Mining Industry Challenges for Professionals.

Mining Industry Challenges for Professionals.

In April 2021 the Indonesian KCMI Code was adjusted to allow Competent Persons (CP) preparing resource & reserve reports to expand their scope from a single style of mineralization to a group of similar mineralization styles. Thus, a CP could now work on both lateritic nickel and lateritic bauxite. This change was brought about by the shrinking number of CP. The underlying cause for this shrinkage of CP was not mentioned, but may be partially due to the lack of new greenfield exploration, and that brownfield projects are now moving past the resource / reserve definition stage, leaving little opportunity for the great numbers of new graduates. However, the need for CP is driven by the Mines Department requirement to have annual reports signed off by a CP.

The Australian 2020 JORC review is dragging out to mid-2022. This delay is supposedly due to Covid19 and holidays, and has needed to turn to paid consultants & staff to continue the Government lead initiative to update the Code. Aside from a number of technical points, such as to include mineral brines, the industry is facing several significant changes including; 1) lack of new graduates and lack of geoscientists in the mining industry, 2) diminishing emphases on volunteer professional activity in the mining industry, 3) changing from self-declared CP to that of government registered engineers, and 4) tendency to push a greater range of non-core technical issues (such as ESG) onto the reporting CP.

In both Indonesia and Australia, the public reporting of resources & reserves is the responsibility of the company directors, who are not so tightly bound to provide full technical disclosure. Indeed, the trend of mining company reports is to barely mention mining, and emphasize ESG, manpower community, tax contributions and such aspects to satisfy industry financiers who wish to distance themselves from the reality of mining.?