White Cliff onboards John Hancock for strategic advice

In a significant move poised to bolster the immediate direction of its multi-mineral pursuits, White Cliff Minerals has secured well-known mining identity John Hancock as a strategic advisor to its board.

The company has engaged the son of Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart as it gears up for a substantial expansion of its project portfolio during the next year. The boardroom bolstering comes as management awaits the imminent return of assays relating to uranium, silver, copper and gold from its Great Bear Lake project in Canada.

Hancock says he has been searching for an early-stage copper investment to complement his exposure to lithium and uranium because of his belief in the red metal as a vital ingredient to a clean-energy transition. The Hancock name is synonymous with mining and that of his late grandfather, Lang, who is best remembered for his instrumental involvement in the early production of iron ore in Western Australia.

“As my grandfather said, ‘minerals don’t grow on trees, every year you need to find more’ and today this means searching further and further afield,” Hancock said.

“White Cliff has secured a large holding in an area with historical production and exciting preliminary indications which led me to become an investor and now Strategic Advisor to the Board. I, like Troy and the Board are looking forward to the upcoming assay results from our maiden campaign where we have visually identified numerous highly prospective areas.”

According to the company, Hancock’s appointment is a strategic move, aligning well with its goal of expanding its three-project portfolio in Canada and intensifying exploration at the Great Bear Lake and Rae Copper projects.

White Cliff Minerals managing director Troy Whittaker said: “Attracting someone of John’s experience and calibre is a remarkable development for us. His extensive international network and deep roots in the mining industry will be invaluable as we unlock the untapped potential of our projects.”

The company’s primary exploration is focused on Great Bear Lake in north-west Canada – a region well-endowed with big discoveries and where its recent work has unearthed a potentially widespread iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) anomaly. Historical assays at the site have also recorded up to 14.15 per cent uranium yellowcake.

In Australia, the company has set its sights on increasing the resource at its Reedy South gold project, near Westgold Resources’ Triton/South Emu mine in Western Australia’s Goldfields region and which hosts a JORC resource of 42,400 ounces of gold.

Having worked with Iscor Mining (now Kumba) in South Africa at the start of the millennium, Hancock returned to Australia to hone his skills as an investor in companies such as Vulcan Energy Resources and Aura Energy and as an advisor with US-based Lind Partners where he helped deploy more than $500 million into small-cap mining companies across Australia and Canada.

As any junior miner will attest, the current investment environment is an extremely tough one in which to raise fresh exploration funds. But, with a name like Hancock attached to the company, it appears that White Cliff may well have found a solution to the problem of attracting cash to fund its ambitious exploration plans.

And given the price of the company’s shares shot up by 23 per cent today on the back of the news, it would appear that investors agree.

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