Welcome from the Director February 2025
Dear All,
I hope that 2025 is going well for you so far. I am happy to report that the SMI ended 2024 in a strong position and after a good break, work is well and truly underway for the year ahead - with quite a few developments to let you know about.
Professor Mark Noppé has taken up the role of CEO of JKTech, the SMI Knowledge Transfer company and one of the two UQ Commercialisation companies. Mark brings a wealth of experience and success to this role and will be building on JKTech’s long and successful track record of value creation for the mining industry. Associate Professor Anita Parbhakar-Fox has taken up the role of Acting Director of the WH Bryan Mining and Geology Research Centre while Mark is seconded to JKTech. The presence of JKTech in the SMI is a large and unique opportunity and we will be working to maximise that in 2025.
After a long and multifaceted partnership encompassing numerous projects, SMI ICE Chile (the Chilean subsidiary company of JKTech) has signed a three-year strategic alliance agreement with Codelco (Chile’s National Copper Mining Company and one of the world’s largest copper producers). The alliance will focus on collaboration leading to new solutions and insights in the areas of climate adaptation, circular economy, biodiversity preservation and water stewardship. Codelco has been one of the SMI’s most important partners, and Chile is an extremely important jurisdiction for us. This alliance takes our presence in Chile to a new level and is a credit to Executive Director Doug Aitken and his team.
Just this week the SMI hosted a showcase for the Resourcing Decarbonisation Strategic Program. The event was attended by industry and government sponsors, academics from across UQ, and our partners from the University of Exeter. The showcase featured “speed talks” from a broad cross section of researchers, showing the breadth of impact we are making in the sourcing and low impact production of the critical minerals needed for decarbonisation, as well as the business models, policy protections and safeguards, and complex risk mitigation strategies needed in this important transition. The showcase highlighted a wide series of challenges and opportunities, including the important need to accelerate resource development in a responsible and sustainable way.
I also wanted to mention a few items that the SMI has released publicly that have drawn a strong level of positive public response:
• Bioantika and Hernandi Albeto Octaviano from the Global Centre for Mineral Security just put out an article in The Conversation looking at the potential adverse impacts of the restart of sea sand mining in Indonesia, and what we could be doing instead.
• Deanna Kemp and colleagues from CSRM just published a paper in One Earth exploring some implications of the UN’s declaration on peasants’ rights.
• Nick Cook from (BRC) was part of a team that used metal isotopes to show that the fluid sources changed over time for a gold-cobalt deposit in Finland in a paper in Chemical Geology.
• Andrew Hill (MISHC) was a co-author on a study in the Journal of Safety Research that looked at hazard perception in drivers using medicinal cannabis.
• A team I was part of just published a paper in Nature Communications on the implied emissions from biomass reduction associated with global nickel mining. It is significant, and the trend in world nickel supply is unfortunately toward the production options with the highest adverse impact.
• Elin Jennings from the BRC just published the first paper from her PhD: “Spatial and temporal (annual and decadal) trends of metal(loid) concentrations and loads in an acid mine drainage-affected river”. Her blog on it can be accessed here.
• Daniel Franks attended Indaba earlier this month and to coincide with that he co-authored an article entitled “Africa Needs Mineral Security, Too” for Project Syndicate.
As you can see, we are continuing to make contributions in a diverse range of areas relevant to global resource sustainability.
In sad news, we would like to acknowledge the passing of Emeritus Professor Frank Shi, a long term JKMRC staff member and a friend and mentor to many in the JKMRC and the SMI more broadly. Frank had a successful career with the JKMRC marked by many important innovations and will be missed by all of us.
As we progress in 2025, I wanted to wish you all the best. We would love to hear from you.