Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd said on Thursday Chief Executive Officer Ulf Quellmann has resigned after top shareholder Rio Tinto told the Canadian miner it plans to vote against his re-election.
Its former finance chief, Steeve Thibeault, will replace Quellmann on an interim basis and pilot Turquoise through a funding dispute with Anglo-Australian miner Rio over the underground expansion of the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia.
After leading the negotiations for Turquoise's funding agreements with Rio in 2015, Thibeault is well-positioned to immediately take over talks to progress the mine funding plan, the Vancouver-based company said.
Rio, which holds 51% of Turquoise Hill, said in a statement that it is "supportive of the re-set in leadership at TRQ and is committed to working collaboratively and proactively with both TRQ and the Government of Mongolia to enable the successful delivery of the Oyu Tolgoi project."
Turquoise owns 66% of the Oyu Tolgoi project, with the rest held by the Mongolian government
Last month, Reuters reported that Rio Tinto was willing to enter a new agreement with Mongolia to expand the mine as the government requested, as both parties looked to resolve an impasse over the multibillion-dollar project.
Costs for the expansion of Oyu Tolgoi, one of the world's largest-known copper and gold deposits, have ballooned to $6.75 billion, about $1.4 billion higher than Rio's estimate in 2016.
Turquoise said on Thursday that in recent discussions, Rio had informed its board that it plans to vote against Quellmann's re-election at the annual shareholders' meeting in May as the London-listed miner believes new leadership was needed at Turquoise to advance work at Oyu Tolgoi.
Thibeault served as Turquoise's chief financial officer between 2014 and 2017.
(Reporting by Arundhati Sarkar in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)
