SUJATA DABOLKAR
PERTH, AUSTRALIA
The World Gold Conference in Perth, Australia, came to an end on Friday and what I was witness to was a paperless international conference. Even the conference proceedings were given to us in a password protected e-book of almost 800 pages.
At the end of the third day, we had nine key-note addresses, 56 technical presentations and 10 scientific e-posters, a novel idea.
Around 15 sponsors supported the conference and 50 companies from the gold industry had displayed their products and services with live demonstrations.
We had a 90-minute tour of PhotonAssay technology in the noon. There was no separate valedictory function or vote of thanks. Every minute was used professionally and efficiently which was a lesson for me as an Indian research student.
On Friday, as usual, the registrations started by 8.30 am followed by a technical session with a key-note speech by Elizabeth Lewis-Gray, Deputy Chair-METS Ignited, Managing Director and co-founder who spoke on Gekko Systems.
Gekko’s innovation strategy is focused on improving environmental impacts through reduction of footprint and energy and collaboration, improving digital outcomes with a particular focus on the gold industry.
Then the talk by Jacques Eksteen from Gold Technology Group, Western Australian School of Mines, Curtin University (Australia) on the topic Fit-For-Purpose Gold Leaching Systems was equally interesting.
Matti Talikka, Director of Geometallurgy and Project Evaluation, Outotec, Finland, spoke on how gold-containing ore needs to be sorted. He guided the delegates on geometallurgical modeling of gold value chain. He also explained on sensor-based particle sorting.
Brett Ascot spoke about Syama gold project in Mali, Western Africa. He also touched upon autonomous drilling, loading and dumping, haulage, truck navigation, mine digitalisation and central monitoring and visualisation.
Dr Eddy Hill from ZEISS, Cambridge, UK, spoke on morphology and hosting characteristics as determining factors in micron to sub-micron gold recoverability. He focused on advances in scanning electron microscopy (SEM) based automated mineralogy analysis of gold ores that quantifiably and consistently account for the presence of nanometre sized gold grains.
At end of the conference I could see the interest of Australian gold miners, geologists and university academicians in getting experts from different countries to push forward their own national research and development agenda unlike India where there is no substantial investment in research and development in gold mining. The lesson that I am taking home is whether we are capable of using advanced knowledge in gold mining and metallurgy.
India has become world’s major consumer of gold and Australia is aiming to emerge as its main supplier. In my opinion a strategic partnership between Australia and India in research and development in gold industry may perhaps displace the Chinese hegemony in future. Over three days I could meet delegates from 30 countries and found that even the poorest African countries like Sudan, Ghana, Mali are reshaping their gold mining. This, I feel, is a wake up call for the mining sector in India. We must gear up for the new emerging future gold-based economy.
