Mining and Exploration

As Joseph Tis, Senior Vice President, explains, 2013 was an important year for the Sierra Gorda open pit copper mine project. “In February of last year the project budget, valued at $4,000 million was updated. In the months that followed the project went on to complete a consolidated advance of 52.9 percent, reaching 91.2 percent in February 2014.”

Since founding IOS 22 years ago at Chicoutimi in Québec, Réjean Girard has seen no fewer than four recessions and it's an achievement in itself that, as a service provider to the notoriously cyclic mining industry, the firm has managed to grow through each of them. It has forged a reputation well beyond Québec and Canada as an efficient and innovative operator.

The artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector is a catch all classification for a diverse group of people who employ low-tech methods, with little in the way of equipment and no supervision, to extract metals – mainly gold.

Nobody’s perfect. What quality or ability do you wish you had?
Being able to predict the future more accurately.

What is the best business book you have ever read, and why?
Mind of a Fox, by Clem Sunter and Chantell Illbury. Through scenario planning they predicted the 9/11 disaster. The book talks about enabling one to have vision to the point where one can predict specific future events.

“I think it’s safe to say that business has changed dramatically over the last 18 months,” states Rainstorm Dust Control’s technical sales and marketing manager, Mason Trouchet, when I ask him what life has been like for the Australian company since we last featured them in September 2012.

A Canadian based, high growth mining company, Copper Mountain Mining Corporation’s focus is directed towards adding value through a combination of successful exploration, project development, efficient operations, and opportunistic acquisitions. Furthermore, the maintaining of a low risk profile through project diversification, astute financial management and operating in secure jurisdictions are key priorities for Copper Mountain's Management team.

Diamond and adamant are two words coming from a common Greek root meaning unalterable, an appropriate name for the hardest substance in the natural world. It's their resistance, their durability, that has made them the ultimate jewel. Rough diamonds as mined are unprepossessing, but once they have been cut and polished to refract light from a myriad facets their beauty is breathtaking. But cutting and polishing is no easy matter as the only substance hard enough to impress diamond is – more diamond.

The mining industry is experiencing unprecedented change: to be successful, companies need to remain nimble and creative, yet focused on their goals. Now that is so obvious to most mining CEOs that it is almost a truism, yet in practice they need help. As mining companies move through the mining asset life cycle, they encounter different challenges to maintaining.

The council believes that private sector demand for gold in China will rise to at least 1,350 tonnes by 2017 as the population becomes wealthier. The forecast also comes as China overtakes India to become the world’s largest gold-consuming nation.

The World Gold Council says China is at the "centre of the global gold eco-system", as rapid urbanisation creates a rising middle class. Chinese customers bought 1,132 tonnes of gold last year, in jewellery as well as gold bars and coins for investment.