The RTC events follow Sumatra Miner and Mining Vietnam held earlier in the year and are aimed at educating and informing about technical advancements and innovations to help the mining industry optimise operations and improve productivity.

With Indonesian Government policy seeking to provide value adding opportunities to the country’s abundant raw materials and the coal industry being stifled by low prices and reduced demand, the technical conferences come at an ideal time to benefit Indonesia’s mining industry.

The conferences are an opportunity to present new technologies and showcase successful use in exploration, development and operational situations throughout the Asia Pacific. With the region having so much mining potential, they provide a scientific but practical platform to outline and discuss the use of new technologies and their application in the mining industry.

The RTCs are organised by Mining Media International (MMI), which publishes The ASIA Miner magazine and Coal Age/E&MJ Indonesia, and hosts the regular Coal Club Indonesia and Djakarta Mining Club networking events.

Owing to the need for change in the mining industry and with the resulting opportunities that education, technology and networking can bring, the RTCs are certain to be popular and as such there are obvious benefits in sponsorships. The involvement of MMI ensures that there will be plenty of coverage for the events and for those associated with them. There is a range of sponsor opportunities and these can be discussed with Dimas Abdillah in Indonesia ([email protected]) or Lanita Idrus in Australia ([email protected]).

Kalimantan Mining

The Kalimantan Mining event will be held at the Swiss Belhotel in Balikpapan on Thursday, August 11 and with the coal industry playing such a vital role in the region’s development, it will be very timely as the industry strives to survive depressed prices and reduced demand along with growing global criticism of coal.

It is not all bad news and there is no doubt that coal will play an important role as a proven, efficient and low-cost source of energy and vital raw material for steel production for many years.

The RTC in Balikpapan will look at the present and the future, and will cover many topics including environmental management systems and controls; safety and risk management; coal ash management; stockpile management and inventory control; coal loading and unloading; conveyor maintenance; and dust management.

Other topics likely to be discussed are mineral processing; online coal analysis; low-cost coal upgrading; fuel quality impact on handling and storage; coal blending challenges and opportunities; coal transportation; and the state of infrastructure throughout Kalimantan and Indonesia.

Despite increasing concerns around the world about coal use and its impacts on the environment, coal will continue to be used, particularly in emerging economics such as Indonesia, Vietnam and India, but an important development for the future of the industry will be low emission coal.

As a major source of coal for these markets, Indonesia must ensure it can provide coal that meets these needs, which means that the RTC in Balikpapan has an important role to play in facilitating the required changes.

Mineral Processing

Processing is an important aspect for the entire mining industry during the difficult downtime when optimisation and greater productivity is not just necessary but vital. This is particularly the case in Indonesia where the government has banned exports of unprocessed raw materials in a bid to encourage value adding, which involves processing.

The Mineral Processing RTC will be held on Wednesday, September 21 and Thursday, September 22 at the Shangri-La Hotel in Jakarta. It will cover government regulations and processing initiatives; project development and plant optimisation; safety; long-term and short-term planning strategies; investment and financing; asset management; equipment availability and reliability; and training and service opportunities.

It will also look at concentration plant operation and optimisation; modelling of comminution processes; blasting, pre-sorting and crushing; grinding and classification; water management; tailings and process improvement; flotation technology; and environmental, recycling and social responsibility.

Flexco is supporting the RTC and heavy duty specialist Rich Gilman will speak about optimising the performance of conveyor systems. He will discuss the benefits of using mechanical fasteners to splice a belt for normal and emergency situations that will greatly reduce downtime and operational cost. He will also address the importance of a properly squared and skived belt prior to mechanical splice installation, as well as mistracking issues, wear and tear.

Mining and Processing Solutions (MPS) will also discuss the benefits of using glycine for the leaching of copper and other base metals. Glycine eliminates the use of sulphuric acid and the many safety hazards associated with its application. MPS is licensee for commercialisation of the GlyLeachTM and GlySmeltTM processes.

GlyLeach uses glycine to leach copper ores, waste dumps, milling and smelting residues, and commercial sources of scrap to recover copper while GlySmelt is the use of glycine technology to replace pyrometallurgy in treating concentrates to produce cathode copper.

Vale’s Robert Machnik will speak on the application of elemental analysis techniques in research, manufacture and quality control. He says the use of online bulk elemental analysis gives plant operators the means for continuous and rapid response.

Anyone interested in presenting papers at either event, at other RTC events, in sponsorship or in further information about the conferences should contact Dimas Abdillah ([email protected]) or Niema Lubis ([email protected]) on +62 21 2940 6337 in Indonesia, or Lanita Idrus ([email protected]) on +61 3 9899 2981 in Australia.