Report on Canadian Mineral Processors Annual Meeting 2018

The Canadian Mineral Processors (CMP) conference is held every year in the same location, the Westin Hotel in Ottawa. It is one of the world's largest gatherings of mineral processors, mainly representing Canada.

Approximately 600 delegates attended the 50th annual national meeting of the CMP last month – a record attendance, and I thank Dr. Norman Lotter, of Flowsheets Metallurgical Consulting Inc., for this short report on the event.

Jonna Muinonen

The conference was opened by Jonna Muinonen, president of the 2017-2018 session, and VP-Operations for Royal Nickel.  The theme was “Past, Present and Future”, reflecting on the 50-year history of the conference.

The conference saw a strong showing of technical papers, ranging from reviews of technology development across the last five decades, to a session focussed on gold processing, in which Gekko and Curtin University reported the development and successful commissioning of “Carbon Scout”, a carbon concentration meter which, combined with SIMCIL, a carbon process simulator which models optimum set point on a regular basis, reduces soluble gold losses from the carbon circuit. The paper was presented by Greg Rasmussen, VP of Gekko Systems, Vancouver.

The awards banquet recognised several mineral processors for their contributions to the profession. For the first time in the history of the conference, a double award was made for the Mineral Processor of the Year to Glenn Dobby and Glenn Kosick, of Woodgrove Technologies, Ontario, for their development of the Staged Flotation Reactor.  Honorary Life Membership was awarded to Ken Major of Vancouver for his many contributions to the conference.  Best paper of the 2017 conference went to Jean-Francois Dupont, of Detour Gold Mining Co., North Ontario, for his paper on the effect of choke-feeding a gyratory crusher on throughput and product size.

Norman Lotter, of Flowsheets Metallurgical Consulting Inc., Canada, presented a 50-year review of the history and current standing of process mineralogy.  He is shown together with Alexa Cattani, of Welco Expediters, and John Eggert (right), of Eggert Engineering.

The organising committee and contributing authors are to be congratulated on an excellent conference.

Norman Lotter