Normand Champigny, President & CFO, Donner Metals

GBR Connect Series

As Bracemac-McLeod begins its first month of production, can you give us an overview of the mine’s key projected facts and figures?
Bracemac-McLeod was on time and on budget to start production in mid-May of this year. As of April, as the commission process was ongoing, there were 64,000 mt of ore already on surface. From essentially the day after Glencore Xstrata’s Perseverance mine shut down, Bracemac-McLeod was ready to take over and feed ore to the existing mill. Once treated, our ore produces zinc and copper concentrates, which are refined at Glencore Xstrata’s facilities within the province. Our workforce moved from Perseverance to Bracemac-McLeod last year, enabling us to start production at a rate of 3,000 mt per day. We will produce 90,000 mt of zinc per year and 13,000 mt of copper per year.

Mazen Alami, Managing Director, Black & Veatch (GCC)

Mazen Alami, MD for Black & Veatch GCC discusses UAE’s energy sector.

What is your professional background?
I graduated in electrical engineering, and started my career working for Saudi Aramco as an operation and maintenance engineer for power generation plants. After five years I moved to the Saudi Cable Company. Five years later I was asked to join the Saudi Electricity Company as manager for the Mecca region and later promoted to vice-president of general services for where I worked for 16 years. I then joined General Electric, serving as CEO of its energy company in Saudi Arabia for seven years. I spent two years as CEO of a local contractor called Al Toukhi Trading, before joining Black & Veatch as its managing director for the Middle East.

Aaron A. Domingo, Managing Director and Yu Tat Ming, CEO, PacificLight Energy

PacificLight Energy discusses their recent entrance into the Singaporean market.

In March 2013 PacificLight Energy, a joint venture between Hong Kong-based First Pacific and Manila-based Meralco, acquired a 70% stake in GMR Energy (Singapore) Pte Ltd. Why was the asset on Jurong Island an attractive investment?
AD: Any investment decision Meralco makes has to be taken in the context of our strategy and vision in other areas as well. Most of our projects are in the Philippines and are predominantly green field developments. Thus we wanted to front-load the cash flow of the company by acquiring operational or near operational assets. The asset we purchased in Singapore fits this profile as it is scheduled to come online at the end of 2013. Singapore was an attractive market

Corey Ruttan, President and CEO, Petrominerales Ltd

Corey Ruttan of Petrominerales discusses operating in Colombia’s Llanos Basin.

We recently met with John Wright at Petrobank. Can you tell us about the relationship between Petrobank, Petrobakken (Lightstream) and Petrominerales?
In the late 1990s John and I worked at Pac’alta Resources Ltd. İn Ecuador. The company grew from no production to over 4,000 bepd in a very short period of time. Unfortunately, Pac’alta was subject to a hostile takeover. In 2000 we recapitalized Petrobank, we went back to the acquirer of Pac’alta and repurchased our old Colombian subsidiary which became Petrobanks Latin American business unit and ultimately Pretrominerales. In 2006, we did an IPO of Petrominerales: at that point I was CFO for all three companies. In 2010, I became 100% dedicated to Petrominerales.

Colombia’s Regulator Inertia in Oil and Gas: Goodbye Marxist guerrillas, hello permitting delays

Large-scale exploration in resource rich Colombia delayed by bureaucracy.

Alexander Corbeil

BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA – On May 2nd, the Colombian Ministry for Mines and Energy announced that the country’s oil reserves at December-end reached 2.38 billion barrels. While the increase (up 5.22% year on year) highlights the growing stature of Colombia in South America’s oil and gas game, it brushes over many of the on-going operational issues. This increase in reserves has almost entirely been the result of re-evaluations of existing deposits, accounting for 90% of this upward trend. The remainder, a mere 10%, comes as a result of the efforts of industry players to explore for new discoveries. Colombia has largely overcome country-wide insecurity and regulatory impediments to development, but is still hampered by meager results in exploratory yield within the oil and gas sector.

The Price of Progress: New Power Generation Enabling Jurong 2.0

Singapore’s power generators have invested to innovatively meet new demand.

Andrew Mason

SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE – Over the last two decades, the rise of Singapore’s industrial sector has intrinsically been linked to the global petrochemical-refining hub of Jurong Island. Part of the allure of Jurong Island for these leading companies is the innovative way in which the statutory Economic Development Board (EDB), JTC Corporation, and key stakeholders developed an innovative “plug and play” environment, which enables shared usage of integrated third party utilities and creation of synergies in an effort to cut down on operational costs. These ideas resonated with executives worldwide: over S$42 billion has been invested on the island to date.

Mark Bennett, Managing Director, Sirius Resources

GBR Connect Series

Can you provide us with a brief introduction to Sirius Resources and the background to the Nova nickel discovery?
Sirius Resources was formed with the strategy to conduct high-risk exploration in previously underexplored areas. The strategy was put together in conjunction with Mark Creasy, one of the largest mineral title landowners in Australia, who is still a major shareholder. We initially gave ourselves a three-year window in which to find something or die trying, which our shareholders backed; it was this certainty that allowed us to pursue risky exploration. Sirius had been exploring the area around