OZ Minerals and University of Adelaide sign research alliance

Monday, 1 June 2015

OZ Minerals and the University of Adelaide today announced the signing of an innovative partnership to collaborate on new research opportunities.

Andrew Cole, Managing Director and CEO of OZ Minerals, and Professor Warren Bebbington, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Adelaide signed a Memorandum of Understanding that outlines a unique strategic partnership.

The University of Adelaide, led by its Institute for Mineral and Energy Resources (IMER), will collaborate with OZ Minerals on research projects that have direct interest to both parties. This includes areas such as geology and exploration, resource characterisation, mine to mill optimisation, geometallurgy and infrastructure development. 

“This partnership with the University of Adelaide paves the way for a collaborative approach to driving innovation within our company,” says Managing Director and CEO Andrew Cole.

“This is an opportunity to combine industry and academic knowledge, find new and better ways of doing business critical activities and immediately apply them to real-life situations.”

“We look forward to working with OZ Minerals in this strategic alliance,” says Professor Rick Russell, Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at the University of Adelaide.

“Combining University expertise in the mineral and energy resources, and other areas, with industry input will benefit not just OZ Minerals and the University, but also the wider local and national communities.

“It will boost University engagement with the community and ensure beneficial impacts for industry from our research.”

Initially, the two organisations will focus on more fully understanding each other’s capabilities and needs and identifying opportunities to collaborate.  Potentially this could be through targeted research, placement of students at OZ Minerals assets or providing opportunities for OZ Minerals staff to participate in study and research.

An early win for the partnership is the establishment of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Research Hub for Copper-Uranium Transformation at the University; an initiative that will focus on developing processes for adding value to South Australia’s copper concentrates. 

“OZ Minerals are already supporting the Copper-Uranium research hub with considerable financial and in-kind resources and we welcome further engagement and interactions for wider benefit,” Professor Russell says.

The partnership represents another decision under Andrew Cole’s leadership to deliver on  OZ Minerals’ recently released strategy. Entitled ‘Earning the Potential to Grow’, the strategy is focused on long-term growth and value creation.

“OZ Minerals’ Prominent Hill operation and future development opportunities at Carrapateena provide significant optionality going forward,” says Andrew Cole.

“We look forward to working with the University of Adelaide to pursue new research opportunities that can extract the maximum value from these assets.”

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