The 44th Annual Meeting of the Metallurgical Society of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum
Calgary, Alberta, Canada, August 20-25, 2005

The conference took place at Hyatt Hotel in downtown Calgary with the theme "Challenges for the Metals and Materials Industry". Attendance was about 480 from 26 countries as follows: 307 Canada, 53 USA, 30 Australia, 16 Russia, 11 S. Africa, 7 Iran, 6 Norway, 5 Ukraine, 5 Finland, 5 Japan, 4 Sweden, 4 China, 3 Germany, 3 Botswana, 3 Mexico, 2 India, 2 Indonesia and one from each Brazil, Italy, Belgium, Austria, Tanzania, Greece, Nigeria, S. Korea, and Netherlands.

The conference was composed of 280 papers by 640 authors organized the following eight symposia:

• Computational Analysis in Hydrometallurgy
• Nickel & Cobalt
• Pipelines for the 21st Century
• Materials Degradation: Innovation, Inspection, Control & Rehabilitation
• Light Metals 2005
• Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Technologies
• Recruitment & Early Career Development Programs
• The Treatment of Gold Ores

In addition there were:

• Trade Show
• Poster Session
• Companion Program
• Three Short Courses on August 20-21: Computational Hydrometallurgy, Gold Extraction, and Fuel Cells
• Two Industrial Tours on August 25: Prudential Steel Limited & Show Pipe Protection Limited in Calgary and The Cobalt Refinery and Dynatec Metallurgical Technologies Division at Fort Saskatchewan in Alberta

As usual, the conference starts by a reception on Sunday evening, Plenary Lectures on Monday morning, Industry - Student Mixer on Monday evening, Section luncheons on Tuesday noon, and Banquet Tuesday evening. Author’s breakfast takes place each morning where chairmen meet speakers of the day.

The Plenary Session was chaired by John Bowker of CANMET, the Conference Chairman, and was devoted to three lectures:

• World Nickel, Supply, Markets and the China Factor, by Chris Twigge-Molecey, Manager China, Hatch, Mississauga, Ontario
• Reflecting upon Pipeline Materials in the New Millennium, by Alan Murray, Engineering, National Energy Board, Calgary, Alberta
• Fuel Cells - a Source of Renewable Energy, by Maj Velijkovic, Director General, NRC Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation, Vancouver, British Columbia

The speaker of the Historical Metallurgy Luncheon was Professor Hugh McQueen who spoke about the history of pipe manufacture. The Bookstore was open during the conference to make available the Proceedings Volumes. At the end of the meeting a list of participants with their addresses was made available.

Calgary is now a modern city with about one million inhabitants has its luxury hotels, shopping centers, and art gallery. The conference was well organized - thanks to the devoted volunteers and MetSoc Administrator Gillian Jazzar to whom the participants are most grateful. Next MetSoc meeting will take place October 1-4, 2006 in Montreal and will be held in conjunction with International Committee for Study of Bauxite, Alumina, and Aluminum known as ICSOBA. For more information readers are recommended to look up www.metsoc.org

Fathi Habashi, Laval University, Quebec City, Canada; fathi.habashi@arul.ulaval.ca