NEVER NEVER GIVING UP

AUSTRALIAN MINING SPOKE WITH SPARTAN RESOURCES CEO SIMON LAWSON ABOUT HOW HE REBUILT THE COMPANY FROM THE GROUND UP.

Everybody loves an underdog.

When a mining company can overcome issues and production bounce back stronger than ever, it's something to be proud of. And that's exactly what Spartan Resources did.

Spartan was originally known as Gascoyne Resources, an ASX-listed gold mining and exploration company based in Western Australia. Its flagship asset was the Dalgaranga gold project in Daggar Hills, where Gascoyne began mining in 2017.

Located about 65km north-west of Mount Magnet, Dalgaranga comprised a fully developed gold mining operation, a carbon-in-leach processing facility, a camp and airstrip, and an extensive landholding with potential for new discoveries.

Unfortunately, Gascoyne began to struggle a year into its operations due to grade and reconciliation issues at Dalgaranga, resulting in less gold production than originally anticipated. By June 2019, the company was in voluntary administration.

"At the time, I was running a small exploration company called Firefly Resources, where I had picked up a gold project called Yalgoo, about 110km away from the Gascoyne operations," Spartan managing director and chief executive officer Simon Lawson told Australian Mining.

Gascoyne's administrators decided to maintain Dalgaranga's operations during the administration process to maximise Gascoyne's chances of continuing its existence. And it worked.

The company did not go into liquidation and exited voluntary administration in October 2020. Less than a year later, Firefly and Yalgoo caught Gascoyne's eye.

"Firefly was acquired by Gascoyne in June 2021," Lawson said. "Subsequent to that transaction, I was supposed to come onto the Gascoyne board as a non-executive director to oversee the acquisition process and have some influence over what Gascoyne would do with Yalgoo.