CRC ORE is the first large scale research initiative to bring together ore body knowledge, mass mining, blasting engineering, mineral processing, spatial modelling and resource economics.

Based at The University of Queensland's Sustainable Minerals Institute, CRC ORE began operations in July 2010 under the Federal Government Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) program. 

The Centre is supported by AMIRA International, Anglo American Platinum, BHP Billiton, CAE Mining, JKTech, Newcrest Mining, Quantitative Group, Teck, The University of Queensland, QUT, the University of Tasmania and Xstrata.
 

What is a Cooperative Research Centre?

The Cooperative Research Centre program supports end-user driven research collaborations to address major challenges facing Australia. CRCs pursue solutions to these challenges that are innovative, of high impact and capable of being effectively deployed by the end-users.

The CRC Program links researchers with industry to focus R&D efforts on progress towards utilisation and commercialisation. Since the Program began in 1990 there have been a total of 186 CRCs, and the Federal Government spends approximately $200 million annually distributed amongst 40 Centres.

Click here for a video about CRCs

CRC ORE's focus

The primary goal of CRC ORE is to facilitate a fundamental transformation of resource extraction and the way it is evaluated, through mine-wide process optimisation that considers the consumption of energy, water and the generation of CO2 in mining operations.

Given the increase in energy and water required to process Australia’s growing number of lower quality deposits, mine sites are not well equipped to meet the environmental legislation, water shortages and carbon trading systems that are changing the mining economic environment.

Based on the Centre's research, the development of technology and methodologies that incorporate these new metrics will enable the inclusion of energy efficiency into daily business assessments. CRC ORE outputs will enable site engineers to consider changes to the design, layout and operation of mines to maximise metal production while minimising the environmental impact.

To read more about CRCs and CRC ORE's strategy for the future, click here (PDF).
   

Areas of Research

CRC ORE research projects investigate all elements of the mining process, seeking opportunities to optimise the system through better understanding of the way in which processes work together. These include ore body characterisation, geometallurgy, blasting, comminution and financial evaluation.

See the Research Overview to learn more about CRC ORE research.