Geometallurgy: Concepts & Principles

Frank Browning

Resource Geologist, SLR Consulting Limited

Frank is a Chartered geologist with over 13 years’ experience within the metalliferous mining sector, complemented by post graduate qualifications in Mining Geology and Geostatistics. Frank has extensive operational experience across exploration, project development and mining, including five years working on AngloGold Ashanti’s Sunrise Dam Gold Mine and Laverton District development projects.

In consultancy, Frank has gained exposure to a broader range of geological settings, commodities and project types, specialising in exploration, geological modelling and resource estimation to international reporting standards. He brings a valuable operators’ mindset to early-stage project development, with an expanding interest in geometallurgy.

Anna Fardell

Resource Geologist, SLR Consulting Limited

Anna’s background lies in consultancy and specifically bulk commodities where she has 16 years’ experience in developing, estimating and evaluating exploration and operational projects. As bulk commodities can have variable prices dependent on mineralogy and products, Anna is familiar with analysing these aspects from project discovery as the project value is intrinsically tied to this. She has expanded to focus on Mineral Resource Estimation and Project Management for a broader range of commodities and more marginal, complex projects where the geometallurgy is significant to the project value. This experience is typically in complex geological deposits, such as low-grade copper-gold and lithium clay.

Anna’s experience is coupled with a strong background in geostatistics and modelling. She also specialises in reporting Mineral Resources using CRIRSCO international guidelines.

Dr Arun Vathavooran

Metallurgist & Process Engineer, SLR Consulting Limited

Arun is an experienced mineral processing engineer with 20 years of experience in the mining industry, acquired through engineering, consulting, and research roles. His expertise spans geometallurgy, base metal flotation, gold and silver extraction, hydrometallurgy, iron ore processing, coal preparation, comminution circuit debottlenecking, flowsheet modelling, and process plant simulation. His commodities experience includes zinc, copper, tungsten, phosphate, potassium, niobium, manganese, tantalum, titanium, and vanadium.

Dr. Vathavooran has designed and managed both laboratory and pilot plant test work campaigns and conducted plant surveys and audits. He has also developed conceptual process plant designs for gold/silver and base metal projects, with responsibilities including equipment sizing, selection, and plant cost estimation. His work has frequently integrated geometallurgical insights to align metallurgical processing strategies with orebody variability.

Arun’s areas of expertise include the design, supervision, and management of mineral processing, geometallurgical, and hydrometallurgical test work (lab and pilot plant) programmes; process plant design; and capital and operating cost estimation for scoping to feasibility studies. He is also highly experienced in simulation, analysis, and debottlenecking of mineral processing flowsheets, including mass balance-based steady state simulations. His work supports technical and economic trade-off studies, geometallurgical modelling, process plant audits, due diligence for financial institutions, and the preparation of NI 43-101 and JORC compliant Technical Reports. He has also served as the owner’s representative to manage client interests during project development, ensuring integration of geometallurgical parameters into overall project planning and execution.