The president of Colombia’s largest thermal coal miner Carbones del Cerrejon, Leon Teicher, is to step down from the position in December, the company said Tuesday.
A Cerrejon spokesman said the resignation was effective December 31 and in the meantime the miner would look for a successor. “It is an extremely exciting and challenging job and Leon will be working with our three shareholders to try and get the very best candidate possible,” he said.
Teicher, who became Cerrejon president in May 2006, was on the board of directors at Carbocol, the coal mining operation in La Guajira, in the 1980s before a spell in the information technology sector. In August, Cerrejon, a joint venture which is owned in equal parts by major miners BHP Billiton, Anglo American and Xstrata, said it was on course to maintain its 2011 production target of 32 million mt.
The three owners recently announced they are to go ahead with a $1.31 billion project to expand Cerrejon’s opencast coal mine in La Guajira province. Known as the P40 Project, the expansion would boost its production and export capacity of thermal coal to 40 million mt/year.
Construction is expected to begin later in 2011 and be completed by 2013, with production progressively ramping up to 40 million mt by 2015.