Mining and Exploration

Grindex was founded in 1940 by two Swedish engineers. Among its earliest products was a rock grinding machine: this established the firm in the mining and construction markets; however when co-founder Börje Kristensson was out selling the grinding machine, he came across a new product on the market, a submersible drainage pump. The problem with submersible pumps in the early 1960s was that they were heavy and could not run dry. Kristensson set about developing a lightweight pump that could run dry, thanks to a patented air valve.

Perseus Mining Limited is a company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and based in Perth; however despite its Australian accent it is an African specialist, specifically focused on the gold producing countries of West Africa. Over the years it has forged a reputation as one of the world's most successful gold explorers, with a quarter of a century of involvement in Ghana and its neighbours coming into fruition very recently, starting commercial production on 1 January 2012.

Career wise, how do you come to be a part of First Quantum Minerals?

The $820 million purchase is to the benefit of both partners, with Rio Tinto looking to sell assets as part of a $5 billion cost-cutting plan and China Molybednum following the lead of other Chinese firms keen to buy resource assets as they look to serve domestic demand.

IMA stands for Innovative Mineral Analyzers and here is a company that does exactly what its name says. IMA is a technology front-runner in mining on-line analysis, and if that sounds dry, for mining companies concerned to occupy the critical space between metal prices and extraction costs material analysis can well be what decides viability. You can't plan based on what you don't know and IMA gives you the critical information often missing in mining; the value of the ore.

Based in Perth, Western Australia, and listed on the Australian Securities exchange (ASX), Continental Coal is a mining company with an Australian accent – which means it understands coal production and, even more importantly, the market that is blotting up most of the world’s coal and promises to do so for a long time. This is of course Asia, and notably China and India.

I was in 1902 that a mining engineer by the name of Georges Bia first opened up a sales office in Brussels. It is here that the routes of the BIA Group can be traced back to. Today, 113 years later, BIA exists as a leading international company in the field of machine distribution for the civil engineering and construction industries, with its head offices remaining in Belgium.

At the moment, though Devex has opened a few offices in other countries where clients have adopted its systems, it is firmly a Brazilian company, with 85 percent of its $35 million annual revenue generated domestically. However there is no better seed-bed for new technology than Brazil, and forward thinking global mining groups are now taking notice of Brazil not just as a country with huge resources to extract but as a developer of smart ways of doing that.

BHP said that production had jumped by nine percent to 187 million tonnes for the year to 30 June, news that analysts have reacted to by claiming it meant that the commodity giants were betting on continued strong demand from China, despite the country's economy seeing a slowdown in growth.