Workshops

Developing Iron Ore Projects and the Relevance to Iron Making

The challenges of developing iron ore projects includes proving a resource, characterising it and ensuring the product meets the specifications of the customers. other issues such as rail access, port and infrastructure plus the ability to raise project finance.
Reserves of high-grade iron ores are reducing all over the world, at an alarming rate, over the years as a result of the rapid increase in demand for steel particularly from Japan and then China. The recovery of mineral value from the low-grade ores using present technology is more expensive than DSO ores due to high energy and capital costs. Beneficiation is defined as “a variety of processes whereby extracted ore from mining is reduced to particles that can be separated into mineral and waste, the former suitable for further processing or direct use.”
Various physical properties of an ore can be exploited to separate a low grade fraction including variation in hardness, density, reflectance, conductivity and magnetism. “Beneficiation” of iron ores includes concentration, generally by physical removal of unwanted gangue. Also considered beneficiation is the regulation of product size, or other steps such as agglomeration to improve its chemical or physical characteristics prior to smelting. Recently beneficiation techniques for iron ores are receiving world-wide attention due to fast utilisation of upgraded ore. This paper describes an overview of common techniques for iron ores beneficiation including secondary processing such as sintering, pelletising, coal and coke fundamentals, iron and steel making, testwork and quality. In addition, reference to critical market aspects, financing large projects and the role of Chinese investors is addressed

About your leader:
Damian Connelly – Director/Principal Consulting Engineer, Mineral Engineering Technical Services, METS

Damian has over 40 years experience as a Consulting Metallurgist. He has extensive experience in the gold, copper, lead, zinc, uranium and iron ore industries. He has authored over 36 technical papers and his field of expertise lies in plant operations, feasibility studies, detailed design, and commissioning. He has been involved in many projects including engineering, audit, due diligence, tenders and expert witness work.

Commodity Price Benchmark

Course overview
Iron ore as a commodity is going through a period of tremendous change. The measurement of its spot market value and how long-term contracts are priced continues to evolve. At the same time a derivative market for iron ore is also emerging with ‘paper’ contracts enabling investment in iron ore’s future value. All these changes require robust physical price discovery. This workshop studies different types of price discovery used in commodity markets and seeks to show a path iron ore might take as its valuation and pricing continues to evolve.

Course Program
1. Introduction
2. Commodity price benchmarking & price discovery
3. From annual to floating prices; Oil market case study
4. The emergence of derivatives; futures, swaps, options and clearing
5. Forward curve versus forecasting
6. Concepts; transparency, convergence, robustness, underlying and basis risk
7. Summary overview.

About your leader:
Francis Browne, Platts
Editorial Director. Price Group

Francis Browne is an editorial director working in the price group at Platts, responsible for market reporting and oversight in many markets including steel and metals. He joined Platts in 2006 to head their steel initiative as global managing editor of the newly created newsletter Steel Markets Daily, now being integrated with Steel Business Briefings (SBB) publications into the steel group at Platts. He led the team that launched the IODEX daily iron ore assessments in 2008, which is now used widely as the basis for iron ore contract pricing. Before Platts he spent more than 20 years trading steel and raw materials internationally, after graduating in 1984 with a degree in Economics from the University of Northumbria, UK.