Profile: Eira Thomas, president and CEO, Kaminak Gold

Diamond hunter’s golden rule: Exploration is the key

https://www.biv.com/article/2016/3/profile-eira-thomas-president-and-ceo-kaminak-gold/

Eira Thomas still isn’t quite sure what she plans to do with the new diamond she ordered from Lucara Diamond Corp. (TSX:LUC).

That’s the Vancouver diamond mining company that, in November, announced it had unearthed the second-largest diamond ever mined – a company that she co-founded and which bears two letters from her name.

But if she decides to have it set in a gold ring, she might be able to use the gold from her latest mining venture – the Kaminak Gold Corp. (TSX-V:KAM) Coffee project in the Yukon.

Kaminak created a buzz in the gold mining space in early January when it came out with a feasibility plan for the Coffee project, a small, high-quality deposit with a low capital cost.

But savvy investors know that even high-quality deposits do not necessarily guarantee success. They also look for a seasoned management team with a track record. Thomas certainly has a track record.

It’s been said that a geologist is lucky if he or she, over the course of a career, has one discovery become an operating mine. Thomas has three under her belt, and Kaminak would make it four.

Thomas was literally born into mining. Her father, Grenville Thomas, is in the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame, and her brother, Gareth Thomas, is a director and co-founder of Westhaven Ventures Inc. (TSX-V:WHN), a junior exploration company.

Her father was involved mostly in junior exploration.

“In my youth, we lived in Yellowknife,” Thomas said. “We spent a lot of summers tromping around in the Northwest Territories. For me, having grown up in that world, it was a lifestyle I knew I could relate to.”

Thomas earned a degree in geology from the University of Toronto in 1990 and was planning to pursue a master’s degree in South Africa.

She was in Cape Town when she got an urgent call from her father, who told her about a significant diamond find made in the Northwest Territories – a find that would become Canada’s first diamond mine, the Ekati.

“What my father did was he staked all the ground around them and called and said, ‘You need to get back here and help us explore the potential of this new land package,’” Thomas said.

That derailed her academic plans but set her on a career in the diamond exploration field.

Her father’s company, Aber Resources, eventually made a discovery that would become the Diavik mine.

Thomas spent 16 years with Aber before deciding to strike out on her own. She partnered with another mining executive, Catherine McLeod-Seltzer, to co-found Stornoway Ventures Ltd. Through a hostile takeover, Stornoway acquired a company that owned the Renard property and eventually became Stornoway Diamond Corp. (TSX:SWY), which is now building Quebec’s first diamond mine.

Thomas served as Stornoway’s CEO until 2008 and as executive chairwoman until 2011, when she decided to leave the company – a move prompted by the company’s shift from exploration to development.

“This was around the time that I was starting a family and Stornoway was starting to become really quite top-heavy,” she said. “I guess exploration for me is something that’s always been in my blood, and to me it’s a really key part of the attraction to this business – that element of treasure hunting and looking for that next big win.”

Thomas, who has two young daughters, aged five and seven, says juggling the demands of business and family has been tricky.

“I am a single mom,” she said. “That is a challenge. It’s very hard to find balance in your life when you do what I do.

“It’s not easy for partners or families. That, probably, is one of the bigger challenges for me, is trying to find that balance – to be a good mother and at the same time be a role model to my children and demonstrate you can do both.”

Being in the exploration and mining business means travelling a lot. She counts herself lucky for having a good support network.

“I have a really great nanny, and I’ve got a very supportive family. My brothers and sisters all live within a couple of blocks of me, except for one that lives in the Okanagan. So I have a huge support network. My dad lives a block away. If I’m stuck downtown, I’ve usually got someone I can rely on to make it to school pickup.”

In between Stornoway and Kaminak, Thomas, McLeod-Seltzer and mining magnate Lukas Lundin formed Lucara.

Good diamond properties are hard to come by in Canada, so Thomas and McLeod-Seltzer wanted to focus on South Africa. But many Canadian shareholders were hesitant to invest there, Thomas said.

Lundin, who had invested in Stornoway, was already investing in South Africa, so Thomas and McLeod-Seltzer reached out to Lundin to form a new company. The name Lucara is a blend based on two letters from each of their names.

That triumvirate acquired the Karowe deposit in Botswana, which has surpassed all expectations by producing some of the world’s largest diamonds, including the 1,111-carat Lesedi La Rona discovered last year.

“We always knew, or we had a feeling when we bought that asset … we were going to recover some larger diamonds,” Thomas said. “But I don’t think any of us really recognized the full potential to recover the sizes we have. Karowe’s been very exciting. It’s now probably the most important producer of large diamonds in the world.”

So why, with her track record in diamonds, did she make the leap to gold exploration?

After leaving Stornoway, Thomas took some time off and did a bit of travelling with her girls. Then she was approached by a former Stornoway director who was now involved in the Kaminak project.

“They were actively looking for a CEO, so he called and said, ‘You’ve got to look at this thing because geologically it’s very compelling.’ My initial thought at the time was, ‘Well, is it the right time for the gold space, and what do I know about the gold space?’”

The deposit has attracted investors like Lundin and Ross Beaty.

“I thought I was getting in at a good time to get positioned in this new venture,” Thomas said. “It was undervalued, in my mind.”

It’s not just the deposit’s fundamentals that appealed to her. It also appeals to her zeal for exploration and development, and meshes well with her domestic situation.

“The other appealing thing for me, getting back to that whole thing about being CEO and a single mother, is that this project is in the Yukon, which is easily accessible from Vancouver,” she said. “I can leave Vancouver in the morning and be on my project by midday. And if I really need to be home that night, I can still spend four or five hours on the project and still get back to Vancouver.”

When she has the time, Thomas like to ski and go hiking with her girls.

“We live on the North Shore, so almost every weekend we are on the trail somewhere. I love hiking, and the kids are keen as well.”

If all goes well for the Kaminak project, Thomas said the company should pour its first gold in the latter part of 2019.

And after that? Thomas has spent most of her career in the exploration side of the mining business, which is a very different business than running a mining company.

“It’s not to say I don’t aspire to become a miner at some point, and maybe I will be that with Kaminak,” she said. “In fact, I think I’m ready for it now.”

nbennett@biv.com

https://www.biv.com/article/2016/3/profile-eira-thomas-president-and-ceo-kaminak-gold/