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MINING SERVICES Guiding the flow of the avalanche

Q A of incoming data
&

After a successful career with Olympus, Marcus Lake
MSALABS, a global geochemical analysis laboratory company, has been busy
has branched out and launched Phoenix Mining
establishing a firm footprint across Africa, creating a broad network of laboratories to
Technologies. Paydirt caught up with Lake recently to
service West, North and East Africa, in addition to its existing global presence.
find out which trends he sees as shaping and changing
Since 2019, the group has expanded significantly from its MSALABS will commission its first unit in Africa at Barrick’s
the mining sector in the next decade.
well-established laboratory in Nigeria. The full breadth of the Bulyanhulu laboratory in August. This will be the first laboratory
West African region is now serviced by a further two new outside Australia, its country of development, and the first time Pure Storage’s FlashBlade technology
laboratories in Nouakchott, Mauritania on the west coast the technology will be used commercially on copper analysis. offers companies an efficient, effective
Marcus Lake is managing director of
Phoenix Mining Technologies
and Yamoussoukro in Côte d’Ivoire, the approximate centre MSALABS plans to introduce a second unit into West Africa in way of capturing, collating and storing
PD: How have mining PD: What is Phoenix distributing ith hundreds and thousands of sen- the data, collecting it and then collating it data ready for use
the first quarter of next year and will roll out at least a further
line of the Birimian gold belt. This is in addition to the site-
technologies changed in the last at the moment? four units by the end of 2022 across its global network. Wsors on even a standard mine, data and there is also the cost of actually stor-
based laboratory at Kinross’s Tasiast Gold Mine in Mauritania.
10 years? With Chrysos achieving a significant milestone in June of capture, processing and storage is loom- ing that data using public cloud.” are working with a large miner who uses
Yamoussoukro is being developed as a hub lab for the
PD: Has there been a favourite
To counter those limitations, Pure Stor-
ing as a critical component in resources
ML: Our main client is Geotek [UK]. They
company in the region, with a significant capacity upgrade 1,000,000 samples analysed, the rollout of these new units operations in the coming decade. age has developed its FlashBlade tech- Pure Storage’s flash-based technology to
have been very successful in the soft rock
mining story that you have
ML: In my view innovation over the last
underway and an expansion of services to offer multi-element should see this number grow substantially and clients around The mining sector has undergone rapid nology which can handle tens of billions run everything from automated haulage
10 years has been slow. Yes, the current [petroleum and academia] markets and are followed? digitisation in the last five years with infor- of files and objects. to process control systems.
analysis.
the world begin to realise the broad range of benefits the
available technologies have become faster now pivoting into the mining industry. We mation being captured at every level of an “We have been working with a Perth- “This is where the simplicity of the
During 2020, the company also entered East Africa, with the technology provides.
have signed a global exclusive agreement for
and more accurate, but we haven’t really ML: I would have to say that the most operation, from underground jumbos, to based group which collects a lot of in- technology becomes more important be-
award of a new contract providing on-site laboratory services
the sales and marketing within the mining
seen anything new in the market; something beneficial project that I have worked on haul truck brake pads and canteen sup- dependent seismic data,” Jobbins said. cause it has lower power requirements
at Barrick’s Bulyanhulu Gold Mine in Tanzania. The expansion Maintaining vital high-quality standards and very few moving parts. Being able
vertical for their analytical equipment. Their
that the entire mining industry looks at was with Gold Fields Ltd. If there was one plies. Mining companies are producing “By leveraging FlashBlade technology
continues in 2021 with the opening of a further laboratory in to replace parts with a remote worker on
new product is the BoxScan – a multi-
and says “wow we need that”. We do now Providing high-quality sample preparation and analysis results billions of data points every day, but many to process data at incredible speed, that
company that pioneered the application
Marsa Alam, Egypt in August and a new on-site laboratory at are still grappling to how to take advan- group has found problems around ingest- one of those sites becomes important.
sensor device combining Olympus pXRF,
and use of pXRF, it would have to be Gold
have multiple scanning technologies and to ensure clients get quality data for their decision making are
the Segilola Gold Project in Nigeria for Thor Explorations. Both tage of much of this data. ing data were taken away, and they were The miner has better logistics to get com-
ASD Terra Spec, magnetic susceptibility and
automation technologies and in addition to of utmost importance to MSALABS. The company has both
Fields. Gold Fields’ geoscientists at the
new labs also provide fire assay services. high-resolution line scan photography. We “Many organisations in the resources able to do it at 17 GB/second, 30 times ponents to these sites better than any IT
time understood the limitations of pXRF
this, over the past few years we have seen ISO 17025 (Testing and Calibration Laboratories) accreditation sector struggle to hold onto data and put faster than other technologies.” company could.”
and ISO 9001 (Quality Management Systems) certification
a strong move towards data science; thus have also been engaged by Mining Plus to regarding actual gold analysis. Thus, Jobbins said Pure Storage’s mantra of
Global Partnership with Chrysos to deploy assist with the development of an innovation it to use. They capture and store it but FlashBlade also allows users to simpli-
innovative software packages that can and regularly participates in industry Proficiency Testing with tical are not too sure how to process,” Mark fy the cleansing and preparation of data, reducing complexity meant it could pro-
they worked around these for analy
groundbreaking PhotonAssay Technology and technology strategy. solutions required for gold exploration. It Jobbins, vice president and field chief meaning the process of data sharing is vide a high level of technology innovation
provide customers with a useful derivative
AMIS, CDN Resource, Geostats, Oreas, PTP-MAL, Qotho and
Rocklabs.
information from the current data sources Later this year we will be the global partner was this company which really provided technology officer for Pure Storage Asia sped up. while keeping it incredibly simple to use,
In April this year, MSALABS announced a global partnership
they have. Phoenix Mining Technologies for the new low-level gold technology out of this technology with the foothold it now Pacific told Paydirt. “It may take 12-18 “Using advanced analytics to do that creating greater operational efficiency
with Chrysos to deliver their groundbreaking assay solution to
As part of MSALABS’ continuous improvement initiaitves, the
is taking the most innovative products, Perth, Portable Parts per Billion (PPPB). enjoys. We are pleased to still be working months to do something useful with that can give companies a glimpse into data and effectiveness even in core business
the international mining industry.
hub lab in Langley, Canada, has successfully extended the
housing them under our agency and allowing with some of these people on Phoenix’s data and that is staggeringly long. Many almost in real time, instead of waiting 6-12 applications.
PD: What has been the most
Chrysos PhotonAssay delivers multiple benefits to exploration accredited scope with 28 additional methods, also available companies are looking to put the data to months to make what could be business- He said the company’s DataHub tech-
new suite of technologies.
customers to choose their digitisation
and mining companies to enhance critical decision making to African customers. It is also in the process of rolling out greater use and use it almost in real time. critical decisions.” nology could also allow companies to
popular piece of equipment you
strategy.
and importantly, improve their bottom line. The PhotonAssay accreditation status to labs in Africa over the next 18 months. The amount of data will continue to grow This speeding up of data interpretation break down the silos which form over-use
PD: What will the mining sector
have promoted to industry during
method hits samples with high-energy X-rays, causing an To ensure its commitment to maintaining these standards exponentially and those who can harness becomes particularly important in remote of information.
PD: Is there enough being invested
look like in the next few years?
excitation of atomic nuclei that allows enhanced analysis of during COVID, where travel restrictions have made laboratory the power of that data will be the compa- locations. Jobbins said the FlashBlade in- “With those large datasets, it becomes
your career?
by mining companies in R&D? nies which will thrive.” frastructure also gave miners benefits in more important to share information ef-
gold, silver and copper in just hours. It provides faster, safer
ML: I believe that the we are at a major
ML: This is my 13th year within the mining
and more accurate analysis and is an environmentally friendly auditing more difficult, MSALABS has employed the use of The constraint usually comes in captur- this regard. fectively through the different stages of
ML: Mining companies for a long time have RealWear technology, a head-mounted wearable computer. ing and correctly storing the data. Jobbins “The resources industry offers unique the use,” Jobbins said. “Silos are usu-
turning point for the entire industry. There
replacement for fire assay. technology business, for most of this time
had R&D departments and I believe that the Auditors can undertake their review of operations in real time, said public cloud technology had limita- environmental challenges, but companies ally driven by applications or storage; it is
has been a lot of chat about the digitisation
seeing exactly what the operator sees and ensuring auditing
dollars spent has been on [automating] the I was involved with Olympus and their and automation of this business. This tions when dealing with massive data have taken advantage and are putting our probably the same underlying data being
Importantly, Chrysos PhotonAssay allows large samples of
analytical equipment, pXRF and pXRD. So
up to 500g to be measured and provides a true bulk reading can continue and its high standards are maintained. sets. technology into remote mines in the most used across different applications.
trucks and shovels side of the business. Not
talk is warranted as we are one of the
naturally I am going to say that the pXRF has
enough money has been spent on extraction last industries to modernise. With new “There are constraints about ingesting demanding of conditions,” he said. “We “Through our DataHub, companies are
independent of the chemical or physical form of the sample.
technologies. The orebody in the ground become the ultimate technological success technologies, in addition to the future able to hold the same information on the
The process is completely non-destructive, and all samples can
For more information, please contact
same technology and allows for different
story during my time. In all seriousness,
be retained for further testing or analysis if required. technologies, we will see people’s roles groups to share the information between
is a company’s asset and I believe this is
MSALABS African representatives:
where more R&D money should be spent. since starting my career in the business changing. Geoscientists will be able to the different applications and stages.
MSALABS CEO, Stuart Thomson, said, “Offering the Chrysos n pXRF go from a tool that was
we have see
R&D and innovation within the technology East Africa and MENA: be scientists again, instead of project Simplifying how that data is shared be-
discount
PhotonAssay solution to our global mining customers is ed by a fair number of industry
managers and there will be many more
space is being funded and developed by Stephen Southern - stephen.southern@msalabs.com comes important. It means companies
extremely exciting. This technology will significantly improve
professionals to a must-have analytical
the companies that make this equipment new jobs created in data science and can focus teams onto higher value work
instrument that i
the results turn-around time for our clients, providing consistent s now used within all
West Africa:
and software. They are then delivering new technology. My point of view, from the rather than working out how to export,
delivery of critical data within timeframes not possible with Fire
sectors of our business. It is somewhat of a
products, releasing them into the market George Siasios - george.siasios@msalabs.com copy, re-import and protect this data.
technology side, is that the future is bright
Assay.” natural fit for us to be working with Geotek
and measuring the uptake. and believe this augers well for the entire They can get into using it much quicker,
and PPPB. We have an ongoing commercial minerals extraction business. instead of securing it.”
relationship with Olympus, as both of these
technologies require a Vanta pXRF. Technology such as seismic is generating billions of data points – Dominic Piper
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