Sharing the Benefits through Collaboration Newsletter Issue 39
In this issue Editorial …….................................. P.1
Message from the Managing Director
Collaboration & Open innovation..... P.2 Innovation and Sustainability in Africa
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How does public science funding affect national productivity?
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New Project Started: P1150
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Closing the “capability gap” in today’s global organisation
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Historical Paper: “Fine Grained Ores! The problem - What innovative solutions?: Batterham & Richmond 1992
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AMIRA International gets a new look
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AMIRA Welcomes a new Member
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Rio Tinto paid US$7.1 Billion in taxes in 2014
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P.17 AMIRA P705C - Electro "WINNING" Support in South Africa Recognition of the impact of laser ablation research in porphyry exploration targeting Celebrating a AMIRA’s 10th Biennial Exploration Managers Conference
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Mining industry outlook over next 12 months: more of the same! Another Mining Indaba and another talkfest with many senior executives spruiking their company’s prospects and outlining how they are being effective at trimming costs, and in applying fiscal prudence; whilst the finance types arguing amongst themselves about the state of the world economy, and the commodities outlook; and the suppliers quietly showcasing their wares, anxious to show that they are still around despite a severe downturn; and the politicians talking about how they are going to solve South Africa’s problems. And of course there were many side events at the Cape Town conference, including senior representatives from African countries extolling their country’s respective virtues and mineral endowment to justify inward investment, and the World Bank stressing the urgent need to alleviate poverty and how mining can help. This does not include the various informal meetings that take place around the conference. Indeed one delegate said that many company people don’t even register for the conference but arrange meetings in the nearby hotels. A number of luminaries addressed the conference but arguably the star of the show was Tony Blair. Enough said.
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Project P1171 - Environmental Dust P.19 Removal AMIRA P1162 Uncover Roadmap makes progress
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Farwell to Chris du Plessis
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Well that pretty well sums up the mining indaba programme. Not sure whether the number of delegates was down, although the consensus was that it was. The number of exhibitors was over 300, although there was a dearth of mining companies with booths. So what was the mood of the conference? If I have to choose one word I would say resignation (not sure whether I pinched this from someone). Resignation that over the next 12 or so months we are pretty much going to be seeing the same, i.e. companies continuing down the slide of trimming costs, trying to preserve margin, aiming for more productivity improvements and demonstrating disciplined capital allocation. Of course an increasing casualty from all of this is grass roots exploration which continues to slide. The economists are pretty much divided on how bad or not so bad the world’s economy really is.
March 2015
Regardless, don’t expect a dramatic improvement in commodity prices. And for some reason M&A are not taking off. Distressingly there is little obvious confidence of a turnaround in the short term. What was missing from the conference was a focus on innovation. I have no doubt that the finance types had some innovative financing models up their sleeve (apparently there is lots of private equity money out there), but to access these you had better have a high grade deposit that can be put into production quickly without too much capital and low Opex and guaranteed to make money even if prices were to reduce by another 25%! We must not be too critical after all it was billed as investing in African mining conference, so no wonder that innovation was not ‘front and centre’. And yet innovation is want this industry needs. Or to be more precise a balance of incremental improvements and step change. The former is really about business or process improvement leading to operational excellence. To underscore the importance of the latter, a company executive indicated recently that by simply going back to basics some of their operations can be improved by up to 30%. Step change, in my view, is about addressing the grand industry challenges; changes that will transform the way that mining will be carried out in the future. A future in which economic growth will be lower and perhaps at a more sustainable level, and which the mining industry will be operating within more constrained boundaries; environmental, societal and political. Assuming that we got the basics right and the mine is operating at maximum efficiency with the current technology the aim next is to ratchet up the productivity and lower opex even further. This will require new technology; which will entail investment in R&D by someone. Cont… Page 2
...And yet innovation is want this industry needs. Or to be more precise
Joe Cucuzza
a balance of incremental improvements and step change...
Managing Director
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