In the stope
and scheduling of a triple decline and a
vertical shaft at Joel.
In 2002, I moved into the consulting field
as a project mine designer, before joining
SRK Consulting in 2003 as a senior resource
geologist. This has involved me extensively
in geological and ore body modelling,
geostatistical and resource modelling, and
quality assurance and quality control (QAQC)
— among other work. One interesting
aspect has been working across commodities,
including gold, platinum group elements,
copper, lead, zinc, iron, manganese, fluorspar,
and mineral sands. Working for SRK has given
me the opportunity to work in international
resource geology projects, specialising in the
evaluation of mineral resources, from early-
stage exploration targets through to production.
What was it like to transition
from the operational mining
environment to a consultancy?
And how did the focus of your
work change?
Working on an operational mine is often quite
short term in nature as you work with day-to-
day operational problems. In the consulting
environment, the focus is often on the longer
term, specifically dealing with feasibility studies
on new projects. In addition, working as a
consultant provided the opportunity to broaden
my areas of expertise from just working on a
single-commodity mine, to working with a
range of commodities around the world. It has
also given me exposure to how other consultants
and mining operations do their work, which has
helped me improve my own skill sets.
What has technology brought to
the field of resource geology?
Advances in software development have
increased the speed and accuracy with which
models can be produced. As the techniques
have developed, we are continually improving
how we build models and the validations
we can undertake to ensure that the models
represent the exploration data. For me, this
has meant becoming proficient in a number
of cutting-edge 3D geological modelling,
statistical, and geostatistical software packages
— such as Isatis, Datamine, Leapfrog, and
GEMS software.
What are some of the
opportunities that South Africa
can grasp to facilitate more
exploration in the country?
The absence of easily accessible information
on prospecting has become a significant
challenge to local and foreign exploration
companies. The Department of Mineral
Resources does not have a portal where
explorers or investors can quickly find out
who needs which prospecting licences and
what licences are available to interested
parties. While it used to be possible to get a
prospecting licence within a day for a nominal
www.miningmirror.co.za
In the consulting environment, the focus is
often on the longer term, specifically dealing
with feasibility studies on new projects.
fee, the process is now quite opaque, time-
consuming, and expensive.
There is also no proper geological survey
— which is really vital if we are to be able to
provide explorers with ready access to geological
information for the country’s resources. The
Council for Geoscience does hold a great deal
of valuable information, but it has no efficient
and accessible mechanism for sharing it
effectively with those who could really use it.
It has been suggested by many
junior miners that South Africa is
a risky place to explore. Why is
that?
I have heard juniors express concern about the
way that the Department works, leading to
high levels of uncertainty about the outcomes
of application processes. They have said,
for instance, that corruption is a particular
challenge — with the bribing of officials
apparently becoming a common means of
ensuring that applications are processed. These
issues add to the difficulty of fundraising on
the Johannesburg Stock Exchange ( JSE), even
though the JSE has tried to provide a less
costly and quicker route to listing for juniors.
The regulatory environment is also not
conducive for their kind of business, where
early-stage risk is particularly high, and
investors in exploration are hard to find at the
best of times. Requiring companies to comply
with onerous black economic empowerment
(BEE) requirements before a deposit has even
been delineated, for example, exacerbates
an already difficult task. Juniors find that
having a large BEE shareholder with limited
funding capacity only raises the hurdle when
approaching investors for capital funding.
How would you describe the
value of consultants in the field of
geology?
A good consultant should work to complement
the skills and experience on projects and
mining operations. The experience gained
working on multiple mining operations
and with multiple commodities allows the
consultant to advise on the best practice
developed in the industry, and to pass these
skills and methods on to our clients’ teams to
help improve how they operate.
What advice would you give
young people who want to follow
a career in geology?
No amount of consulting experience will
ever be as valuable as the experience you gain
starting work in an operational environment.
If you don’t understand how the work you
do — and the models you produce — will
be used in a mining operation, your work
is likely to fail to meet the expectations of
your clients. Also, you shouldn’t be afraid to
get experience in associated disciplines on a
mine; seeing how a geologist’s work is used
by mine planners, for example, gives you
an appreciation of what is important to the
people who will have to rely on your work.
Which have been the most
interesting projects that you have
worked on in South Africa during
your career — and what made
them so?
I have had the opportunity to work on
some world-class international deposits
in my time with SRK, but South Africa is
host to two truly extraordinary deposits:
the Witwatersrand Basin and the Bushveld
Complex. The Witwatersrand Basin
hosts a large number of reefs, in several
goldfields; my work on all the major reefs
in the Witwatersrand goldfields has given
me an appreciation of the massive size
of the mineralising system, as well as the
differences and complexities in the different
reef packages in each area. The Bushveld
Complex, by comparison, has a couple of
major reefs only but is equally impressive in
its size and continuity of the ore bodies.
What in particular excites
you about the future of your
profession?
What keeps geology interesting is that no two
deposits are the same, and so no one solution
will necessarily work for two deposits.
In addition, over time the biggest and
simplest deposits have been found, requiring
innovative thinking to find and model new
deposits. So, geologists with good critical and
analytical thinking skills will always have a
role to play in the industry.
MARCH 2019 MINING MIRROR [23]