Roundup gets off to so-so start

Vancouver’s annual Mineral Exploration Roundup was kicked off this morning with a CEO breakfast at the Westin Bayshore Hotel. With a handful of protesters outside the hotel outnumbered by the police on duty, the President and CEO of DeBeers Canada, Jim Gowans, informed the assembled mining-friendly audience about the activities of his company and its role in diamond exploration, production and marketing.

The mining brain drain slows economic growth

Is there really a shortage of mining engineers or is there simply a surplus of professors looking to grow their departments? An egregious example can be found in the the Sowetan Huw Phillips of the Wits School of Mining Engineering, South Africa, calls for training of mining engineers so they can be “poached” by developed countries.