more than 20 million ounces of gold at the Moto gold project – in addition to delivering a feasibility study within four years since the start of exploration.

Adding further clout, the veteran geologist was instrumental in the early stages of exploration and development on the Bisie tin project, now owned by CSE-listed Alphamin Resources Corp that boasts a market cap of CDN$1.3 billion.

The company will be hoping the pair can produce a similar effect on its 2026 square kilometre portfolio. In particular, the explorer has high hopes for its package of land in the Pilbara, believing it to be “one of the largest and most prospective” landholdings in the emerging province.

Notably, the holding is surrounded by world-class lithium and gold projects including ASX-listed Pilbara Minerals’ Pilgangoora lithium mine, Mineral Resources’ Wodgina lithium mine and De Grey Mining’s world-class Hemi gold project.

Interestingly, the authoritative body Geoscience Australia pegs WA as hosting about 60 per cent of Australia’s gold resources.

In terms of lithium resources, the body says WA holds about 99 per cent of the national total with the remaining portion attributed to the NT.

Ninety-five per cent of our lithium occurs at five deposits within WA and importantly, two of the juggernauts, Pilgangoora and Wodgina, are located within 1km and 3km of Kairos’ fence lines, respectively.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au