The picture shows Paul Moore opening the IPCC 2012 – no less than 21 presentations on all aspects of IPCC technology and application. Details of IPCC 2013 will be available soon – where and when. Meanwhile there is great interest in Rapid Development 2013 – Enabling the Future Mine, Sydney Harbour Marriott, 23 – 25 January 2013.

From new approaches to shaft sinking; faster raise boring and down-reaming; advances in hard rock cutting technology and continuous mining for hard rock; rapid decline development; and the use of new mobile miner and TBM technology to tackle mine access tunnels and block cave development – interest in this area of the industry is at an all time high. The reasons for this are numerous – from large open pits going or that have gone underground, from Chuquicamata to Jwaneng/Venetia and Bingham Canyon; to existing mines with major new level development at Kiruna, Argyle, Grasberg and El Teniente; to new block cave operations such as Pebble, Palabora Lift 2, New Afton, Resolution Copper and others. As Australia is seeing a lot of activity in this area, such as the tunnel boring work being conducted by Rio Tinto at Northparkes, it is a natural location for such an event. The rate for the full conference is US$1,600.

This is our second such knowledge sharing event, following on from our highly successful annual IPCC conference; and the aim is the same. To offer the industry a forum where mining groups, contract miners, EPCM groups, consultants, OEMs, component suppliers and others can get together, listen to quality presentations and meet with the people they need to meet from engineering, procurement, design, sales and marketing teams. The focus at IM Events is to offer conferences that are on a subject not served previously by a commercial event; and one that the industry is actively seeking a forum on to advance development in that area. Contact [email protected]