Torque Metals recruits Spartan discovery team to spearhead Paris Gold Project push

Torque Metals has executed a leadership reset that would turn heads across the Western Australian gold sector, recruiting the technical and corporate brains behind one of the state’s most celebrated recent discoveries.

The junior explorer has secured former Spartan Resources executives Simon Lawson, Craig Jones and David Coyne to lead its next growth phase, as the company accelerates exploration at its Paris Gold Project south of Kalgoorlie. The trio arrive with strong credentials after playing key roles in the transformation of Spartan Resources, culminating in the $2.5 billion merger with Ramelius Resources in 2025.

For a company whose flagship project sits in one of the world’s most productive gold belts, the move signals a clear shift toward a discovery-driven strategy.

Spartan pedigree arrives at Torque

The appointments bring together a leadership team that worked closely during Spartan’s turnaround, when the company evolved from a struggling open pit producer into a high-grade exploration success story following the Never Never and Pepper discoveries.

Simon Lawson will join as non-executive chairman-elect, Craig Jones steps in immediately as chief executive officer and managing director-elect, while David Coyne becomes a non-executive director-elect.

Lawson’s CV reads like a who’s who of Western Australian gold. His past roles include senior positions at Jubilee Mines, Silver Lake Resources and Northern Star Resources before leading Spartan through its strategic reset. Jones, a mining engineer with more than 28 years’ experience, has held senior roles across Barrick Gold, Northern Star, Bellevue Gold and Poseidon Nickel.

At Spartan, Jones served as chief operating officer and helped oversee the establishment of underground access to the Never Never deposit while advancing feasibility work for a mining restart. Coyne, an accountant with three decades of resources experience, previously served as Spartan’s executive director and joint company secretary, overseeing funding through the company’s transformation.

Together, the trio combine exploration expertise, operational know-how and capital markets experience - a blend that small explorers often struggle to assemble.

Simon Lawson

Paris project offers scale and exploration upside

Torque’s flagship asset, the Paris Gold Project, lies about 100 kilometres south of Kalgoorlie within a broader landholding of roughly 1,200 square kilometres.

Despite its location in one of the world’s premier gold districts, the project area remains lightly explored relative to its geological potential. The company already hosts a mineral resource of about 250,000 ounces of gold across the Paris, HHH and Observation deposits at an average grade of roughly 3.1 grams per tonne.

Most of that resource sits in the inferred category, highlighting the exploration upside if drilling expands and geological models improve.

The deposits themselves sit along a 57-kilometre prospective corridor within a greenstone belt south of Kambalda. To date, the defined resource occupies just a small portion of that strike length, suggesting significant room for expansion.

Lawson believes the geological setting provides an additional technical advantage. According to him, the mineralisation style is amenable to electromagnetic targeting of high-grade gold shoots - a technique that helped underpin the discoveries made at Spartan.

Leadership transition and exploration ramp-up

The board changes will take effect following shareholder approval at a meeting expected within roughly six weeks.

Current managing director Cristian Moreno and director Tolga Kumova will step down from the board once the new appointments are ratified, while chairman Evan Cranston will remain as a non-executive director.

Jones will lead the company immediately as CEO before transitioning formally to managing director once shareholders approve the performance rights attached to his remuneration package. His base salary is set at $400,000 per year excluding superannuation.

With the new leadership team in place, Torque intends to accelerate exploration across the Paris project and the broader Kalgoorlie district land package. The incoming technical group has already begun reviewing historical data to identify new drill targets, with expanded drilling planned during 2026.

Capital backing and alignment

In tandem with the management overhaul, the incoming directors have agreed to cornerstone a $3 million capital raising at $0.27 per share.

The placement will boost Torque’s pro-forma cash position to around $19 million, providing funding to accelerate drilling at Paris, test regional targets and expand exploration across the company’s tenements.

The company is also proposing up to 40 million performance rights for the incoming leadership team, tied to resource growth and share price milestones. Key hurdles include defining a 0.5 million ounce and 1 million ounce JORC resource at grades above 2 grams per tonne and achieving share price targets of $0.55 and $1.00.

For investors, the significance of the announcement lies less in the capital raising and more in the calibre of the incoming team.

Exploration juniors live or die by geology and leadership. By recruiting the people who helped deliver one of Western Australia’s most notable gold discoveries of the past decade, Torque Metals is clearly betting that lightning can strike twice.