Thursday 12 September 2019

MetPlant 2019 - Day 2

After a quick breakfast of pastries and fruit, kindly provided by Glencore Technology, who are also sponsoring MEI's Flotation '19 and Comminution '20 conferences, Janine Herzig once again welcomed us to the event.

Today's programme began with Session 5: Keynotes to challenge current thinking, and consisted of three consecutive keynote presentations followed by a 25 minute Q&A discussion.

Kathy Ehrig, of BHP Olympic Dam, began the day with Effect of Gangue Material on Flow Sheet Design and Plant Operation - Olympic Dam.

This was followed by Metallurgical Accounting in Practice: Performance Non-Negotiables presented by Aidan Giblett of Newmont Goldcorp Corporation and The Definition of Project Success from Dean David of Wood.

There followed a half hour coffee break with three eposter presentations.

I met Robert Jr Palme at the coffee station, from Porgera Joint Venture, who presented an interesting paper yesterday afternoon, Porgera Post Earthquake Learnings. An earthquake of magnitude 7.5 knocked out the power station supplying the mine last year, and Robert detailed the operational ingenuity employed, the decision making processes, and learnings of the process plant in the 3 months following the earthquake while the plant was run using generators providing only 10-15MW.

Robert Jr Palme (Porgera Joint Venture)
Harold Danilkewich (Woodgrove Technologies) and 
Peter Colvin (Consolidated Minerals), who I last saw at 
Flotation '03 in Helsinki, it was good to have a reminisce!

Session 6: Optimisation of Existing Operations consisted of papers dealing with improved recovery at Boddington, Tarkwa and Syama gold mines followed by a 20 minute Q&A discussion.

Over the hour's lunch break I caught up with Scott Doig of FloCEP, who I had sat next to at last night's dinner. Scott introduced me to FloCEP's MAXbend and FLOdistributor which can be retrofitted to existing equipment, restoring plant efficiency and reducing maintenance costs.

Scott Doig (FloCEP)

Austbrokers Countrywide ran a competition to win a drone and here Sales &
Marketing Manager 
Matt Crewe hands the prize to the winner, Robert Rejall
(
Innovative Filtration Solutions)

At the Process IQ booth: Pieter StrobosEmily Mort (St Barbara), Adrian PaineStuart NuttallPaula Cairns
Dimitra Pierros (BHP Nickel West) and Tryphena Mitchell (Solvay)


After lunch, the rest of the day followed the same format as yesterday, with each session starting with a keynote lecture and then three further papers and a 20 minute Q&A discussion.

Session 7: Implementation of technology had a keynote from Stephen Morrell of SMC Testing, entitled How to Formulate  an Effective Ore Comminution Characterisation Program.

After the Q&A discussion Alison Keogh, CEEC Chief Executive, presented the 2019 CEEC Award to Graeme Jameson and Cagri Emer, for their paper, published in Minerals Engineering, entitled, Coarse chalopyrite recovery in a universal froth flotation machine.

CEEC Chief Executive Alison Keogh with the 2019 CEEC Medal winners Graeme Jameson and Cagri Emer (photo credit: Chris Sykes)


During the coffee break I met up with some more people.

Luke Bennett and Chad Koch of thyssenkrupp

The Russell Mineral Equipment booth: Lucinda TalbotDavid McKewenTarnya McBurneyTrent Donges. RME are sponsoring MEI's Comminution '20 event in Cape Town


Session 8: Control Methodologies and Plant Design III began with the keynote Process Innovation and Intellectual Property: Is there really a Business Case? from Peter Munro of Mineralis Consultants.

This session ended with three awards presentations. The Innovation Award, made of black granite from South Australia and sponsored by Russell Mineral Equipment was presented by John Russell (Russell Mineral Equuipment) and Janine Herzig (MetVal Consulting & President of the AusIMM) to Zac Hearne (Independence Group NL) and his co-authors Jody Crow (Independence Group NL)  and Greg Gomes (Independence Group NL) for Improved recovery through changes in operating philosophies at IGO's Nova Operation.

Winners of the Innovation Award Greg Gomes, Zac Hearne and Jody Crow pictured with the judges, including John Russell (right)  (photo credit: Chris Sykes)

Then the awards for Best Paper and Best Presentation were made by Janine Herzig to Will Downie (MMG), for his paper Application of a Net Smelter Return Model to Maximise Value at the Rosebery Polymetallic Base Metal Processing Plant and Duncan Bennett  (Mineralis Consultants), for his presentation entitled Simple Recipe Guide to Designing Effective Gravity Concentration Circuits.

After that, all that was left was for Janine Herzig to close the conference with a quick round up of the take-home themes from the event.  Most importantly, be proud, work hard, celebrate your wins and we'll celebrate with you!

Many thanks to the AusIMM for the smooth running of this event and allowing me to come and report on it. I had a great time catching up with new friends and old and hope to return again.

Amanda Wills @MEI_Conferences

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