Peter McCarthy, Chairman of AMC Consultants comments in that company’s latest Digging Deeper newsletter that “there is a growing gulf between what is needed in mines and what researchers are working on, at least in public. Some innovative systems are being developed behind closed doors with large corporate funding, but this locks out most of the university sector and many research organisations. Thus postgraduate research opportunities have faded away, while published research loses its relevance to practical engineers.”

This is a subject that International Mining has commented on before and we believe strongly that McCarthy is right and that his comments should be acted upon. He goes on to explain that “the professional institutes including SME, CIM, AusIMM, SAIMM and others all have the objective of sharing technical experience and practices for the betterment of the minerals industry. Increasingly, some large mining companies are refusing permission or restricting their staff from publishing technical papers about their operations and research. Conference organisers know that the best papers are no longer available to them, and attendees know that they are seeing a limited group of presenters who may not be leading lights in their field.”

“This all stems from a mistaken belief by some mining company managers that some commercial advantage might be gained from keeping research results and operational details confidential. In reality, mining professionals are highly mobile and the techniques are generally not suitable for patent, so any advantage will be short-lived. Improvements in mining techniques nearly always improve mine safety performance, so withholding information condemns the outsiders to perpetuate systems that could have reduced harm.

“I would encourage mining company directors to examine their company’s contribution to the free exchange of information, in the spirit and tradition of our industry, and to direct management accordingly.”