Interesting news and people at the Cornish Mining Sundowner

There was a great turnout of around 25 at last night's sundowner at Falmouth's Chain Locker, with a number of new faces adding to the regular attendees.

Some of the sundowner 'regulars'

It was particularly good to welcome Mohammad Hadi Mohammadi from Afghanistan. As an academic he was vulnerable to the Taliban, and the Camborne School of Mines (CSM) and the CSM Trust arranged his appointment at CSM where he will work with CSM's Prof. Frances Wall on a 2-year research fellowship. The move was facilitated by the Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA), a charitable British organisation dedicated to assisting academics in immediate danger.

Mohammad with Frances Wall and the CSM Trust's Tony Batchelor and Nick Clarke

It was also good to meet representatives from London's Natural History Museum, who are in Cornwall for project meetings assessing the geology and processing of lithium deposits in the county.

The Natural History Museum visitors

I was pleased to offer my congratulations to a sundowner regular, and old friend, Mike Hallewell, who has been appointed as Consulting Metallurgist for Cornish Metals and so will be leading the process development effort for the impending studies for the regeneration of the old South Crofty tin mine.  Mike is the ideal person for this role as he worked in the tin industry from 1984 to 1998 and played a key role in the development of the Wheal Jane flowsheet for treatment of South Crofty Ore at the Wheal Jane Processing plant near Truro. Mike led the team that was responsible for the successful implementation of the Mozley MGS technology (posting of 4 June 2015) as a final stage of cleaning on tin flotation, a success that was copied by many tin mining operations globally at that time.

Mike Hallewell (2nd right) with fellow mineral processors BW,
Dave Goldburn (Holman-Wilfley) and Andy Wilkinson (Metso Outotec)

Andy Wells

Mike's mentors at South Crofty and Wheal Jane were Tony Elliott and Andy Wells respectively and he said that he always has and will remember them for their metallurgical standards. Mike took over as Mill Superintendent from Andy Wells in 1991 when Andy left to join the Neves-Corvo zinc-copper mine in Portugal and Mike went on to become the longest serving Mill Manager (7yrs) at Wheal Jane.

Mike also had some sad news, of the death earlier in the year of Andy Wells. Andy left Neves-Corvo in 1996 and returned to the UK to become principal metallurgist and later a director of IMC Mackay & Schnellmann. In 2004, he joined the London-based consulting partnership, Saint Barbara, where he continued his engagement in minerals projects as principal metallurgist, manager and then as owner. A full obituary is on the IOM3 website.

Missing from the usual attendees was Nick Wilshaw, as on the previous evening he attended a mineral processing sundowner 200 miles away in Cardiff, hosted by Maelgwyn Mineral Services, with staff from MMS, SRK Consulting, and Nick's Cornish company Grinding Solutions.

The Cardiff sundowner: Liam Macnamara (SRK), Dave Pattinson (SRK), Dan Abraham (GS),
James Gaydon (GS), Nick Wilshaw (GS), Mike Battersby (MMS), Steve Flatman (MMS)
John Willis (SRK) and Ryan Schultz (MMS)

Liam Macnamara has recently joined SRK after many years with FLSmidth, and Ryan Scultz is a recent addition to the MMS Cardiff Office, after spending some time at MMS in Johannesburg. Ryan’s responsibilities at MMS, from his 10 years of operational experience in South Africa on PGMs and chromite sands and the Democratic Republic of Congo on copper and cobalt, are to implement all the required systems around the Aachen technology, while building and maintaining client relationships, by ensuring the best performance of the MMS technology through regular consultations and servicing.

The next sundowner, at the Chain Locker, is on Thursday June 16th from 5.30pm. We will be very pleased to see you if you are in the area.

@barrywills