THEMES

Precious Metals '15 dealt with all aspects of the processing of gold and PGM ores, such as flotation, bio and hydrometallurgy and the associated environmental issues.

The keynote lecture "Innovations in the processing of difficult and low grade gold ores" was given by Prof. Jacques Eksteen.

Jacques Eksteen is the manager of the Gold Processing Technology Group at the Western Australian School of Mines, Curtin University and is the project manager of the AMIRA P420E project on "Environmentally responsible gold ore processing" which is supported by 14 industry sponsors. He holds a BEng degree in Chemical Engineering (Mineral Processing), and MEng and PhD degrees in Extractive Metallurgical Engineering from Stellenbosch University. He started his career as a process engineer in the nuclear industry, after which he went back to Stellenbosch University where he eventually held the position of Associate Professor in Extractive Metallurgy. After pursuing his research interests in the process metallurgy of base and precious metals, he became the Group Consulting Metallurgist for Lonmin Plc in Smelting and Refining from mid-2007. He was appointed as Professor and Chair: Extractive Metallurgy at Curtin University in February 2012. Jacques has published extensively in the area of precious metals processing, particularly in the primary extraction of platinum group metals through pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical means.