Business of Mining

The Business of Mining complete set of three Focus books will provide readers with a holistic all-embracing appraisal of the analytical tools available for assessing the economic viability of prospective mines. Each volume has a discrete focus. This second volume discusses, in some depth, alternative means of assessing the economic viability of mining projects based on the best estimate of the recoverable mineral and/or fossil fuel reserves.The books were written primarily for undergraduate applied geologists, mining engineers and extractive metallurgists and those pursuing course-based postgraduate programs in mineral economics. However, the complete series will also be an extremely useful reference text for practicing mining professionals as well as for consultant geologists, mining engineers or primary metallurgists.

Emeritus Professor Odwyn Jones commenced work as a mining trainee with the UK National Coal Board (NCB) in 1950 and was granted an Industry Sponsored Scholarship a few years later to read for a mining engineering degree at the University College of Wales, Cardiff, where he graduated with a BSc with first class honours. He then returned to the industry, obtaining his Colliery Manager’s Certificate.In 1957 he accepted the position of Lecturer in Mining Engineering at the Royal College of Science and Technology, Glasgow, which later became Strathclyde University. His part-time research, involving both laboratory work and field-testing at a local colliery, was sponsored by the NCB, and he graduated with a PhD from the University of Glasgow in the mid-sixties. In 1970 he accepted the position of Principal Lecturer in Environmental Technology of Buildings at the Polytechnic of the South Bank, London, before moving on to Bristol Polytechnic in 1973 as Head of Department of Construction and Environmental Health. In 1976, Emeritus Professor Jones and his family moved to Western Australia where he took up the joint posts of Principal of the WA School of Mines, Kalgoorlie, and Dean of Mining and Mineral Technology at the WA Institute of Technology, which later became Curtin University. In 1991 he transferred from Kalgoorlie to the University’s main campus in Perth as Director University Development (International) and Director of the Brodie-Hall Research and Consultancy Centre.Having retired from the University in 1995, he served as Visiting Professor at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, for a term before assisting Perth’s Central TAFE in developing its minerals and energy-related programs, where he stayed until 2001. He is a longstanding Member of Engineers Australia, and Fellow of both the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (UK). He was Deputy Chairman (1981–98) and Chairman (1998–2013) of the Research Advisory Committee of the Minerals and Energy Research Institute of WA, a Statutory Authority operating under its own Act of Parliament. His recent awards include an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2005 and the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy’s Service Award for 2012–13. He was inducted into the Australian Prospectors and Miners Hall of Fame in September 2013.Dr Eric Lilford is a minerals economist and engineer, with interests covering quantitative research, advanced valuation methodologies, determining regulatory impacts on mineral and energy economics to both companies and governments, commodity trends, guiding mining and exploration companies, capital markets and developing and executing economic growth and optimisation strategies. Dr Lilford has multi-commodity and multi-jurisdictional expertise obtained over 29 years in the resources industry in technical, economic, financial, management and academic roles. His current roles include