The board of Victoria Gold has resigned and its CEO says the mining company is “done.”
The news comes one day after the company was put into receivership following a successful application from the Yukon government to take over.
“Well, it’s over. Victoria is done. They brought in a team to take over from us,” CEO John McConnell told CBC News Thursday afternoon.
The court decision comes a month and a half after the failure of the heap leach pad at Eagle mine, which shut down mining activity, and which led to cyanide leaking into and contaminating nearby waterways. The company has been facing significant financial difficulty in the wake of that event.
McConnell said he thinks the receivership was “totally unnecessary.”
“I go from being mad to being sad,” he said. “I get sad because it wipes out all equity shareholder value and probably wipes out the ability to repay our contractors and suppliers both in the Yukon and Western Canada.”
McConnell said the company’s shareholders have also been “wiped out.”
“Victoria Gold essentially doesn’t exist anymore,” he said. “They don’t want to be responsible for a project that somebody else is in charge of.”
McConnell also said he and senior team members will probably stick around for a while to help with the transition.
“I’m sure once they’ve got all the knowledge they think they can gleam from us, we’ll be sent packing,” he said.
More to come.
Source Agencies
