Managing Director of Tungsten West, James McFarlane, will be speaking at the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) ‘Geometallury 2022’ conference this Friday.
The conference is taking place on 7th and 8th July and is being held at IOM3’s headquarters in Euston Road, London.
It is the third in a series of events which started in 2014 and continues to provide a platform to consolidate the latest advances in the geometallury discipline.
The conference programme is divided into four half-day sessions focussed on the supply of critical metals and minerals, energy efficient extraction, geometallury in practice and environmental, social and governance.
James will be taking to the stage on day two of the conference to give an update about geometallury at the Hemerdon Mine deposit: past, present and future.
He said: “I’m incredibly honoured to have been asked to speak at the conference – we’ve got a rich mining history to share at the Hemerdon mine. It’s a fascinating site that is close to my heart, as I’ve been involved in the project for many years.
“Hemerdon is a complex multi-episodal mineral deposit and to realise its maximum value it’s critical to establish robust models for each mineralising event and their interactions to develop a predictive 3D metallurgical model. The ground-breaking work that the TW team has completed, and is currently undertaking, and how they plan to optimise the mining and processing strategy in the future is a key part of what I’ll be presenting.”
The packed 2022 programme features speakers from an impressive range of groups and organisations including Anglo American, Ausenco, Wardell Armstrong International, Camborne Schools of Mines and Anglo Asian Mining Plc to name but a few.
With growing pressure mounting on international supply chains, which has the potential to seriously impact the UK’s net-zero agenda, the importance of mining and the supply of critical minerals is falling sharply into focus.
Just this week, the Government announced the UK’s first critical minerals intelligence centre, which will be run by the British Geological Society to provide current data on supply, demand and market dynamics of critical minerals.
The Hemerdon Mine has the third largest deposit of tungsten in the world and once operational is set to single-handedly catapult the United Kingdom into the third largest tungsten producer in the world.
Tungsten is considered a highly strategic metal due to its uses - 30% automotive, 8% aerospace and 10% energy. The EU and the UK both feature tungsten on their lists of critical metals and with China currently producing approximately 82% of the world’s tungsten supply, the Hemerdon mine is considered by many an important strategic asset.
Tungsten West is currently revising its restart plans for the Hemerdon tungsten and tin mine in the face of unprecedented inflation to focus on lower capital and operational costs with the aim of production beginning during 2023.
6 July 2022