Geochemical Quality Assurance in the Year 2000 and Beyond
By Mark Sheppard

SECTOR: MINERAL EXPLORATION

The recent and well documented changes in the exploration and mining industries has led to a more focused and business oriented approach to the way companies, and individuals in companies operate. Companies are seeking new projects by perusing more business pathways while maintaining a core staff of geoscientific professionals to evaluate the technical aspects of those business opportunities and to generate new projects. Few of the large companies see themselves as the primary operator, seeking alliances or outsourcing to facilitate these functions.

Traditionally companies employed technical specialists such as geochemists and geophysicists to complement the geologists in their exploration and evaluation teams. The general trend in tough times is to reduce the technical services first and maintain the core professionals, generally geologists. This has the effect of burdening the geologists with additional technical responsibility and the potential to defocus their effort. Alternatively, those services are sought externally through consultants and contractors. Responsibility for data quality is generally passed down to the contractor or operator and should be built into contracts. Data Quality may be remote to the company geologist who must still accept ultimate responsibility for any decisions made under their control.

A key aspect of this change in operation is underpinned by Fund Mangers, who insist that the risks to investment are reduced and kept minimal. A lack of credibility in the industry ensued from the Bussang Gold saga, which exposed a general lack of confidence in assaying methods and sample handling. This inturn affected the share price and ability of companies to attract finance. The Canadian Gold companies were most affected and this resulted in Canadian regulatory authorities implementing new guidelines for evaluating assay data quality in an attempt to restore investor confidence.

The basic purpose of quality assurance in geochemistry and environmental science is to achieve, maintain and optimise confidence in the results ultimately received from an analytical laboratory. The cost of sampling and analysis is high and companies need to get good value for their dollar. More importantly, in advanced drilling and resource assessment programs; investment decisions may be based on results returned from the laboratory. Incorrect or inadequate results, either too high or too low could result in economically unsound decisions.

For the financier and manager of a project, confidence in the quoted analytical values and resultant ore reserve calculations is essential in reducing the risk to investment.

In production inept analysis during grade control at values close to cut-off grade could result in the incorrect assigning of waste and ore, adding to cost and reconciliation complications.

It is timely and essential in this era of risk reduction that professionals in exploration and mining are in control of the quality assurance aspects for all analytical data. This may ensue from procedures and protocols inserted into their exploration or evaluation projects or as a critical aspect of Due Diligence in the evaluation of Joint Ventures, Acquisitions and other Business Opportunities.

Companies such as Geochem Solutions can provide a specialist service in the implementation, administration and evaluation of assay quality and can act as an independent auditor of assay data quality.

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Mark Sheppard is currently Principal Geochemist for Geochem Solutions Pty Ltd; He is a member of the AusIMM and the AEG and formerly held the position of Senior Project Geochemist with BHP Discovery To comment on the relevance of the views expressed, particularly about other regions of the world. Please use the Discussion Forum on www.skilledgeoscience.com or submit a new article for publication to the Editor@skilledgeoscience.com in the Skilled Journal.