The mining industry is buzzing with predictions about the dawn of a new commodity boom as metals prices rally to record highs and explorers scour the globe for metals needed to fuel the shift into the electric vehicle era.
Edumine has updated its 360 Introduction to the Mining Industry course, which is designed for anyone who needs to interface with the mining industry and stay on top of the latest industry developments and regulatory changes.
Edumine was originally founded by 360 Introduction to the Mining Industry course author and industry veteran Simon Houlding, who is a recipient of the CIM medal for Meritorious Contributions to Mining in 2015, and the Robert Elver award for Mineral Economics in 2018.
Houlding is also author of several books on geo statistics – including 3D Geoscience Modelling- Computer techniques for Geological Characterization and Practical Geostatistics, Modelling and Spatial Analysis.
An engineer by trade and trained in South Africa, Houlding came to Canada and started Lynx Geosystems, a company that specialized in geostatistics and spacial analysis before founding the mining industry’s online education platform.
By 2000, Houlding recognized the opportunity to turn the internet into a globally accessible classroom.
“I think that’s been brought out by the pandemic, where ecosystems really shifted to online education and professional development. We recognized a technical opportunity and I think we accomplished that quite well – and we’ve had a lot of fun. A big part of it was attracting authors from all over the world in different fields to contribute,” Houlding says.
Here’s a sneak preview of the syllabus:
MDC: What demographic can benefit from this updated 360 Introduction to the Mining Industry model?
Houlding: This is designed more for people who are involved with mining and need a good overall introduction. Besides mining methods, it covers careers, mining companies, suppliers, and regulatory control. You’ll come out of it knowing enough about the industry to talk sensibly about it.
MDC: A teaser from the course descriptor quiz: What are the Equator Principles?
Houlding: The Equator Principles were set up by the major financial institutions to define the basic requirements of a company that wanted [to borrow] money to develop mineral projects –you have to present your qualifications [as] a company looking for development in mining.
MDC: What are some of the latest updates to the course?
Houlding: This is the sort of course that needs updating because its looking at companies and people and projects – and these things change. Mining projects close and new ones start. People at the head of mining companies change – so we have to keep updating.
MDC: What can learners expect from the course?
Houlding: It starts off looking at mining projects and people. What [is]current on who is running the big companies – a background on each one. It moves into mining methods, mining suppliers, and the major mining conferences that one should be aware of each year.
What you could expect from a career in mining, the top universities that teach mining topics, and a section on mining scams. Bre-X was one of the biggest ever – it was started as the biggest gold project in the world and Bre-X as a company was worth $6 billion – and it all went bust overnight. We give a brief overview of all those [scams] fiddling the numbers and pumping the stock so people are aware of what can go wrong in mining.
MDC: What do you think are the biggest misconceptions about the mining industry?
Houlding: Its got a bad name – partly because of some people who didn’t manage things as well as they should have.
[That the green energy transition] can happen without mining is a big misconception. Batteries are going to be a big thing and batteries require materials to be mined and we are going to make a lot of electric cars – these all require mined materials.
To young people I would say it is one of the few industries that allows you to travel all over the world – literally. The pay is good and its an interesting field – go out and see for yourself.
Learn more about the course here.