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THE TEAM

Copper Search aims to build, test and refresh a pipeline of large-scale drill targets across multiple projects and commodities within geological domains containing established profitable mines.

The key to executing Copper Search’s ambitious strategy is successfully identifying the best drill targets that can be made ready for drill testing with only a few months of low-cost fieldwork. To achieve that, you need a great team with the right experience across a wide range of commodities.

Copper Search has spent several years assembling a Board, Exploration Team, and group of Commodity experts who have been involved in over $100 billion worth of discoveries – from the Prominent Hill IOCG to Iluka’s world-class Heavy Mineral Sands Deposit.

Meet our team

Mr. Duncan Chessell
Managing Director

Duncan Chessell is a qualified geologist with over 20 years’ experience in business and in oil, gas and mineral exploration. He was responsible for co-founding and listing Resolution Minerals (as Northern Cobalt) in 2017 and has acted in a variety of board and executive roles with ASX listed and public unlisted companies, along with not-for-profit groups.

Mr. Chris Sutherland
Non-Executive Chairman

Chris is an engineer with over 20 years of business experience. He was Managing Director of Programmed from January 2008 until his retirement in September 2019. Programmed was a major publicly listed ASX company until October 2017 when it was acquired for an enterprise value of over $1 billion.

Mr. Peter McIntyre
Non-Executive Director

Peter McIntyre is an engineer with over 30 years of experience in the minerals industry in exploration and production and held senior roles in WMC. He established and was Managing Director of Extract Resources Limited which discovered the world-class Husab uranium deposit in Namibia which was ultimately acquired via a takeover for $2.3 billion.

Mr. Greg Hall
Non-Executive Director

Greg Hall has over 30 years’ experience in mine management, global commodities marketing, and CEO and Board roles with resource companies. This includes groups such as WMC, Rio Tinto, Toro Energy and Hillgrove Resources. He is currently Managing Director of Alligator Energy Ltd (ASX: AGE).

Dr. Antonio Belperio
Non-Executive Director

Geologist with over 30 years of experience in the mining industry and an impressive trackrecord including the discovery of the Prominent Hill Deposit and now mine in the Gawler Craton, South Australia. Former chief geologist for the South Australia Geological Survey and active explorer for over two decades with Demetallica Ltd (ASX: DRM), nee Minotaur Ltd.

John Main
Chairman of the Technical Review Committee
Area of Expertise: Gold | Base Metals | Cu-Au Porphyry

John is a geologist with over 45 years of global experience in mineral exploration and evaluation, including leading Rio Tinto’s North American Exploration Unit. He has led teams that have discovered eight deposits that have been or are being mined. The value of these deposits exceeds A$100 billion.

Ian Warland
Area of Expertise: Heavy Mineral Sands

OverGeologist with over 30 years of experience in the mining industry and an impressive track record, including discovering the world-class East Eucla HM Sands Deposits for Iluka Resources, Gawler Craton, South Australia – currently in operation (ASX: ILU). He was awarded the Explorer of the Year for this ground-up discovery. Production began in 2009, and the depleted resources are noted below. Ian stayed after discovering the initial Jacinth Deposit through resource delineation, feasibility studies, successful production, and addition of several other deposits. This deep knowledge of the HMS industry from discovery to production is a tremendous asset to the company.

Dr Paul Kitto
Area of Expertise: Gold | Base Metals | Rare Earth Elements

Dr Kitto has over 30 years of experience working within the mining industry. Throughout his career, Dr Kitto has led or been part of exploration teams that have discovered numerous multi-million-ounce gold deposits in Africa, Australia and Papua New Guinea. Dr Kitto has extensive experience in many gold and base metal deposits, including meso-thermal lode gold and palaeo-placer gold deposits, porphyry copper-gold, epithermal gold, and volcanic-hosted massive sulphide deposits.

He holds a doctorate in Geochemistry and Structural Geology from the Centre for Ore Deposit Research at the University of Tasmania. He is currently NED of ionic clay REE developer Meteoric Resources (ASX:MEI).

Professor Bruce Schaefer
Area of Expertise: Igneous geochemistry | IOCG | Cu-Au
Porphyry

Professor Schaefer is a well-recognised expert in IOCG and porphyry mineral systems, with deep subject expertise in geochemistry and geochronology. He has extensive experience working in mineralised systems research projects from Archaean to present-day across various geodynamic settings. Professor Schaefer is a pioneer of several new geochemical exploration methods.

Dr David Rawlings
Area of Expertise: Uranium | Lithium | Sedimentology

Dr Rawlings has significant experience in regional synthesis and resource assessment emanating from regional mapping for the Northern Territory Geological Survey and 10 years leading exploration and resource discovery in hard-rock and soft-rock uranium systems in central and northern Australia. He has also acted as Core Lithium’s exploration manager since March 2016, leading to the discovery of lithium in the Bynoe pegmatite field and defining prospects and resources at the Finniss Project. He has extensive uranium exploration expertise and has worked for Cameco and as the Exploration Manager for Toro Energy.

Theo Aravanis
Principal Geophysicist

Theo Aravanis, Principal Geophysicist
Theo has over 25 years of mineral exploration experience and works on a consulting basis to Copper Search. Theo spent over a decade as the Chief Geophysicist for Rio Tinto’s global exploration group. Theo’s expertise spans a wide range of geophysical techniques applied to an enormous variety of mineral systems globally.

Michael Rodda – Data Scientist
Area of Expertise: Machine Learning | IOCG | Cu-Au Porphyries

Michael has been working on machine learning applications for mineral exploration for the last five years and recently won the OZ Minerals “Explorer Challenge” (prize $500,000) for his work on IOCG exploration in the Gawler Craton.

Ian McBride
Senior Exploration Geologist
Area of Expertise: Technical Project Review | Field Exploration

Ian has been an exploration geologist across precious metals, uranium and base metals in Australia and North and South America for over ten years. Ian has also worked in oil & gas exploration in the USA and underground mining in Bolivia and Colorado. He is also fluent in Spanish.

The Copper Search Team in action