Upgrading studies in mineral economics

Mineral economics is not a highly favored academic pursuit in Canada. There are no post-graduate level programs at any Canadian university and virtually nowhere to gain any type of accreditation. There is simply no academic mechanism to foster research or training in mineral economics.

The Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM), through its mineral economics committee, is trying to correct that situation. That one of the world’s great mineral producing nations should not generate quality research on mineral economics issues is a glaring shortcoming, they say. The committee’s objective is to raise the industry’s knowledge of economic and finance, highlighting the critical role these play in mining.

“Our universities have fine technical programs in mining, but these programs pay scant attention to economics,” says the committee. “If the Canadian industry hopes to compete, it must always be mindful of the economic implications of the decisions we make.”

The committee has set for itself the long-term goal of establishing a chair in mineral economics at a major Canadian university. To do that it plans to seek contributions from mining companies totalling at least $1 million and then approach one of the major mining departments about setting up such a program.

While establishing a chair in mineral economics is the committee’s long-term goal, it has initially set out to encourage research into mineral economic issues by offering a $2,500 scholarship grant for a specific project. To that end it sent letters to more than 40 institutions and more than 70 individuals heading up the geology/ engineering program, the economics department and the business school or program at the institutions.

Committee member Egizio Bianchini says he was not particularly pleased with the overall level or quality of the submissions, but seven were considered to be of a calibre near the type of topic and effort the committee was seeking.

“This lack of response further indicates that the study of mineral economics in Canada is at best haphazard,” said Bianchini.

The committee picked out two submissions to be considered for the grant and finally settled on a topic submitted by two MBA students at Wilfrid Laurier University’s School of Business and Economics, Katherine Daiziel and Jeffrey Dixon. Their topic is “A study of the use of gold loan financing techniques used by Canadian mining companies.”

The committee hopes the resulting paper will be of sufficient quality to publish shortly in the CIM Bulletin.