Enlit Africa 2025: Graham Duncan of Minrom Consulting on Smarter, More Sustainable Mineral Projects

Minrom Consulting is a geological consulting company. We’re based here in South Africa but we operate throughout Africa and actually the world in general but our focus is specifically on Africa. We have a lot of expertise and we have a lot of projects and experience in the African environment. Essentially we’re a company that’s made up of technical experts. So we’re geological consultants but we really focus on unlocking project value. So how we do that is through our technical skills. And so we have a team, it’s more like a consortium of really experienced geologists and experts in their field, who are enable us to, whatever project it is mining, exploration, hydro, unlock the value of that project and make sure that that project is a success. And so our core offerings as a company and it starts with exploration, so we need to find the minerals, we need to see where they are, and we do that in a really structured and scientific manner. Of course then once you found it you need to quantify it. So that’s when we do all the resource drilling, we build the geological block models. But a really key part of what we offer as our service and something that we feel makes us stand up a little bit above the rest is that we offer and we construct geometological models. And although that term’s been around for a long time  it’s actually really a key component in linking geology through to process and beneficiation, which is a key part of the industry and really the energy transition that we’re looking at. So that’s something that we pride ourselves in and we really like to do that.

The other thing of course is then once you’ve done that um we do a lot of training we do a lot of hydrological investigations and that training component actually is key to where we are because it actually falls under all the different service offerings because we like to train people where we go. So we work throughout Africa and so helping the communities that we’re with by training the guys keeping their um understanding of their deposits telling them what we’re doing explaining that that training that we do across the board um becomes a key part of who we are as a company.

Mostly what we’re aiming to achieve by attending the conference is that we’re looking to get strategic partnerships understand what people in the industry are doing understand how the transition and what people are engaging with where that is going the trends um just keeping up to date with that because as a consulting company we need to make sure we’re at the forefront of what people are doing and um how the industry is developing so that we can offer services that really um build and add value to to the industries as it goes. So that’s a that’s one component. The other of course is that we’d like to make sure that um the services that we’re offering particularly on the resource estimation the understanding what’s there are aligning with the needs in the industry.  so particularly if we think that with the mining a big focus for the energy transition is critical metals. So we need to make sure that we are developing projects in the most economic and efficient way um specifically in those commodities.

So Minrom Consulting is helping shape the energy transition and the energy field and also with  sustainable resources as well through our technical excellence. So that comes back to the company as a whole. We’re built around geological experts. And so what we’re trying to do is make sure that when we’re searching for minerals when we’re prospecting when we’re evaluating how much is there we’re trying to make sure that we’re doing that in the most efficient way because that in itself saves resources. Because for a mine to a mine to develop, to be able to give all these products and commodities that are needed for the industry that are needed for the world to in their in their whole power and energy consumption, even with hydro, we want to make sure that we are defining that identifying those in the best possible manner essentially it’s efficiency. We want to make sure we’re doing it in the best way. So we want to make sure that we are doing that and that’s a key aspect as to why we are here at the conference. Just making sure we’re keeping up with everything and building those strategic partnerships with the other companies that are here.

So I think one thing I’d just like to add is that you know people speak about the energy transition. They speak about power  as a key need for people and we know that that’s the case. We know industries, economies they need power, they need resources of all types in order to grow.  but that comes from somewhere. It’s not just that we say we need um extra photovoltaic cells, we need hydro power and then it magically happens. We need to take the steps that come before that. We need to identify the mineral resources that are there. And  that’s really where we come into the picture is right at those beginning steps right at those grassroot levels. Um identifying what’s there in the easiest and best possible manner we know throughout the history of mining in in in the world is that things are getting harder to find um deeper more expensive to explore for and more expensive to extract. So we need to make sure that we’re finding these deposits we’re finding them and extracting them in the best possible way. And so really we take a big drive as the company as itself to do that and we want to help other people to do the same in in their relative companies and their relative fields as well.