Welcome to 2010!

Welcome to another exciting year for the minerals industry.  Compared to this time last year optimism is high and the drive to make the most of what appears to be a continuing boom in the mining industry is certainly there.  At MinAssist we have seen increased confidence and optimism since the middle of last year and it seems that forward thinking mining companies are continuing to embrace mineralogy as a driver in many process optimisation and development projects.

This year we will be pushing ahead with development of this blog and other online services that will be aimed at enhancing the usability and appeal of mineralogy to the greater mining industry and beyond.  Over the last few months I have been more heavily involved in projects focussed on geometallurgy and will seek to explore some of the key aspects of this field through a number of targeted articles through the year.  The link between mineralogy and ore behaviour is increasingly gaining acceptance as a useful parameters for mineral processors and MinAssist will be continually developing programs through which understanding of ore types and characteristics early in the mining cycle can be used as a predictive tool to enhance overall recovery and minimise metal losses.  This is a very exciting field and I look forward to exploring the possibilities further.

Over the next few months you should expect to see a series of articles, hopefully more frequent than last year, that will explore all the aspects of using mineralogy.  The focus will be on new techniques in mineralogy and geometallurgy as core areas with articles covering the following areas:

1. First impressions and review of FEI’s iDiscover v4.3 package for analysis of QEMSCAN mineralogy data.
2. An overview of how I see the application of mineralogy in developing effective geometallurgy programs, bringing maximum benefits to mining and mineral processing operators.
3. More tips and tricks for using mineralogy in commodity specific applications.  This will include an exploration of where we have come in analysis of precious metals ores for operators to get maximum benefit from record high gold prices.
4. General observations on developments in the use of mineralogy, new areas we see mineralogy becoming more useful and ways to get maximum benefit for investment in this type of analysis.

Overall, I am looking forward to a great year and sharing with you my experiences, ideas and opinions.  Keep an eye on the MinAssist website for updated reference material and don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions of comments throughout the year.