SRK Consulting’s Corporate Consultant in Resource Geology, Mark Campodonic
By Paul Gorman
Emerging mining markets have technology on their side in ways traditional companies never had.
SRK Consulting’s Corporate Consultant in Resource Geology, Mark Campodonic, said he had seen huge changes over 23 years away from producing resource and reserve estimates from paper-based data, thanks to technology.
‘We’ve seen a massive shift in computerisation of data and information, building more robust geological models, mining models, waste-disposal models. Technology has really changed the way we do things.
‘Over the years, I think we’ve seen more governance across resource, reserve, environmental reporting, tailings, waste storage, facility management – I think regulations and governance have absolutely tightened, which it needed to, in our sector. It means we develop more sustainable mining projects.’
The geography of mining had also changed, he said.
‘There used to be a lot of projects developing in Africa, West Africa, then we saw the former Soviet Union countries catch up, and now we’re seeing the Middle East.
‘It’s getting harder to get investment in projects. They’re more robust in their due diligence and review of projects before they invest. So that’s tightened things up a bit.’
Emerging mining markets were developing in a non-traditional manner, compared with Western and more traditional companies, Campodonic said.
‘They’ve got access to investment, they want to do it faster, they want to collect more data, they want to de-risk on a shorter timeframe. Saudi Arabia has an ambition to develop its third pillar of the economy after oil and gas, and the petrochemicals industry, and it’s pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into it.
‘The emerging markets are wanting to catch up quickly. It’s really exciting. They’re using technology any way that they can more efficiently and effectively get into operation.’