More than 150 participants from around the world converged on Brisbane City Hall for CRC ORE’s Annual Assembly 2018.
Eminent mining, METS and research guest speakers, included CRC ORE representatives, provided insights on accelerating impact, implementing innovation, mining challenges and technology commercialisations CRC ORE's Essential Participant group brought insights on industry issues and experiences on active CRC ORE projects and site implementation studies.
Highlights of the event included keynote addresses on “Accelerating Impact” by Prof Robin Batterham AO (Kernot Professor of Engineering, University of Melbourne) on balancing imagination and application in research, by Cleve Lightfoot (BHP Head of Innovation) on BHP’s open innovation program, and by Erica Smythe (CRC ORE Non-Executive Director and Chairman) on the role of government in supporting reform and innovation in the resources industry.
A session on “Implementing Innovation” brought insights from Keith Mayhew, Vaughan Chamberlain and Angus Melbourne, who discussed how Teck, AngloGold Ashanti and Orica were implementing innovation. Dr Luke Keeney provided insights from CRC ORE’s grade engineering production trials.
In approaching new mining challenges, Michelle Elvy, Head of Integrated Operations at BHP Minerals Australia, shared the company’s experiences of establishing the integrated remote operations centre in Brisbane. She introduced the concept of ‘as-is, where-is’ to focus the team’s attention on getting the centre operational rather than fine tuning the various components. Paul Revell (CRC ORE) and Prof David Cooke (University of Tasmania) discussed how successful research programs fitted industry needs. Jan Kwak explained how Hatch was “making technology pay”.
Technology transfer and commercialisation was the focus for panellists, representing a miner, a start-up METS, an established METS and a researcher. They addressed the topic: inspiration to commercialisations. Mike Hourn (Glencore), Christian Larsen (Glass Terra), Michelle Carey (IMDEX) and Prof Robin Batterham AO provided key insights and prompted energetic discussion from the floor.
CRC ORE CEO and MD Dr Ben Adair said he was thrilled to have such a high level of interest and engagement at the assembly this year.
“Just over the half-way point of our six-year term we are delivering some exciting results on grade engineering implementation projects at sites,” he said.
“The Integrated Extraction Simulator is gaining tremendous traction making mass simulation and in-line optimisation a reality for real-time operational decision support.
“Our research portfolio is maturing and delivering some highly prospective early outcomes and the Kalgoorlie-Boulder Mining Innovation Hub is up and running and gaining traction on industry relevant projects. Overall a great year for CRC ORE!”
CEEC CEO Alison Keogh, who attended the event, said the assembly brought together leading minds active in driving practical change at mine sites, including through integrated technology and research approaches with miners around the world.
Alison noted CRC ORE’s progress in implementing impact on end-user operations, with full-scale production trials now in place. She also noted the new development linking CRC ORE’s Integrated Extraction Simulator (IES) package to grade engineering to conduct mass simulations on a daily basis, to predict and improve across the mining value chain in a timely manner. Valuable case studies at sites were shared, plus inspiring stories of how to drive innovation success.
Many of the presentations are available here, along with more information on CRC ORE