Process Mineralogy '17 off to a great start

I opened the conference this morning, welcoming the 97 delegates from 21 counties, and thanking our sponsors for their support.

Eric Pirard of the University of Liege, Belgium then presented his keynote lecture on process mineralogy's role in boosting the circular economy.

It is great to see my old friend Alan Butcher back at an MEI Conference. Alan played a big part in the development of the concept for the Process Mineralogy conferences. While at Intellection in Australia, Alan forged a link between the company and MEI to run annual conferences on Automated Mineralogy in Brisbane. Commencing in 2006, these proved successful until the collapse of Intellection in 2008, after which we moved the conferences to Cape Town in 2010, as the biennial Process Mineralogy series, of which Process Mineralogy '17 is the 4th in the series.

Alan and I at the first Automated Mineralogy conference in 2006

Alan and I were colleagues at Camborne School of Mines before he joined CSIRO in Australia, and then Intellection. He joined FEI when Intellection's assets were taken over by FEI, and he has recently been appointed to a senior research position at the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK), as professor of geomaterials and applied mineralogy. It is a brand new role at GTK and reflects the recent changes in strategy by the organisation, which is developing new areas of innovative research that can lead to growth in areas not traditionally carried out by geological surveys in any detail, such as the detailed study of commercially important geomaterials (for example the applied mineralogy of ores, building stones, aggregates, soils, and various mineral based-man-made materials).

Particular topics expected to be targeted in the future include innovative approaches to geometallurgy, process mineralogy of ores, man-made product manufacture, and advanced mineral analysis methodologies. One area of general operating philosophy in Alan’s work is the concept of cross-disciplinary research, whereby engineers and scientists closely work together in collaborative teams, and use their combined experiences and skills to solve common challenges. This is a practice he has learnt, to great effect, from his time spent working with, for example, geophysicists, reservoir engineers and reservoir quality geologists, on petroleum industry projects whilst at FEI.

An emotional Alan receives his honorary MEI cap!

Twitter @barrywills #ProcessMineralogy17