Following the very successful World Gold Conferences – held bi-annually since 2005 in Calgary, Cairns, Johannesburg and Montreal—the fifth World Gold conference, jointly organised by The AusIMM, the Canadian Institute of Mining and the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM), was held in Brisbane, Queensland on 26-29 September 2013.
Themed ʻChallenges in Gold Miningʼ, the conference was staged over a weekend with parallel sessions, followed by some four workshops. The conference was well attended with almost 300 delegates attending this yearʼs event with 30 per cent of the delegates representing 19 countries, a tribute to the theme and excellent list of plenary and keynote speakers.
Feedback received from the delegates was that the plenary and keynote speakers at this conference were some of the best they had heard in a long time, including: • Eduard Eshuys, Executive Chair, Drummond Gold • Jannie van Deventer, CEO, Zeobond and Professor at University of Melbourne • Greg Corbett, Corbett Geological Services • Andrew Tonkin, Monsah University • Mark Clark, Managing Director, Regis Resources • Mark Morcombe, Senior Vice President, AngloGold Ashanti • Mark Bristow, CEO, Randgold Resources.
Twice as many papers were received as could be accommodated so the selection of papers was done to reflect the theme and related topics as well as ensuring quality papers were presented at the conference. The papers covered a wide range of topics and disciplines and covered all issues from existing mining operations to new technologies and innovations and processes. The program was run in parallel sessions which worked very well due to the excellent work of the various chairpersons of the sessions.
There were several pre- and post-conference workshops covering all aspects of gold mining.
These were well attended and some were held in collaboration with the Geometallurgy 2013 conference that followed.
World Gold 2013 was very well supported with 24 exhibitors participating in the trade exhibition and major sponsors including Gold Fields, AngloGold Ashanti, ALS Metallurgy, Snowden, Outotec and Mintrex. The conference dinner, sponsored by Mintrex, was well attended and the dinner speaker Allan Trench, Professor at the Universities of Western Australia and Curtin, gave an excellent talk on ʻthings they donʼt teach you at mining school about the gold businessʼ and Fiona Morgan, acting CEO of Mintrex, gave a presentation about the work done by dinner sponsor Mintrex.
We had an outstanding program for World Gold 2013, a conference series that has contributed greatly to the knowledge in the gold industry as well as the understanding of issues and challenges facing the industry. The organising committee would like to thank all plenary and keynote speakers as well as all authors for their valuable contributions in making this such a successful conference. Our special thanks goes to the staff in the Events and Publications teams of The AusIMM.
And finally, a special word of thanks to a very competent organising committee—as well as all the peer reviewers from all over the world—who helped to ensure that the quality of these proceedings were of a very high standard.
The next conference to be organised by the SAIMM, will be held in Gauteng, South Africa in September 2015.
by Dr Leon Lorenzen FAusIMM, Conference Chair