About
New Dawn Metals (NDM), previously Optiva Resources, a company incorporated in England and Wales in January 2019, has signed a Technical Partnership Agreement with Base Metals Guinee SARLU, a Guinean company, that has exploration licences in the Mamou and Faranah prefectures in the Republic of Guinea. These licences are referred to as the Marela Project.
The Technical Partnership Agreement was approved by the Minister of Mines in March 2019. Under the terms of the Technical Partnership Agreement the mining licence will be granted to NDM’s Guinean subsidiary company at the “decision to mine” stage and NDM will then hold an 85% interest, with the Government of Guinea holding 15%. NDM has strong local support for project development and will work closely with the Government for the benefit of all stakeholders.
NDM’s principal objective is to develop Guinea’s first nickel-cobalt-scandium mine and processing plant to produce a Mixed nickel-cobalt Hydroxide Product (MHP) and a scandium product. NDM’s secondary objective is to produce and sell a mixed ilmenite and magnetite concentrate to off-takers for the production of vanadium pentoxide and synthetic rutile by using pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical processes.
NDM is currently doing a FEL-1 Scoping Study using Hatch which is expected to be completed by the end of Q3 2024.
New Dawn Metals is a Member of the UK’s Critical Minerals Association.
Meet the team
Decades of mining experience in Africa
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Chief Executive Officer, Managing Director
Charles is a Geologist and a Mineral Economist with 20 years’ experience of working in the mining sector in Africa. He has extensive experience in exploration, project evaluation and project management and has worked across a range of commodities and deposit types in more than 30 countries.
Most recently Charles has been consulting to the World Bank’s Energy and Extractives Global Practice on the mining sectors in various countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. Prior to that he served as Vice President for New Business Development for AIM and TSX-V listed Altus Strategies.
Charles holds a BSc in Geology from the University of Bristol and an MSc in Mineral Economics from the Colorado School of Mines. Charles is a Member (MIMMM) of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3), an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investments and a Member of the Institute of Directors.
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Non-executive Director
Heinz Pley is a globally recognised authority in the mining industry, particularly in Africa. He has 30 years of strategy consulting, investment banking and principal investing experience. He has held leadership roles, directorships and partnerships in mining at global professional services firms McKinsey, Morgan Stanley, Mubadala Development Company, Boston Consulting Group, Oliver Wyman and Hyphen.
Heinz has very broad functional experience, from market analysis to corporate and commodity strategy development, M&A, ESG, restructuring, operations improvement, capital project optimization, procurement, organisation design and transformation management.
Heinz has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Stanford University.
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Non-Executive Director
Daniel is a qualified mining engineer with over two decades of experience in the mining industry on four continents. He has a successful track record for running high-capacity mining operations and building mining projects in West Africa and other regions of the world. Daniel has previously worked for Rio Tinto, BHP, London Mining, African Minerals and has worked in both coal and metalliferous mines.
Most recently, Daniel was the CEO of Guinea Alumina Corporation where he led the team that secured $750 million in Project Finance as part of a larger $1.4 billion investment package to fund mine, rail and port infrastructure for bauxite in Guinea.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mining Engineering from the University of Petrosani, Romania, an MBA from Deakin University in Australia, an Australian Mine Manager’s Certificate, and is a member of Engineers Australia.
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Non-Executive Director
Bob was born in 1956 in Middlesborough and is currently Chairman of Air CM Ltd, an aircraft charter company based in Malta, involved in operating heavy jets. He is also Chairman and CEO of BBM Sport.
He joined North East Truck & Van at the age of 28, rapidly becoming the CEO at 36. He took this company from a business with a £15 M turnover to a company with 350 employees and a £100 M turnover.
He was formerly a British racing driver, winning the Historic Formula One Championship series three years in a row.