There’s a moment in every technological revolution when optimism meets reality - when the glossy promise of transformation hits the grit of practical deployment.
China quietly built the world’s most powerful critical minerals supply chains while other nations - including Australia - dozed through a geopolitical shift that now threatens economic security, trade independence, and defence readiness.
When Anton Kirsten took the stage at the Life of Mine | Mine Waste and Tailings 2025 conference in Brisbane, he wasted no time outlining a problem that’s been quietly growing into a full-blown crisis: there simply aren’t enough Engineers of Record (EoRs) to go around.
New rules, stricter enforcement and a state-wide crackdown are forcing South Australian mines and quarries to radically rethink how they manage crystalline silica exposure - or risk being shut down.
For an industry under mounting scrutiny and regulatory oversight, there is perhaps no role more critical - or misunderstood - than that of the Engineer of Record (EoR).
At the sharp end of metallurgical decision-making, where feasibility meets financial risk, one recurring theme echoes loudest: if you don’t know your orebody, you don’t know your project.
“You’re so vein, I’m so vein, we’re all so vein,” quipped Dale Sims as he opened his presentation at the AusIMM Mineral Resource Estimation Conference ‘MREC 2025’ in Perth.
