Abraham Jonker is interim CEO.

Bonifacio, NCU's founder, retired earlier this month but is staying on the board as a non-executive director. He was credited with being an integral figure in the recently announced US$378 million recapitalisation and financing of the company, setting it up to move forward rapidly with plans to complete underground development and move into production next year.

NCU has to wait until its next annual general meeting in April to nominate former Rio Tinto and Vedanta boss Albanese, and Nutter, for election to its board of directors. In the meantime they'll contribute via the newly created advisory board, assisting with "corporate, technical, operational and financing strategies" for advancing the Pumpkin Hollow project in Nevada.

NCU said in Florida this week it was progressing the restart of construction of its 5,000 tons/day underground mine, and also evaluation of options for staged development of a large-scale open pit project.

Golder Associates and Sedgman Engineering, part of ASX-listed CIMIC, have been appointed to work on openpit optimisation and process plant critical path engineering for multi-phase expansion of Pumpkin Hollow. Australia-headquartered Mining Plus, part of the Byrnecut Group, has been engaged for pre-construction mine design and detailed engineering for the underground mine.

NCU said geotechnical drilling was underway to provide more information for detailed mine planning, including the location of a secondary vent shaft, and de-risking underground development.

The company has also started a 10,000m surface drilling campaign focused on the Pumpkin Hollow North deposit and a connector zone between the proposed North and South pit areas.

The SRK-Sedgman concept study will focus on the potential for a reduced-capital, staged-development approach focused initially on the higher grade North Pit.