Pensana appoints new Chief Operating Officer and Metallurgical Manager

Pensana Plc (LON:PRE) has announced two key appointments.

Rocky Smith has been appointed as Chief Operating Officer. Rocky is a highly experienced Chemical Engineer with 35 years’ rare earths experience. He was Managing Director of Molycorp’s Mountain Pass rare earth project in California, US, which is now owned by New York Stock Exchange listed MP Materials.

Rocky is one of the few western mining executives with in-depth knowledge of the rare earth industry, including the supply chain, operational start-up and running complex chemical processes.

At Mountain Pass, Rocky was responsible for building the project and delivering operational readiness. He established the training systems, Quality Management and in accordance with “Zero Harm”, the highest possible health, environment and safety performance standards.  More recently, Rocky was CEO of ASX listed Peak Resources.

Roy Gordon has been appointed as Metallurgical Manager. Roy is a senior hydrometallurgist with more than 10 years’ experience across international projects in support of the High Value Manufacturing and advanced manufacturing economies. Roy worked previously with Rocky at Peak Resources.

He has built and optimised projects supporting magnet and battery manufacture and holds an MBA from Curtin University and a Double Major in Chemistry and Mineral Science from Murdoch University.

The appointments have been made with immediate effect. They underpin Pensana’s commitment to establish the world’s first fully sustainable mine to magnet metal supply chain from the rare earth oxide separation facility proposed at the world-class Saltend Chemicals Park in the Humber, Yorkshire.

Chairman Paul Atherley commented:

“We warmly welcome Rocky and Roy to the growing Pensana management team ahead of our developments at Saltend and in Angola and our ambition to establish the world’s first fully sustainable mine to magnet supply chain.

Rocky is a hugely talented Chemical Engineer with outstanding experience across the global rare earth industry. His knowledge in establishing processing operations will be extremely valuable as the Company commences development of the proposed processing facility at Saltend.

We are also pleased to welcome Roy, who has previously worked with Rocky and will be a major contributor to the growing operational team.”

Click to view all articles for the EPIC:
Or click to view the full company profile:
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pensana plc

More articles like this

Pensana plc

Pensana at Critical Minerals Africa

Pensana plc (LON:PRE) explores and mines neodymium, praseodymium, and rare earth minerals. The Company’s flagship assets are the Saltend rare earth refinery project in the United Kingdom and Longonjo neodymium and praseodymium (NdPr) Project in Angola.

Pensana plc

Pensana publishes 2023 Annual Financial Report

Pensana plc (LON:PRE) has advised that the Annual Report for the year ended 30 June 2023 has been published on the Company’s website. The Notice of Annual General Meeting and Form of Proxy will be published

Pensana plc

Pensana updates on financing of Longonjo and Saltend projects

Pensana plc (LON:PRE) has provided the following update on the financing of both the Longonjo and Saltend projects. Highlights The engineering team has successfully completed a modular redesign of the Longonjo mine and processing facility, with

Pensana plc

Pensana Plc UK government grant offered for Saltend

Pensana plc (LON:PRE) has announced that the Secretary of State for Business and Trade has offered Pensana a Grant of up to £4,000,000 towards the funding required to build a rare earth oxide separation facility in

Pensana plc

Pensana at the 19th International Rare Earths Conference

18th -20th October 2023 SESSION 1: 09:10hrs “Does a detachment from the Chinese rare earth market threaten the global energy transition?”, by David Merriman, Director Research, Project Blue, United Kingdom; 09:35hrs “All rare earth supply chains begin at a mine”, by

Pensana plc

REE: Why are they strategically important?

Rare Earth Elements (REE) are metals having many similar properties. The global demand for rare earth elements has increased significantly in line with their expansion into high-end technology, environment, and economic areas. In this post, we

Pensana plc

Pensana and partners gain Innovate UK grant

Rare earth metals company Pensana Plc, headquartered in London, UK – working in partnership with Polestar, Route2 and the Universities of Leeds and Hull – has been awarded £316,643 in grant funding by Innovate UK under its

Pensana plc

Pensana confirms rare-earth mineralisation at Angola target

Metals company Pensana on September 14 confirmed that the Sulima West laterite target at its Coola exploration project, in Angola, contains three main types of rare-earth minerals. This was confirmed as the company reported on the mineralogical characterisation studies