Wednesday, March 10, 2010
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Career Guidance CD Mining Companies need well educated and trained engineers and scientists.  The SAIMM Career Guidance and Education Committee has assumed much of the work previously carried out by the Chamber of Mines in the area of Career Guidance and Education promotion, in the disciplines of Mining Engineering, Mine Surveying, Geology and Metallurgy.

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Refractories 2010 Date: 16 - 17 March 2010 Venue: Cradle Of Humankind, Gauteng.
South Africa is a major user of refractory materials since it has a strong pyrometallurgical industry (whereby commodities such as iron and steel, stainless steel, ferrochrome,  ferromanganese, silicomanganese, silicon, PGMs, titania and aluminium are produced), a petrochemical industry which is the largest in Africa, a cement industry which supplies its civil engineering and building sectors, as well as glass smelting and recycling operations, and a foundry industry.  SEE MORE HERE...
Mineral Law And Policy Conference 2010 Date: 12 April 2010 Venue: Misty Hills Conference Centre, Cradle of Humankind, Gauteng There have been many legal developments such as the ownership of mine dumps, the declaration of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act as expropriating mining rights of landowners, the Mining Charter being reviewed and the new Mineral and Petroleum Resource Royalty Act.
SEE MORE HERE...
SAIMM Events The SAIMM conferences and symposia on offer to members of the SAIMM deliver information and networking opportunities that meet the needs of the SAIMM member audience. Specifically in terms of knowledge-gain/transfer needs; promotion of the industry in a positive light and creating room for inter-action with one’s peer group.

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CAREER GUIDANCE
 SANCOT SAMREC and SAMVAL
A special welcome to those seeking a career in the Minerals and Metals industry which holds challenges and rewards and will prove to be an exciting adventure.
SANCOT (The South African National Committee on Tunnelling) was formed in 1973 and is a founding member of the International Tunnelling Association which was itself formed in 1974.

Visit SANCOT
 The Samcode Group of Codes currently comprise the SAMREC Code and the SAMVAL Code, which are set up and administered by the SSC Committee. This Committee is a joint Committee of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM) and the Geological Society of South Africa (GSSA).

Available jobs

THE CONSULTING PARTNERSHIP PTE LTD – METALLURGIST TO WORK IN ASIA, BASED IN SINGAPORE.
Our Client, a MNC into Surface Chemistry, provides outstanding technologies on process aids for mineral ores enrichment processes. Asia is still a small market, but with quality demand increasing and exhaustion of high purity ores, they see more and more companies looking to install purification facilities that will require their chemicals.

Usually, tailored formulations for customers are developed by sending samples of their ores to labs in Europe.
Currently, they have a very experienced technical sales person based in Europe who visits Asia regularly. Their sales manager, based in Australia, is also very knowledgeable of the mining industry. However, they have nobody in Asia that can give technical support, speak the language of the metallurgists who work in the mines, and be the liaison with the formulation development labs.

Thus, they have been looking for a metallurgist (not a mining engineer) to be that technical expert in Asia. Based in Singapore, his duties will be to:
  • Provide technical guidance to customers
  • Interpret questions and requests from customers and brief Europe accordingly
  • Prospect new opportunities for existing technologies
  • Be the focal point for the introduction of new mining products in Asia
  • Understand the field of ore purification
  • Report to the Performance Applications Manger, based in Shanghai
  • Undertake a heavy travel schedule (may suit someone under 40yr?)
Interested applicants please kindly contact Don Tran at
+65 64351268 or +65 92222317
don.tran@tcpgroup.com

Mining Weekly Headlines

  • Atlas Iron and Aurox announce merger
    Australian iron-ore miner Atlas Iron on Wednesday announced that it would merge with Aurox Minerals –a deal which would see it secure additional port capacity at Hedland, in Western Australia. The two ASX-listed companies plan to implement the merger by executing a scheme implementation agreement.
  • China's Ansteel sees iron-ore benchmark deal in April
    A deal on benchmark iron ore prices is expected to be reached in April, the president of China's Anshan Iron & Steel Group said on Wednesday, but urged the big ore suppliers to be more reasonable in their demands. Negotiations in 2009 between the big miners and mills broke down when Chinese buyers failed to win bigger discounts than Japanese and South Korean rivals and many market watchers had expected long and potentially fruitless talks for the 2010 contract.
  • Freeport-McMoRan CEO says Congo pact close
    Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold is close to reaching an agreement with the Democratic Congo government that would allow it to expand its huge copper/cobalt mine in the central African nation, its chief executive said on Tuesday. "The government has been realigned within the last month ... and there are positive indications that we are within sight of having a conclusion to this process," Richard Adkerson told the Reuters Global Mining and Steel Summit here.
  • West African gold production to rise 30% – GFMS
    Gold production from West Africa is set to rise about 30% over the next 4 years, driven largely by higher output from Randgold and Iamgold, a top executive of metals consultancy GFMS said on Tuesday. "In West Africa gold mine production is growing, the figures are obviously a lot smaller there, as it is a smaller sector," Managing Director Paul Burton told an event hosted by MineAfrica -- a group that promotes mining investment in Africa.
  • Gold steadies as euro bounces; weak oil may weigh
    Gold steadied on Wednesday after the euro bounced slightly higher against the US dollar though weaker oil prices could prompt new selling, traders said. Dealers noted early bargain hunting from Chinese speculators but gold prices were susceptible to sharp movements due to low volumes. Platinum and palladium slipped in early trade but held near recent highs.
  • TSX-bound Orocobre predicts consolidation, attrition in lithium space
    The lithium exploration and development sector will need to consolidate, and will probably also see a considerable attrition of companies with more marginal prospects, Orocobre chairperson James Calaway commented on Tuesday. Buoyed by the recent hype around lithium, which is used in rechargeable batteries including for hybrid vehicles, there are now around 60 firms that have declared themselves lithium companies, he said.

Converting techno talk to techno transfer

Journal Comment

‘Publish or Perish’  ‘The Academic Man: A Study in the Sociology of a Profession’  Logan Wilson, 1942

This first issue of 2010 features a selection of contributions from the Hardrock Safety conference in September 2009. This is as important a topic as any for an industry that deals with a work function as hazardous as that of deep-level hard rock mining. It is also as complex as any involving rock mechanics, seismology, zero defect in engineering and instrumentation, plus psychology, training and exhaustion hygiene, as illustrated in the papers. In seismology, for example, there have been non-stop efforts to correlate seismic signals with an early warning methodology to avoid rock bursts and other seismic disturbances which can lead to a disastrous loss of life. This work has been going on for over half a century from the time the Chamber of Mines obtained its first (analogue) computer, which was soon replaced by a succession of the best digital systems in an attempt to model the seismic effects into a useful predictive pattern.

Read more: Converting techno talk to techno transfer

   

Handbook on Mine Fill now available

MINEFILL2011

HandbookOnMineFill_copyThe use of mine fill is almost as old as mining itself. Future land use considerations and evolving community attitudes demand that industry comprehensively explores the use of fill, particularly fill generated from mining waste in a diverse range of underground and surface operations.

This book is a concise summary of the considerable body of mine fill knowledge and experience and provides mining engineers and those responsible for the application of fill with a one stop reference, covering the most significant aspects of fill.

Editors: Y. Potvin, E. Thomas and A. Fourie
Publisher: Australian Centre for Geomechanics
ISBN: 0-9756756-2-1
Number of pages: 179

See more details here...

   

Physical Metallurgy

Journal Comment

‘The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet’ William Gibson.

This issue contains six Transaction papers and one Journal paper. This is a pleasing change from the pattern of the previous issues during this year, in which there have been some extremely important events and conferences from which a wealth of Journal papers have emerged and which have contributed greatly to the technology transfer functions of the Institute’s publication. It is thus good to see some detailed experimental work with evaluation and conclusions in traditional format.

Read more: Physical Metallurgy

   

2009 END OF YEAR MESSAGE FROMTHE DESK OF THE PRESIDENT

News

J._Nkoma1

Colleagues,

 We are again coming to the end of another year. Many of you will agree with me that 2009 was an eventful year. The global financial crisis, which started towards the end of 2007, has had a more devastating effect in our industry this year than in the previous two years, with business slowing down and more jobs being lost. Many mining houses have had to cut back on spending to remain afloat. This meant that fewer people could afford to attend many of our technical events. I am told that the Chinese ideogram for ‘crisis’ is composed of two separate characters: one means danger and the other means opportunity. The proper translation is that a crisis is a dangerous opportunity. Often the danger is more readily seen and the opportunity can be well hidden. So, while many of the businesses fell on the wayside, and others disappeared completely altogether, others found this as an opportunity to fine tune procedures and processes and transform into more efficient operations, ready for the coming boom times. We, at SAIMM saw the crisis as an opportunity too. 

We managed to re-organise ourselves and do things differently and more effectively.   

This has resulted in a number of successes.

Let me start by reviewing some of this year’s highlights in the various institute’s various departments: 

Read more: 2009 END OF YEAR MESSAGE FROMTHE DESK OF THE PRESIDENT

   

Dear Visitors

News

Welcome to the new SAIMM website. All members can now update their details (with a new username and password that have been e-mailed to you). The membership fee payment system will be available in the next few days  – remember to clearly reference your payment. Conference attendees can also book online. We would like to invite you to submit any feedback, comments or queries regarding our site to our manager, Ms Julie Dixon at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 011 834 1273.

Enjoy the site!
   

SAMREC and SAMVAL Code reprint

News

samcodebookHardcopies of the SAMREC and SAMVAL Code reprint is now available from the SAIMM secretariat.
   

Payment of membership fees

Dear SAIMM Member
PLEASE GO HERE to view the outstanding balance on your membership fee and to make your payment.

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