CEEC receives the 2013 Mining Magazine Editor’s award

Mining Magazine announced today the annual Editor’s Award in recognition of outstanding work within the mining sector has been given to CEEC International Ltd.

“The Mining Magazine team are really impressed with the CEEC’s efforts over the past couple of years to raise awareness of the need for eco-efficient comminution, and to drive education and innovation within the mineral processing sector- we feel that this deserves recognition.” said editor Carly Leonida.

CEEC contributes news and reports to Mining Magazine, reaching a global audience in print and online. CEEC was launched in 2011 with the mission of accelerating knowledge of alternative comminution processing strategies in light of rising energy costs, falling ore grades and increasingly remote mine sites. Comminution is typically the single biggest cost a mine site operator needs to control. CEEC’s open web site is dedicated to providing solutions and ideas for improving profitability by collating the best in class technical papers and data relating to alternative comminution processes. CEEC focuses on sharing both technical data as well as highlighting the financial benefits which result from more efficient processing to the management and executive teams in mining companies.

“CEEC has gone from start-up to a global industry organisation in less than 3 years. Our mission remains unchanged, and we are constantly encouraged by leading mining companies who support and sponsor our work. Once informed of the options, senior executives see the true value in addressing this issue, and their technical teams can be ready to provide the right solution using the data and information on CEEC’s web site.” Said Sarah Boucaut, CEEC Executive Officer.

Nominations for the annual CEEC Medal, awarded to the best paper published in the past 12 months demonstrating eco-efficient comminution improvements, close on March 15, 2014. Please nominate a paper now for the 2014 award.

About CEEC CEEC is a not-for-profit company whose mission is to accelerate knowledge and technology transfer in the field of energy-efficient comminution (crushing and grinding). CEEC aims to raise awareness of beneficial alternative comminution strategies with the objective of improving earnings, achieving lower processing costs and gaining energy efficiencies in the mining sector. CEEC has the patronage of Owen Hegarty, of G-Resources Group Ltd.

CEEC is the acronym for the Coalition for Eco Efficient Comminution. CEEC was established by a visionary group of mining industry leaders, who recognised the need to provide a platform for effective communication of the latest technical findings on efficient comminution practices. Extensive research and improved engineering design has established that a range of improved blasting, crushing and grinding techniques may lower project costs, and carbon footprint. These include relatively straight forward strategies such as: removing waste material before size reduction, a better combination of grinding technologies and targeting larger grind sizes where mineralogy allows. The majority of existing comminution circuits feature tumbling mills, SAG/AG and ball mills. The nature of size reduction in such devices is ‘hit and miss’ leading to the generation of excessive mechanical energy and heat, so much so that less than 5% of the energy consumed by tumbling mills is used in size reduction. Even with the significant amount of research undertaken in this area, awareness in the industry of the significant impact of crushing and grinding on costs is low. The pace of technology transfer is slow as a result of the perceived risks. CEEC’s Board are confident that even a small increase in focused promotion of research results and some alternative comminution strategies would significantly accelerate the technology transfer and industry performance in this area.

CEEC is funded wholly by industry sponsorship from Anglo American, Barrick Gold, Gold Fields, Indophil Resources NL, Gekko Systems, Ausenco, Xstrata Technology, Outotec, Orica, Derrick Corporation, Metso, AMIRA International, JKTech, MMG, Weir Minerals and Russell Mineral Equipment.