The Brazilian mineral sector is powerful. In a huge geologically privileged territory, it creates 180,000 direct jobs and over 2 million indirect jobs. Iron ore alone represents almost 10% of national exports, second only to soybeans. But other ores also catch the eye. In the last elections, much has been said about niobium, essential in sectors such as technology and aerospace. Brazil has 90% of the world’s ore reserves. It is also the third exporter of graphite, an important component of the electric car battery, the next trend on cars.
“With the consolidation of the reforms in Brazil, there will be a growth of projects in the area of ore exploration in the medium term. Canadian investors have always been very active in developing new ore projects, we have to be close to them,” says Mario Reinhardt, director of GE21, CCBC’s associate company since last year.
GE21 is a specialized ore consultancy that operates in the various stages of project development. Their team has over 20 years of industry experience in a variety of commodities, especially gold, iron, manganese, bauxite, nickel, among others – nickel, by the way, is a key element for the mobile phone industry.
The company has been developing work from the geology, resource estimation and ore reserves stage to mining projects and technical reports for companies such as Gerdau and Arcelor Mittal (iron), Sigma Resources (lithium), Tristar Gold (gold), Largo Resources (vanadium), and ERO/Caraíba (copper), some of them listed on the Canadian stock exchange.
“Canada represents one of the strongest pillars of mining in the world in investment, know-how, and technology. We have been disseminating our products to the Mining Commission, and we are seeking to strengthen ties with Canadian mining companies wishing to invest in Brazil,” said Mario, who was appointed as the industry’s personality of the year in 2017 in an election among readers of the Brasil Mineral magazine, in the Engineering and Technology category.
Development e Sustainability
GE21 closely follows international mining trends. In March, the company was part of the Brazilian delegation on PDAC, one of the largest industry events in the world, held in Toronto, where it made an exhibition in Brazil’s booth. The participation was via the Agency for Technological Development of the Brazilian Mining Industry (Adimb) and was supported by CCBC.
Technology is another focus of GE21, which is concerned with inserting its solutions in the digital transformation line. Since 2007, for example, the company has been applying Virtual Reality-based solutions in partnership with Virtalis and the British Geological Survey (BGS) for advanced integration and visualization of mining geoscience data.
In relation to the environment, through the application of Geometallurgy and the new ore sorting technology for enrichment of materials leaving the mine, prior to grinding, GE21 has been able to minimize tailings generation, increase recovery rates and reduce water use, contributing to greater sustainability of mining activity in Brazil. The strategy is the result of a partnership with the Austrian company Redwave.
