Welcoming Paterson & Cooke as New Sponsors for Hydrometallurgy ’27 and Flotation ’27

Paterson & Cooke is a specialist engineering consultancy that works with mining and minerals companies worldwide. Founded in 1991 it was originally headquartered in South Africa but is now a global company with offices across the UK, Europe, North and South America and Australia.

Paterson & Cooke provides engineering design, consulting, and technical services across the mining lifecycle, specialising in difficult, high-risk aspects of mining, helping mines meet environmental and safety standards and providing expertise in critical minerals processing. The company has more than thirty years of industry experience in slurry pipelines and mining related systems and has expertise in tailings and mine waste handling, long distance concentrate and bulk water supply pipelines, mine backfill process plants and underground distribution systems, marine dredging, and mineral processing. 

The company's first involvement with MEI Conferences was in Falmouth, UK, for Computational Modelling '15 and then Computational Modelling '19, where the USA office was represented. At Physical Separation '19 in Falmouth it was the UK office that was represented, and then at Flotation '23, Critical Minerals '24 and Flotation '25 in Cape Town, representation came via the South African office.

Paterson & Cooke exhibited for the first time at Critical Minerals '24 and then again at Flotation '25, but we are now delighted to welcome them as first time sponsors, of Hydrometallurgy '27 and Flotation '27 in Cape Town.

Albert du Toit and Ron Rampersad, of Paterson & Cooke, with Amanda Wills at Critical Minerals '24

Hydrometallurgy '27 is the first in what we hope will be a series, and Paterson & Cooke join early sponsors Capstone Copper and Maelgwyn Mineral Services.

A spokesman for Paterson & Cooke said "Events like these play a valuable role in moving the industry forward. At Paterson & Cooke, we continue to support the advancement of hydrometallurgical solutions through practical metallurgical and process test work, engineering excellence, and deep industry collaboration. Looking forward to the conversations and shared insights that help shape the future of our industry".

Flotation '27, although 18 months away is already off to a great start, and we welcome Paterson & Cooke who join many of our regular sponsors who committed early to the 13th conference in the series.

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Friday at Mineral Processing Circuits '26

Another beautiful sunny day to end this two-day conference, with ten presentations today and a last chance to check out the four exhibitors during the long coffee and lunch breaks.

Doug Caffell, of Sepro Systems, Canada, is based in Devon, UK, and is a regular at the Cornish Mining Sundowners. Sepro is known for innovation in gravity separation technology and the company is looking forward to a strong year. While there has currently been reasons for concern or anxiety in the world, there is also a fair bit of optimism in the mining sector. In particular with gold, tin and tungsten, Sepro's specialist areas. The application of the new Frontier bowl for additional fine gold recovery as well as Continuous Falcon concentrators for fine and ultrafine tin and tungsten recovery sees Sepro well placed to service this strengthening demand.  

Amanda with Ernest Wermuth and Doug Caffell of Sepro Systems

FLS is a regular supporter of MEI Conferences, and was showcasing its latest gravity separation technologies, which allow for gravity separation into sub 75 micron scale, which is unprecedented in the industry. On display were models of the Reflux Classifier and the GradePro, which uses the same core technology as the Reflux Classifier, but is refined and optimised for recovering value from lower-grade, more challenging material, which is where the mining industry is heading. We have been fortunate to have the inventor of these machines (and the Reflux Flotation Cell), Prof. Kevin Galvin, at both conferences this week. In the photo below Kevin and FLS' Lance Christodoulou and Anson Gilbert show models of the Reflux Classifier and GradePro to Paul Miller, of Bactech Environmental Corporation, Australia and Rex Zietsman, of Globe Metals and Mining, Australia.

Paul, Lance, Kevin, Anson and Rex

Amanda closed the conference, thanking our sponsors, the exhibitors. speakers and delegates and inviting attendance at the 2nd Mineral Processing Circuits event, which will be held in February 2028, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 

Those remaining then joined us in the hotel gardens, for the first time this week, for a farewell sundowner.

A summary of the presentations, with links to the draft papers, is scheduled for publication on the blog on Thursday 7th May.

An album of photos taken during the conference is available and you may download any of these photos for your own use. For commercial use please acknowledge the source as MEI Conferences.

Reactions to the conference on LinkedIn can be found via #MineralProcessingCircuits26.

If you would like weekly alerts to MEI blog postings by email you can subscribe by adding your email address to this link.

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Thursday at Mineral Processing Circuits '26

Mineral Processing Circuits '26 was held at the Vineyard Hotel, Cape Town, and MEI's Jon welcomed the 46 delegates from 14 countries, a number considerably diminished due to the Gulf War's restrictions on international travel. He gave a special thanks to our sponsors, Promet101 and Capstone Copper, and our media partners International Mining and Minerals Engineering.

The conference got underway with a fine keynote lecture from Prof. Kevin Galvin, of the University of Newcastle, Australia, who introduced a new paradigm for mineral processing circuits, and what might underpin the philosophy. This was followed by six morning presentations dealing with circuits for rare earths and lithium, and reduction of energy in mineral processing circuits.

Thanks to the now beautiful weather it was good to get outdoors during the coffee break to relax in the lovely conference centre gardens.

A small exhibition provided a focus during the lunch break, the four exhibitors also having exhibited at Physical Separation '26.

Germany based GeoEnergy Consult is new to MEI Conferences. The team specialises in the management of natural radioactivity material (NORM), extending its support to mining/processing projects that have been impacted. For instance, GeoEnergy Consult assists in the compliant Class 7 transport of relevant preconcentrates that require careful handling. The company also offers its expertise in exploring safe options for the disposal of processing residues that may be impacted. Their commitment lies in ensuring that all necessary precautions are taken to manage the challenges posed by natural radioactivity effectively and responsibly. Hagen Gunther Jung, of GeoEnergy Consult is shown below talking to Sebastian Urrejola and Pablo Pichinao, of Anglo American T&O, Chile.

Australian company Scantech International is a mining and industrial measurement technology company which develops real-time material analysers used on conveyor belts, to measure the composition of bulk materials.  George Tabi, of Scantech, was talking to Kalyani Mohanti, of UPC Barcelona, Spain and  Oliver Samukute, of Molycop, South Africa.

Following lunch, a short afternoon session of six presentations ended with a coffee break prior to boarding a coach for the conference dinner at a brand new MEI venue, the Wild Fig Restaurant, built around a restored historic estate dating back to the 1700s.

We enjoyed it!  Hope you did too

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Welcome to Mineral Processing Circuits '26

A little after 3 hours since the close of Physical Separation '26 we welcomed the first of our delegates to Mineral Processing Circuits '26. We look forward to the start of this 2-day conference, the smallest in the MEI series, tomorrow morning.

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Wednesday at Physical Separation '26

The weather has changed at last, and it was great to see people out on the terrace taking group photos with the glorious Table Mountain backdrop.

Cornish Mining Sundowner regulars: Amanda and Barry Wills (MEI),
Cameron Dyer, David Cadwell and David Mildren (Gravity Mining),
Doug Caffell (Sepro Systems) and Dave Goldburn (Holman-Wilfley)

Despite the improvement in the weather there was a good turnout for the final morning of the conference, which focused on gravity separation, the oldest form of ore concentration.

The biggest group at the event is from sponsor Mineral Technologies representing Australia, Mauritius and South Africa. Mineral Technologies has just completed a transaction to acquire MetQ, a South African based spiral and cyclone supplier. This will give the company a central hub in Africa from which to serve its customers even better. 80% of the world's spirals come from Mineral Technologies.

This has been a week of firsts for sponsor Gravity Mining, manufacturer of Multi-Gravity Separators (MGS), who are based in Cornwall, UK. They have presented for the first time at an MEI conference, with their first exhibition stand, and a first team visit to Cape Town.  Africa, however, is far from new ground for the company, as demand across the continent continues to keep the Cornwall factory at full stretch, with current programmes spanning tin, rare earths, chromite and iron ore. They are proud to be shipping their first MGS unit to Japan in the coming weeks for Incinerator Bottom Ash processing, a new application that demonstrates the breadth of fine gravity separation, unlocking value from streams beyond the reach of conventional flotation.

David Mildren, Cameron Dyer and David Cadwell, of Gravity Mining,
with Albert Jan Venter, of Coremet Mineral Processing, South Africa

Amanda closed the conference after the morning session, thanking our sponsors, the exhibitors. speakers and delegates and inviting attendance at the 10th Physical Separation event, which will be held in the first quarter of 2028, the venue yet to be decided. It may be Cape Town again, or a complete change, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We would greatly appreciate your thoughts on this.

A summary of the presentations, with links to the draft papers, is scheduled for publication on the blog on Monday May 4th.

An album of photos taken during the week is available and you may download any of these photos for your own use. For commercial use please acknowledge the source as MEI Conferences.

Reactions to the conference on LinkedIn can be found via #PhysicalSeparation26.

If you would like weekly alerts to MEI blog postings by email you can subscribe by adding your email address to this link.

#MEIBlog

Tuesday at Physical Separation '26

A cold and wet morning again, with a late start due to a number of withdrawals because of travel restrictions. So only five presentations this morning, with long breaks for lunch and time to mingle with the exhibitors.

Mintek is South Africa’s national mineral research organisation and is always well represented at MEI Conferences. Their four representatives, Nichole Maistry, Ashan Singh, Getrude Marape and Tebogo Mokgomola are picture below, talking to Christina Ramotsabi, of Multotec Process Equipment.

Consulmet, a private South African company that designs and builds processing plants, also has four representatives: Quinton Phillips, Nico Van Vuuren, Ryno Pieters and Johan Bezuidenhout.

Paterson & Cooke Consulting Engineers have become regular exhibitors at MEI Conferences and we will be featuring them on April 27th, as next year they will be sponsoring MEI Conferences for the first time, at Hydrometallurgy '27 in June and Flotation '27 in November. Jon called at the booth to thank their representative Albert Du Toit.

And a short afternoon with five presentations after which we at last broke free from the conference environment for the conference dinner at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.

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