RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT

Overview

Innovation is a critical part of minerals processing, driving competitive advantage and helping operations build productivity. It is well understood that quality mineral resources are becoming harder to find, grades processed in almost every commodity are declining and host mineralogy is becoming more challenging. Many resources that may have previously been uneconomic to process are being developed because of innovations in process design, equipment and application of ore body knowledge. This means that companies must be smarter in how they approach development to ensure that their projects remain profitable and robust.

MinAssist believes that Research and Development shouldn’t just be the realm of academic institutions and Tier 1 companies. By effectively utilising grants and R&D tax incentives every company can leverage research knowledge to get more value from their projects.

More Efficient Research Management

Effective applied research is about clearly identifying the problem and defining clear and achievable deliverables. For commercial research it is critically important to ensure that the best minds are working on your problem and that you remain responsive to their requirements and questions.

By its nature research and development can take time and won’t always return the expected results. Without close management this can lead to delays in results and a seemingly endless stream of questions that need to be investigated.

MinAssist has over 15 years of experience in managing applied research projects that are results oriented and present useful outcomes. Through close links with a range of commercial and academic institutions we focus on identifying the best researchers for your project. We then work closely with those researchers to ensure that they remain focused on deliverables. Through this approach we have successfully worked with a number of clients to both solve immediate problems and and develop technologies for commercialisation.

Grants and Rebates

Governments recognise that research and development comes with a certain amount of risk and have many mechanisms in place to support companies undertaking these projects. Innovation is generally well supported by government agencies and often grants or other support are available to help companies build projects.

MinAssist has worked closely with a number of companies to leverage the best research outcomes with grants and rebates. We have helped companies gain access to both grants and government R&D tax incentives. All of our R&D programs are structured to maximise the potential for grant support and to assist with reporting of R&D expenditures.

Over the last 5 years we have supported companies in receiving grants and rebates worth over AUD$1M, greatly increasing their capacity to perform exciting and innovative projects.

MinAssist Projects

Aura Energy Ltd

MinAssist has worked closely with Aura Energy for over 10 years managing research projects for their development projects. This has resulted in development of process flowsheets for several projects for which conventional flow sheet configurations were not economic. Through smart use of applied research Aura Energy has been able to progress projects that would otherwise be too low in grade for development.

Rodinia Resources

MinAssist was commissioned by Rodinia Resources to research methods for recovery of scandium from Red Mud material at sites in Jamaica. This process developed a technology that recovered scandium and other metals but also resulted in rehabilitation of the hazardous Red Mud material. Rodinia has since moved this research and development forward to early stage commercialisation and is on the path for generating value, not only in metal recovery from tailings but also in environmental management and rehabilitation.

Elementos

MinAssist has worked closely with Elementos in developing technology for recovery of fine grained cassiterite from the Cleveland tin resource. This technology would aim to significantly increase total tin recovery and produce tin metal directly, reducing concentrate transport and smelter costs dramatically.

Barrick Gold

MinAssist worked closely with Barrick Gold’s technology group to develop effective methodologies for routine gold deportment characterisation on tailings streams.

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