Strictly Boardroom this week presents a belated review of the Centre for Exploration Targeting Discovery Day conference held in February ahead of the RIU Explorers Conference in Fremantle.

Looking ahead to the 2015 event, your ideas are welcome as to which mineral discovery case histories you would most like to hear from at Discovery Day 2015.

The aim of Discovery Day is simple: it is to learn key exploration insights from selected mineral discovery case histories from presentations delivered by speakers who were directly involved in each discovery.

Additionally, a number of presentations on emerging new developments in exploration research round out the day.

Finally a lively panel session wraps things up – this year entitled “Reigniting exploration performance”.

To the brief review of Discovery Day 2014: Richard Schodde opened with a keynote address, outlining the latest data from Minex Consulting pertaining to the growing challenges that companies must overcome in the journey from discovery through to development.

Data was unveiled on percentage project conversion rates from first discovery announcement through to production and also on discovery performance metrics both by commodity and by country.

Professor John Miller of the CET and Dr Ned Stolz of Geoscience Australia then provided further scene-setting presentations on the new Australia-wide UNCOVER exploration initiative and on the use of high-resolution geophysical data to reinvigorate brownfields exploration respectively.

Emeritus Professor David Groves spoke on orogenic gold exploration factors – including an enlightening “10 commandments” to drive exploration success.

Dr Nic Thebaud of the CET spoke to the use of a mineral systems approach to exploration – a significant change from the deposit-focused approaches to exploration of the past.

Suitably primed for discovery, the rest of the day then focused on the nuances of actual mineral discoveries.

Key mineral discovery case studies were presented as follows:

• Jens Balkau of Regis Resources for the Garden Well gold discovery near Duketon
• Warren Potma of Hot Chili for the Productora copper-gold discovery in Chile’s coastal ranges
• Dr Mark Bennett spoke both on the philosophy of exploration discovery (and its pitfalls) and also on Sirius Resources’ Nova-Bollinger nickel-copper discovery in Western Australia’s Fraser Ranges
• Dr Tim Craske (now Iluka) spoke to the events that led to Ernest Henry copper-gold discovery in Queensland by WMC in the early 1990s
• John Hicks of Panoramic Resources outlined the discovery history of the Deacon nickel sulphide shoot south of Kambalda at the Lanfranchi operation. Hicks was also able to reveal early details of a discovery north of the Savannah underground nickel-copper mine in the Kimberley region. His timing was spot on: Panoramic had just that day announced the discovery, pushing Panoramic shares up 70%; and finally
• Matt Briggs of Gold Fields finished off the discovery case studies, again on a Kambalda region theme, describing the Athena-Hamlet gold discoveries at St Ives.

A wide-ranging panel discussion followed, kicked off by Professor David Groves with a brief illustrated dialogue on “What’s wrong with exploration”.

CET-invited panellists Peter Buck, Rocky Osborne, Wayne Spilsbury and Liam Twigger then provided their own views on what might reinvigorate the exploration sector globally.

Suffice to say there are many challenges to effective exploration out there – and also some potential solutions out there too if they can be instigated.

It was perhaps a measure of the enthusiasm on the day that formal panel discussion gave way to informal dialogue over drinks later than scheduled due to the great enthusiasm of all present to continue to contribute.

Thanks to all those who attended and provided feedback and to the corporate sponsors and other supporters, including the Centre for Exploration Targeting itself, PCF Capital Group, ALS Laboratories, Vertical Events and RESOURCESTOCKS magazine.

So which mineral deposit case histories would you like to see at Discovery Day 2015?

Your suggestions are most welcome.

Good hunting.

Allan Trench is a professor at Curtin Graduate School of Business and Research professor (value and risk) at the Centre for Exploration Targeting, University of Western Australia, a non-executive director of several resource sector companies and the Perth representative for CRU Consulting, a division of independent metals and mining advisory CRU Group (allan.trench@crugroup.com).