MEI's Amanda at MetPlant 2026

MetPlant '26, Australia's premier mineral processing event, was held at the Adelaide Convention Centre this week, with a theme of "World’s Best Practice in Metallurgical Plant Design and Operating Strategies". Presentations included ESG in processing operations, water and tailings management, unit processes such as gravity, sorting, comminution, flotation, filtration, thickening, process control, hydrometallurgy and pyrometallurgy and refining. 

Historically, MetPlant has been organised by the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM), as it was on my last visit in 2013, and Amanda's in 2019. Although MetPlant '26 was closely linked to AusIMM networks and communities, it was organised by an external committee, headed by the very able convenor Janine Herzig, a former AusIMM President and former Executive President and Director of the Coalition for Minerals Efficiency (CEEC). CEEC is an industry advocate for MEI's Critical Minerals '26 and Comminution '27 and was a media partner for MetPlant '26, as was MEI.

Amanda Wills and Janine Herzig

Amanda represented MEI at the conference, and reported on her experiences each day through LinkedIn (#MetPlant 2026). Her daily reports and photos are summarised below.

MetPlant '26 began on Sunday afternoon with what Amanda described as a sobering Special Distinguished Lecture by Simon Michaux, of the Geological Survey of Finland - "Do we have the metals required to transition away from fossil fuels?"  The short answer being no! He said that Britain cannot deliver on its ambitious net zero push because the world does not have enough minerals to do it, one of the reasons why we feel that Critical Minerals '26 in November is so important (see also posting of 10 April 2023).  Good to hear that the new South Australian Premier has positioned mining as one of the top two priorities for the government.

The lecture was followed up by a "Meet the Exhibitors" networking drinks reception where Amanda was happy to spend some time chatting with Kevin Galvin, of the University of Newcastle, Bill Skinner, of Adelaide University,  Adel Vatandoost, of Fortescue and Richmond Asamoah, of Adelaide University, amongst others.

Kevin, Bill, Adel and Richmond

Kevin and Richmond will be involved with presentations at next month's Physical Separation '26 and Mineral Processing Circuits '26 in Cape Town, Kevin presenting the keynote lecture at Mineral Processing Circuits '26.

Adel suggested that, although MEI's Process Mineralogy '26 will have geometallurgy input,  we might consider running a conference dedicated solely to geometallurgy and mine-to-mill. Thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Amanda enjoyed Monday's first morning at MetPlant, which was packed with great presentations.  She particularly enjoyed Jess Page's on "Applications of Generative AI in Heap Leach Modelling" as it was directly relevant to MEI's new conference pairing, AI in Mineral Processing '27 and Hydrometallurgy '27, and she caught up with some familiar faces during the coffee and lunch breaks.

Amanda with Nobuzwe Makhotla of Innospec, South Africa

Sam Ayoub and Basil Ayoub of Continental Engineering Services, Australia

Alfredtina Appiah (University of Tasmania), Daniel Nyarko (Adelaide University)
and Andrew Newell (SLR Consulting)

Amanda also enjoyed the Monday afternoon and evening. She said the afternoon was packed with interesting papers, including one from Mark Drechsler on "Early gangue rejection using gyratory rolls crushing technology", and another from Matt Pyle, of Ausenco, on "Cost effective concentrator design".

Mark is seen first left on the photo below, with fellow Adelaide University students and staff.

Source: LinkedIn

There was plenty of time for networking too. As well as the afternoon coffee break, JKTech Pty Ltd sponsored a Welcome Reception in the exhibition hall, where Amanda was delighted to catch up with Rod Price and Paul Pengpai, of Sino Grinding International, sponsors of Comminution '27.

Also sponsoring Comminution '27 is Metcelerate and Amanda caught up with Diana Drinkwater and Elaine Wightman, who very kindly invited her out for a wonderful Japanese banquet once the reception had ended. 

Diana, Elaine and Gerson Sandoval

Christy Randall, Tania Ledezm and Peter Bartsch

Bill Skinner, Tom Hilder, Virginia and Bob Lawson

Finally, Amanda was pleased to see Marco Lombard again, having not seen him since MetPlant 2019. Along with Xavier du Toit, seen in the photo below with Danielle Bell of Core Resources Pty Ltd and Matt Lloyd of Stone Three, he is part of the Magotteaux delegation, who are also sponsors of Comminution '27 as well as Flotation '27.

Marco, Danielle, Matt and Xavier

Amanda caught up with Marco and Xavier and the rest of the team on Tuesday morning at the Magotteaux sponsored breakfast where there was an excellent keynote lecture on AI-Driven Process Plant Optimisation by Ali Soofastaei of Soofastaei Institute. 

The Magotteaux team (source LinkedIn)

Then it was straight into the first session of the day, on "Plant Optimisation", which included two papers from PT Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara, a major Indonesian mining company. covering operations at Batu Hijau, one of the largest copper-gold mines in Indonesia. Senior metallurgist, Victor Suganda Rulie discussed improving oversize detection at the Batu Hijau gyratory crushers.

At the end of the session, CEEC Director Grant Ballantyne, the 2017 MEI Young Person's Award winner, awarded the CEEC International medals, as well as a surprise Special Recognition prize to Joe Pease, of Mineralis, a former CEEC chairman.

Joe Pease (2nd right) with Mineralis colleagues (source LinkedIn)

During the coffee break, Amanda was happy to see Matthew Toll, a frequent visitor to MEI's comminution conferences with Global Met Tech. Matthew had also presented in the first session  "Improving regrind performance on Bozshakol copper concentrate", and he was with his colleague Murray Johnson. Amanda also chatted with Chris Heah of ME Elecmetal, another of our Comminution '27 sponsors.

Matthew, Murray and Chris

The afternoon saw another packed programme, including an interesting presentation by Toni Kojovic, Managing Director of SimSAGe Pty Ltd, on "Application of rapid hardness index testing for estimating ore hardness and grindability".

Following the last session, those with tickets for the Syensqo sponsored Conference Dinner gathered for pre-dinner drinks, where Amanda talked to Richmond Asamoah, of Adelaide University and Andry Lazamanana, of Magotteaux.

Andry, Amanda and Richmond

She said the dinner was delicious and delegates were treated to a fascinating and entertaining talk by Prof Melissa de Zwart on "Space is not a "Wild West": Why you need a lawyer in space". 

And so to Wednesday, the final day at MetPlant which proved to be just as informative and fun as the first two!

Amanda decided to skip the breakfast presentation, and so had a slower morning, beginning with an interesting keynote from Neville Plint, of Mining3, on "Can collaborations simplify commercialisation of novel technologies?".

Chris Greet, consultant at Magotteaux and Mineralis, provided plenty of entertainment with his talk on "Application of vertical shaft impact on SAG mill pebble scats", and to finish the session it was time for the Russell Mineral Equipment Innovation Award. Congratulations to Brianna Ganly on winning with her presentation on "Real-time measurement of silica in process stream".

Amanda enjoyed catching up with Juan Diego Hiedra, of Carbo Industrial Technologies, Spain and Pradeep Sahu, of Eirich Official,  during coffee, as well as George Abaka-Wood, Richel Annan Dadzie and Theophilus Amos-Judge, of Adelaide University.

Pradeep and Juan

George, Richel and Theophilus

She admits to skipping the next session, in order to spend a bit more time chatting with the exhibitors, including Ron Roy, Jody Crow and  Christopher Hockaday of ALS, and also taking the opportunity to pop into the Syensqo booth to thank Stuart Emery and Tony Moore for the dinner on Tuesday evening.

Ron, Jody and Christopher

Stuart and Tony

Lunch was spent chatting to Rachel O'Halloran, of Australian Institute of Business and Mark Drechsler, of Adelaide University, among others, and Amanda was delighted to be introduced to Kyran Daniel by his father Mike Daniel, both of CMD Consulting.

Mark, Rachel, Kyran and Mike

Caroline Woywadt, André and Julia Kluge of Gebr. Pfeiffer Mining, Germany

The final session of the conference, Case Studies, included a presentation by Michael Davis, of MineScope Services, on "The golden path to recovery of refractory gold".

The conference ended with the awards for Best Paper, Presentation, Poster, and People's Choice - congratulations to Didit Ardi Maulana, Liam Coleman and Elise Naumann, Ali Rezvani, and Courtney Dobson.

Finally, delegates gathered one more time, to have a drink together and say goodbyes. Amanda says it was so good to catch up with so many familiar faces from our MEI Conferences and to meet so many new people and she hopes to see as many of you as possible at upcoming events this year and next, as well as MetPlant 2028 in Adelaide in March 2028.

A huge thank you to the conference convenor, Janine Herzig - you did a fantastic job!

#MetPlant2026
#MEIBlog