Iron ore price rises on firmer steel outlook, but trade tensions cap gains
Lower Chinese steel product inventory driven by robust exports also supported iron ore prices above $100/t.
Alderon Resource Corp. (TSX VENTURE:ADV)(OTCQX:ALDFF) announced the addition of Mr. Tayfun Eldem, P.Eng. as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the company effective September 7, 2011, at which time Mr. Mark J. Morabito will assume the role of Executive Chairman and Mr. Stan Bharti will assume the role of Vice Chairman.
Mr. Eldem has worked for the Iron Ore Company of Canada (“IOC”), a Rio Tinto subsidiary, for more than 20 years. During this period, Mr. Eldem has held many senior roles including Vice President, Expansion Projects & Engineering and Vice President, Operations & Engineering. Most recently Mr. Eldem was accountable for the development and delivery of a nearly $2.0 billion program of green and brown fields expansion projects. Additional responsibilities included strategic and tactical oversight of clean air and GHG reduction programs and the execution of sustaining capital investments and mineral exploration.
Prior to his Projects role, Mr. Eldem was responsible for all of IOC’s “Operations” including the mine, process plants, rail and port facilities. Mr. Eldem led a team of about 2,000 to deliver two consecutive years of record annual material movement at the mine and record ore processing through the concentrator.
Mr. Eldem is a professional engineer who graduated from Technical University of Nova Scotia (TUNS) in Halifax and will be based out of Alderon’s Montreal office.
Consistent with the strategic plan to fast track the Kami Project, Mark J. Morabito, Alderon’s co-founder and current President and CEO, will transition with Mr. Eldem and continue to be involved with Alderon as Executive Chairman of its Board of Directors. Mr. Morabito will focus on Alderon’s capital market program, strategic initiatives, including potential off-take partners and corporate governance matters. Stan Bharti will transition to Vice Chairman and continue his close working relationship with Mr. Morabito, which has yielded ongoing positive results since they started working together in October 2009. In addition, Alderon will maintain its association with Forbes & Manhattan Inc. and leverage their proven technical and financial expertise.
Stan Bharti, Director of Alderon states, “I’m thrilled that we are adding such expertise to our development and mining team with Tayfun. He will be instrumental in maintaining our aggressive timeline to production. Mark has assembled an unbeatable team and has done an outstanding job in leading them through some impressive milestones. The entire board looks forward to Tayfun and Mark working with the rest of the management team to advance Alderon through mine development and permitting.”
Alderon has granted Mr. Eldem, under the terms of its stock option plan, options to purchase 1,000,000 common shares at a price of $3.20 per share. The options are subject to vesting over a two year period and have an expiry date of July 6, 2016.
About Alderon
Alderon is a leading iron ore development company in Canada with offices in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and St. John’s. The 100% owned Kami Project is located within Canada’s premier iron ore district and is surrounded by four producing iron ore mines. The Alderon team is comprised of skilled professionals with significant iron ore expertise to advance Kami towards production.
For more information on Alderon, please visit our website at www.alderonmining.com.
