More than 200 delegates attended the 2024 Gold Industry Group (GIG) Leadership Breakfast at the Kalgoorlie Town Hall this morning.
The panellists – comprising Northern Star (ASX: NST) managing director Stuart Tonkin, Gold Fields CEO Mike Fraser, idoba CEO Sarah Coleman and Evolution Mining (ASX: EVN) geologist Grace Cruise – agreed that what a gold mining operation will look like in 2050 is equally dependant on the technologies developed and their adoption by the workforce.
Mr Tonkin said that among the many developments the industry can expect, the net zero hard deadline by 2050 means that energy will be sustainable, renewable and free – or very cheap.
“Think what power can liberate, all this technology, and what it can do. With clean, free electricity there will be a step change,” he said.
“When you look at a beast like KCGM, nearly 80 million ounces have been taken out of that system. There is still more gold in there than has been taken out.
“I am very confident that is an open pit that will still be operating. And its going to be very significant underground operation.
“We’re mining at parts per million, grams per tonne, but when the price is right… there will be parts per billion.”
Mr Fraser echoed Mr Tonkin’s sentiment, but also stressed the importance of navigating the complexities of the transition.
“You can almost imagine a world [beyond 2050] where there are no people on site, and everything is managed remotely. And you have robots mining for you,” he said.
“I do envisage a world where you can essentially buy a mine in a box, and you optimise to the geology with all the technologies available.
“That will produce a very different set of scenarios. As we deploy technology, we will be able to extract the maximum value from ore bodies. But the real challenge for us is how we manage the transition.”
“We have come along way in the last 30 years, we stand by our purpose to create enduring value beyond mining. There is no reason why this industry can’t continue to make a massive economic and social contributions to the global world. I think this is what socially responsible miners will continue to do.”
Ms Coleman put it another way, explaining that perhaps the challenge lies in embracing new technologies.
“Everyone wants to transform, but no one wants to change,” she said.
“We’ve had a lot of invention, and there is a lot of invention to go, but we don’t put enough effort into getting the adoption right.
“I did a study on one of the large automation rollouts, and they spent $350 million on the technology and $5 million on the roll out, and zero on changing the people and process side of things.”
“We have [traditionally] been able to segment the value chain in these digestible chunks, but we can optimise these further.”
“We’re heading into a world where it is cost, volume, quality, energy, emissions, water and social, those levers then become far too great for us as humans to cognitively comprehend.
“Technology will help us support that, but there is a balance between the technologies of the future and the adoption today.”
By 2050, Ms Cruise will likely be the only panellist still in the workforce. For young people considering a career in the gold industry, the pace at which technology is advancing creates many unknowns in terms of what skillsets will be required.
As millennials become the dominant generation of the workforce, she emphasised that there would be a much greater focus on addressing social issues, but the fundamentals of a good worker and of good company culture remain the same.
“You need to be able to adapt and you need to be able to learn. What they show you at university is nothing like what it is like within the mining companies,” she said.
“I love engaging with people, and being face to face. In the last 10 years, there has been so much change to online working and that is going to keep going and going, but we are actually starved for people attention and engagement.”
Touch base with the Purple team. Peter Klinger and Gerard McArtney are in Kalgoorlie-Boulder and will be at Diggers & Dealers for the entirety of the conference.
