The Pan-European Reserves and Resources Reporting Committee (PERC) has been active, writes Eddie Bailey.
The PERC Training subcommittee, led by Ed Sides of AMEC, has produced a one-day Workshop on the reporting of exploration results, reserves and resources specially adapted for PERC Standard 2013. This was presented on 21 October 2014 in London preceding FINEX '14, and will also be presented on 19 November, in Brussels, ahead of MIN WIN WIN. Steve Henley led a half-day reporting standards masterclass for a group of Russian candidate members of IOM3 in London on 17 October.
Our PERC Standard 2013 sub-committee, led by former Chair Steve Henley, has drafted proposals for additional clauses on mining and demolition waste, as well as dimension stone. Work also continues on integrating the FRB reporting code into PERC. Some extension of the PERC standard will be needed for governmental use in the context of the INTRAW project, and initial consideration of the requirements has begun.
In June 2014 Chair Eddie Bailey presented on the work and principles of PERC, and our relationship with European and international regulators and standards authorities, at the UK Extractive Industry Geologists Conference held in Scotland.
In September, Secretary Carlos Almeida, Treasurer Ruth Allington, together with Steve Henley, successfully established PERC as a core participant of the EU Horizon 2020 INTRAW Project. This is a large project aimed at developing international cooperation on raw materials with Australia, Canada, Japan, South Africa and the USA. Aligned to existing EU initiatives, MINVENTORY, and another small project MINATURA in which PERC is also a participant, INTRAW will create databases based on PERC Standard 2013 and establish a permanent European Raw Materials Observatory securing raw material strategy and development for decades to come.
October 2014 saw the CRIRSCO AGM at Ulaan Bataar in Mongolia. The event was attended by PERC representative on CRIRSCO, Eddie Bailey, and committee member Neil Wells (kindly standing in for PERC 2nd CRIRSCO representative Carlos Almeida who was unable to attend due to important company commitments). Eddie Bailey presented an update on the work of PERC and our intention to outreach more directly to our European members and neighbours, including the translation of PERC Standard 2013 into other European languages through the INTRAW project. The event was an enormous success and Mongolia were formally ratified as the 8th member (and first Asian member) of CRIRSCO.
The CRIRSCO delegation then travelled to Beijing to meet representatives of the Chinese Government (Ministry of Land and Resources PRC), major Chinese mineral extractive companies, geological surveys, and mining exchanges, and presented on the CRIRSCO family of Codes and Standards, including PERC and NAEN, at the China Mining Expo 2014. There was great enthusiasm shown by our various hosts for embarking on CRIRSCO membership and this was exemplified by a presentation ceremony involving the formal translation of the JORC Code into Chinese.
Finally, the next PERC AGM has been confirmed in Helsinki, Finland in March 2015, hosted by Geologiliitto, and kindly arranged by PERC committee member Markku Iljina.