Expert Meeting with South African Mintek Company - Global Standards in Mineral Processing

In a joint meeting attended by the Director General and Deputy Director of the Ore Dressing and Mineral Processing Office, Head of International Affairs of the Geological Survey of Iran, a representative of the Iranian Investment and Economic and Technical Assistance Organization, and representatives of the South African Mining Company Mintek, key issues related to the challenges of mineral processing in the country were discussed.

In a joint meeting attended by the Director General and Deputy Director of the Ore Dressing and Mineral Processing Office, Head of International Affairs of the Geological Survey of Iran, a representative of the Iranian Investment and Economic and Technical Assistance Organization, and representatives of the South African Mining Company Mintek, key issues related to the challenges of mineral processing in the country were discussed.

Mintek is one of the most prominent research and technology institutions in the mining and mineral processing sector in South Africa. The company has been of over 90 years of experiences and has played a significant role in the development of new mining technologies.

At the beginning of the meeting, the Director General of the Mineral Processing Office outlined the country's most important technological needs and issues in this area. He stated that the issue of assaying and processing of platinum group elements (PGM) is one of the areas that has not yet been implemented in the country and still lacks native guidelines and specific operational methods.

He, indicating the considerable volume of the low-grade hematite (a grade less than 35% Iron) in tailing dams and mineral reserves of the country, put emphasis on the need for the development of the modern technologies to enhance the grade of this type of minerals.

Another issue raised was the challenges concerned with gold extraction from shale reserves that due to the specific geological properties of these reserves, using the common methods of gold exploitation for them is not possible and requires the cutting-edge technological techniques.

Processing the lithium from the brine and sedimentary resources was also the subject under discussion in continuation of this meeting. According to the Director General of the Mineral Processing Office, this part of the mineral potential of the country faces the critical technical, environmental and administrative barricades and needs international cooperation and development of the technical knowledge.

The representative of the Mintek company, welcoming the pose of these challenges and referring to the vast experiences of this company in carrying out the similar projects at global level, announced that Mintek would provide its solutions in the form of the standard, comprehensive and applicable packages.  

In the final part of the meeting, the working structure as well as the operational standards of Mintek was elaborated. As per the details provided all executive processes of this company have been designed in compliance with the international standards and are of several ISO certificates. These standards get update regularly and every six months so as to be in harmony with the latest scientific and industrial changes of the world. Additionally, Mintek expressed its full readiness for transferring the technical expertise and training the Iranian specialists.