Claire Derome packs it in (August 04, 2003)

Claire Derome, the highest-level female mining executive in North America, is stepping down as president and CEO of Quebec gold producer McWatters Mining.

Derome will carry on her duties until her successor takes over, though no one has been named.

Having founded McWatters in 1994 as a junior exploration company, Derome turned the company into a gold producer with the watershed acquisition, in 1997, of the Sigma-Lamaque and Kiena gold mines in Val d’Or, Que., from Placer Dome.

With gold prices in the doldrums, the subsequent years were difficult for McWatters, despite a major expansion of its gold reserve and resource base and the startup of open-pit mining at Sigma-Lamaque.

During the past couple of years, McWatters staved off bankruptcy by undergoing a corporate restructuring that briefly led to the provincial government’s owning 40% of Sigma-Lamaque.

Today McWatters operates the Sigma-Lamaque mine, is carrying out underground exploration at its nearby East-Amphi gold property, and owns more than 200 sq. km of mining properties and related production facilities along the Cadillac Break in Quebec’s Abitibi region.