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A former mining opponent, a brilliant materials engineer and a respected leader in the male-dominated offshore drilling space are among the winners of Australia’s 2024 Women in Resources National Awards announced in the nation’s capital this week.
Queensland University of Technology PhD student and BHP portfolio lead Ashara Moore followed up her Exceptional Young Woman in Queensland Resources award earlier this year by taking out the national award.
Group manager of materials and innovation at Western Australia-based Callidus Process Solutions, Dr Evelyn Ng, took out the Maptek Woman in Resources Technological Innovation award.
Dr Evelyn Ng
Head of energy group Woodside Energy’s global wells and seismic arm, Josie Fourie, received the Dyno Nobel Exceptional Woman in Australian Resources award. The winner of the 2024 WA Outstanding Woman in Resources award is a chemical engineer who has spent 25 years in the upstream energy sector, becoming the most senior woman in offshore drilling in Australia.
Josie Fourie
Moore, Ng and Fourie were among 29 women and four organisations nominated for six awards at the 11th annual Women in Resources National Awards in Canberra, hosted by the Minerals Council of Australia in partnership with the New South Wales Minerals Council, the Queensland Resources Council, the Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA, the Tasmanian Minerals, Manufacturing and Energy Council and the South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy.
The awards are supported by Women in Mining Network state branches.
Queensland-based Kanae Dyas, workplace support manager at Anglo American, took out the Rio Tinto Inclusion and Diversity Champion in Australian Resources Award.
Nadine Hill, an openpit supervisor at Evolution Mining’s Cowal gold operation in NSW, won The Bloomfield Group Outstanding Tradeswoman/Operator/Technician Award.
Major mining services group Thiess headed four groups who were vying for the Mitsubishi Corporation Development Diversity Programs and Performance Award with its Mt Arthur South Indigenous/Inclusive Trainee Employment nomination.
WA Chamber of Minerals and Energy CEO Rebecca Tomkinson said Fourie and Ng were shining examples of the growing pool of talented women breaking new ground in the resources industry.
“Women comprise a growing proportion of the sector’s work force and they’re not just making up the numbers. In so many instances they are highly respected leaders driving innovation in their fields,” Tomkinson said.
“The industry has a long-standing focus on improving diversity. The benefits of that approach are on full display through the field of hugely impressive finalists selected for the 2024 awards.
“While much work has already been done, boosting female participation – from mine sites and laboratories through to the boardroom – remains a priority for the sector.
“Highlighting the achievements of exceptional women like Josie Fourie and Dr Evelyn Ng is a vital part of continuing to promote diversity and attracting the next generation of inspirational leaders.”
Ng, who started her career with First Quantum Minerals at Africa’s largest copper mine in Zambia, has worked on five continents and in her current role at Perth-based Callidus is said to be the only materials engineer among more than two dozen mechanical engineers in a company with over 300 employees.
Ng leads forensic investigations of plant and machine failures, developing quality assurance specifications, as well as overseeing the group’s R&D and intellectual property.
Two recent Callidus patents – one for a bi-metallic coating system and another involving titanium-nitride surface hardening – are seen to have potential to be game-changers in the mining industry.
Ashara Moore, who wants to change tailings management in mining, admitted in an interview after she won a 2023 Women in Industry Award in Queensland she had gone into a work experience interview with Rio Tinto “morally opposed” to the industry.
She said after early exposure to the industry and then starting her career she came to see it “was trying to do and be better [and] it was a sector that I thought I could make a positive difference within”.
Through her QUT PhD study Moore wants to develop a new carbon reduction technology (CRT) that can help mines cut emissions and positively impact future management of tailings.
“I am pro finding solutions to ensuring that our sector can peacefully co-exist with our environment,” Moore has said.
“Tailings management … is the avenue in which I wish to play my part.
“My PhD study is just one very small, very niche segue toward achieving that goal.
“By targeting mining waste, one of the most substantial potential environmental impactors within industry, and hopefully finding more sustainable and responsible ways of managing this waste, I hope to contribute to the ESG agenda gaining momentum in the sector.
“I am hoping to achieve a new normal about the way we think about tailings waste.”
Last August she presented her preliminary findings to the World Chemistry Conference in the Hague, Netherlands.
IMARC applauds winners of this year’s 2024 Women in Resources National Awards.
So far, more than 130 confirmed speakers at this year’s International Mining and Resources Conference in Sydney are women, ranging in roles from the C-suite through to undergraduate students. IMARC's Balance for Better commitment also includes the working partnerships with industry groups IWIMRA, WISER, WIMnet NSW, WIMARA, to name a few.
IMARC chief operating officer Anita Richards says the large contingent of female speakers reflects the event’s “unwavering commitment to balance for better, an initiative dedicated to promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion throughout the mining sector”.
Jeffreys Find Gold Mine. Second Toll Milling Campaign Completed. 6,295 Ounces Produced; Gold Sales Total $23.5M.
HIGHLIGHTS
- The second toll milling campaign for 2024 has been completed.
- 6,295 ounces of gold produced from 128,000 tonnes milled.
- Gold sales for this campaign total $23.5 Million.
- Highest sale price at AUD$3,859 per ounce.
- Average sale price at AUD$3,731 per ounce.
- Auric has received initial surplus cash distribution of $2.0 Million.
MANAGEMENT COMMENT
Managing Director, Mark English, said: “We are in the sweetest possible place with the mining of Jeffreys Find.
“Total production for the year has passed 7,500 ounces. Another toll milling campaign is scheduled for the end of November. It will be a mighty run home for Auric as the project draws to conclusion.
“Whilst the campaign processed lower tonnes than expected, the gross revenue was higher due to the extraordinary gold price.
“The reconciled yield of 1.65 g/t was marginally below expectation but the recovery of 93.2% was excellent.
“BML has a contract with Greenfields for 300,000 tonnes to be processed so it won’t be long before milling starts again. We are anticipating a further 142,000 tonnes to be processed in 2024 and early into 2025 at Greenfields.
“Jeffreys Find will produce substantial cash for Auric. It has been an outstanding investment,” said Mr English.
Photo: The Jeffreys Find Pit; 30 September 2024.
Through Auric’s joint venture partner BML Ventures Pty Ltd of Kalgoorlie (BML) a total of 127,610 dry metric tonnes was processed by The Greenfields Mill at Coolgardie (Greenfields or Mill) with a reconciled recovery of 93.2%.
A total of 6,295 ounces of gold was recovered at a reconciled head grade of 1.65 g/t.
Gold sales amounted to $23.48 Million for the campaign with an average gold price of AUD$3,731 per ounce. The highest gold price achieved during the campaign was AUD$3,859 per ounce.
Stage Two of mining in 2024 has now produced 7,551 ounces of gold with total gold sales to date of $27.95 Million.
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In Search of Alternative Financing for Critical Minerals Projects
Several critical minerals, in particular lithium and nickel, have been suffering from depressed prices for more than 12 months despite projections of ever-increasing demand, driven by Western governments’ energy transition goals.
Attracting finance into critical minerals projects is one of the key challenges standing in the way of diversifying existing supply chains, which are typically dominated by China, particularly in the midstream (processing and refining) and downstream (component and end-product manufacture) sectors. Like-minded nations are attempting to incentivise supply chain diversification to protect their domestic manufacturing sectors from unfair practices, via both policies aimed at onshoring and tariffs to minimise the impact of dumping heavily subsidised goods on the global market.
Financing critical minerals is challenging as criticality does not make a market, but instead highlights a market failure.
Investing in critical minerals carries additional risk to existing mining risk, often including technological risk as novel extractive and processing techniques are required for non-commoditised critical minerals where there is limited expertise and know-how.
Geopolitical risks, such as price manipulation and export restrictions, lead to market volatility which further deters investors. Jurisdictional risk adds another layer of complexity: critical minerals are typically, but not always, abundant in volatile and conflict-prone regions where corruption is an issue.
While there is also an abundance of some critical minerals in jurisdictions generally considered low risk by miners and investors alike, they all face different issues. For example, permitting a mine in the US is challenging due to community opposition and litigation: according to S&P, it takes an average of nearly 29 years to build a new mine in the US, the second-longest in the world behind only Zambia.
Australia faces high infrastructure and labour costs, factors which drive up capex and opex far above competitor nations across Africa and Latin America. Despite significant exploration, Canada has failed to see more than five new critical minerals mines being brought online in the past 20 years, while Europe faces stalwart green opposition to often politicised projects.
In response to the ongoing global challenges, the US-led Minerals Security Partnership has recently announced the formation of the Finance Network. The network aims to strengthen cooperation and promote information exchange and co-financing among participating institutions to advance diverse, secure, and sustainable supply chains for critical minerals. Participating institutions represent like-minded nations including Australia, Canada, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom, United States. Both the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Africa Finance Corporation are also part of the network.
It is unclear whether the Finance Network will pool funds and mutually select critical minerals projects.
The network does however need the international finance sector’s buy-in.
Specialist mining finance has eroded. UK Mining Specialist Funds demonstrated a decline from about $40 billion in 2010 to about $12 billion in 2022, and Canadian Mining Specialist Funds experienced a drop from circa-$16 billion to c$2.8 billion. This gap has not been plugged by green finance or commercial banks which still view critical minerals as too high-risk, or simply too small to meet investment thresholds, and often both.
Non-commoditised critical minerals also face low rates of return on investments in comparison to tech and other sectors offering much faster and more appealing returns. Price volatility can quickly render projects in Western jurisdictions unfeasible. When that happens some projects fail while others are often bought out by Chinese companies which bring them online once prices rise, and sometimes after efficiencies and new processes are introduced.
This is less likely to continue occurring under various investment and acquisition restrictions in Australia, Canada and the US.
Attracting finance into critical minerals will require the stabilisation of often immature and small markets by creating predictable downstream demand to restore investors’ confidence and boost returns on investment.
If like-minded nations are serious about creating a genuinely diversified supply chain, tax breaks will be required to incentivise institutional and private investors in the meantime to bridge the gap between the lack of commercial viability and the strategic necessity to diversify. Public investments in critical minerals projects will however need to be more targeted and occur in tandem with re-industrialisation. Investing taxpayer dollars in projects that will not feed into downstream industries within like-minded nations are likely to either help to feed China’s manufacturing sector, or create oversupply if sufficient demand doesn’t exist, further lowering prices below commercial viability.
The CMAA Australia is actively bringing its members, governments and the wider finance community to address the challenges of financing critical minerals projects.
Join us at IMARC for an insightful Alternative Pricing Mechanisms session with global critical minerals experts.
