Estimation Guidelines committee off and running

An Estimation Guidelines committee led by the Canadian Instiute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) and created as a result of recommendations of the Mining Standards Task Force is busy preparing a report of proposed guidelines for metalliferous minerals.

The 11-member group is inviting comments by industry members by posting draft guidelines on the CIM’s web site and, by May 2002, expects to have a set of preliminary guidelines in hand. Once the final report is finished, it will be adopted by CIM council and incorporated into CIM Industry Standards.

First, however, a preliminary draft will be posted on www.cim.org/committees/estimation.html in early November.

Subsequent guidelines for industrial minerals, diamonds, coal, and oil sands will be completed later.

The committee was created in response to the task force’s recommendation that the mining industry develop national “best practice” guidelines for the conduct of mineral exploration programs, development programs and mining operations. The result was the formation of the committee, whose overall mandate is to develop guidelines for mineral resources and mineral reserves.

Spearheading the 11-member committee is chairman Paul Severin, vice-president of exploration for Falconbridge.

“Mineral reserves and resources are really the underpinning of any economic valuation of a mineral deposits,” says Severin. “So, if we can promote and help have fairly standard estimates for mineral resources, I think that will help everybody. When somebody is calling a resource an indicated resource or a measured resource, you have a degree of confidence that these have been calculated in a consistent way.”

Committee members were selected on the basis of their being representative of various regions across Canada, as well as businesses and professional organizations.

Currently, the committee consists of members from five provinces, and some members wear a few hats, representing provinces, businesses and organizations such as the CIM, the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada, the Canadian Geoscience Council, and provincial engineering associations. The selection process took about six months.

Members of the committee include Paul Bankes, senior geologist with Teck Cominco in Vancouver, B.C.; Ralph Bullis, director of exploration for Echo Bay Mines in Edmonton, Alta; Neil Gow, a consulting geologist with Roscoe Postle Associates in Toronto; Bernie Haystead of CIBC World Markets in Toronto; Alfred Hills, vice-president of evaluations, strategic development for Placer Dome in Vancouver; Stephen Juras, chief geologist with MRDI in Vancouver; Marc Legault, chief geologist with Agnico-Eagle Mines in Cadillac, Que.; Philip Olson, vice-president of exploration with Claude Resources in Saskatoon, Sask.; Albert Samis, chief geologist with Cominco in Vancouver; industry veteran Paul Severin; and Val Spring, senior geologist with Watts, Griffis & McOuat in Toronto.

Acting as advisors to the committee are Deborah McCombe, chief mining consultant with the OSC in Toronto; Francis Manns, mining specialist with the TSE; and Alastair Sinclair, professor emeritus of geology at the University of British Columbia.