AMIRA - 50 years of service to Members

 

AMIRA International celebrates its fiftieth year of service to the mineral industry.

Friday 24 July marked the 50th anniversary of a meeting convened at the Headquarters of the AusIMM at which AMIRA was inaugurated by the then leaders of the Australian minerals industry.

This group attending included Ian McLennan, Chief Executive of BHP (now BHP Billiton), Maurice Mawby (Consolidated Zinc, now part of Rio Tinto), George Fisher (Mount Isa Mines, now absorbed into Xstrata) and G. Lindesay Clark (WMC, now absorbed into BHP Billiton).

All of this group were Australian and all were eventually awarded knighthoods for their services to the industry – and rightly so: each played a role in expanding the activities of the companies they headed and in several cases paved the way for the emergence of their companies as global players.

The Association they founded has, through nearly a thousand research projects, returned to industry dividends on their research investment of more than a billion dollars.

 

Collaborative Research - A sensible tool in the GFC

The basis of collaborative research is to minimise the cost to each sponsor (ie maximise leverage) in order to solve important problems common to a specific group. This is particularly valuable in financially difficult times such as we are experiencing today.

The last 12 months has seen continued support for several cornerstone AMIRA projects. P266F- Thickeners, enters its 20th year of operation having been renewed in January; P843A - GeM has kicked off on the back of the parent project’s great success; P420D – Gold Processing, has gathered support for a fifth extension.

These projects together with many others have contributed to our second largest year of committed support for research from our Members. This amounts to a total of AUD$18.2 over 2008/09 prior to any additional financial leverage from the research groups or government agencies.

GeM flies again

 

Following a very successful final meeting for AMIRA’s foundation geometallurgy project P843 GeMIII (Geometallurgical Mapping and Mine Modelling) in June, an innovative new proposal for continuing and expanding the research program has proven popular with sponsors. As a result the new P843A project began on July 1 and will include new areas of research in hydrometallurgy and environmental aspects.

The development of the original project P843 was driven by AMIRA’s members who recognised the need for better cradle-to-grave mine planning and optimisation. The resultant project was the fastest growing and largest foundation project in AMIRA’s 50-year history, and is now one of AMIRA’s most important and largest research collaborations. Its main aim is to allow predictive ore and waste characterisation from the first stages of discovery and resource evaluation for later efficient optimisation of mine planning and processing. Avoidance of risk in later mine development (“no surprises”) and maximization of economic recovery over the full life of the deposit are keys to the value of the project.

 

The original project focused on the integrated development of low cost quantitative (sometimes non-traditional) measurement of key geological parameters and proxies for critical geological properties which were suitable for inclusion in mine planning block models. While continuing this work, the new project will move more to application in various case studies on deposits. Already nine deposits have been nominated by sponsors for possible case studies – these include Chuquicamata Norte, Teniente, Andina and other deposits in Chile, La Colosa in Colombia, Prominent Hill in Australia, Wafi in PNG and several others.

The research is being conducted under the leadership of Professor Steve Walters by our world leading institutions: the CODES Centre of Excellence at the University of Tasmania, the JKMRC, the Bryan Research Centre and Centre for Mined Land Rehabilitation in the Sustainable Minerals Institute at the University of Queensland, and the Parker Centre in Western Australia.

The formal proposal is now being provided to other companies who may wish to also participate in this outstanding collaborative research opportunity. Please contact Dr Alan Goode (alan.goode@amira.com.au) at AMIRA for further information.

Head Office: Level 2   271 William Street Melbourne 3000 Australia Phone: +61 3 8636 9999 Facsimile +61 3 8636 9900