AMC at PDAC 2021

Ian Lipton

Advisory Lead/ Principal Geologist

Ian has 40 years of experience in mining geology, resource evaluation, geometallurgy, and exploration, covering a wide range of commodities and mining operations. He has been promoting geometallurgy for project improvement for 20 years and has been involved in a variety of geometallurgical projects.

As Global Practice Leader for Geometallurgy, Ian is responsible for designing and managing geometallurgical studies to reduce risk and improve outcomes in feasibility studies and operating mines. Ian is the author of a variety of technical papers on resource estimation, density, mining geology, and geometallurgy. He has presented Mine Geology and Grade Control and Geometallurgy training courses to professionals in Australia, Sweden, Tanzania, Brazil, and Indonesia.

Brian Hall

Principal Mining Engineer

Brian Hall is an internationally recognized leader in optimization of mine plans and strategies for underground and surface mines. With almost five decades of experience in the mining industry, he is a sought-after advisor and speaker on the topic.

Since coining the term Hill of Value 20 years ago, Brian has specialized in the optimization of cut-off grades and strategic mine plans. He presents workshops on project evaluation, the theory and practical application of cut-off grades, and mine and business strategy optimization. He authored the authoritative textbook, Cut-off Grades and Optimising the Strategic Mine Plan, published by the AusIMM in 2014.

Brian is also a sessional lecturer at Curtin University in Perth, where he presents a unit in the Master of Mineral and Energy Economics programme at the Curtin Graduate School of Business three times a year.

Francis (Frank) McCann

Frank is Principal Mining Engineer and General Manager of AMC’s office in Toronto. He has more than 28 years of industry experience and possesses extensive international experience across the Americas in open pit strategic mine planning development and execution. Frank has strong technical and analytical abilities combined with a solid business acumen. In his current capacity as General Manager, he is involved in open pit and underground projects and studies, in project management, writing NI 43-101 technical reports, due diligence activities and Pre-Feasibility and Feasibility studies.

Patrick Smith

Patrick Smith is the Managing Director and CEO at AMC Consultants, a global consultancy firm dedicated to helping miners find smarter ways to unearth hidden business value. AMC works with mining leaders to evaluate opportunities, solve hidden productivity challenges, and improve performance across the mining cycle. Prior to his current role, Patrick served as General Manger of the Brisbane office, then CEO of AMC. He has worked on mining studies, technical reviews and valuations for projects in five continents. Patrick holds a degree in mining engineering and is a chartered professional of The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.

Mort Shannon

Mort is General Manager and Principal Geologist at AMC’s office in Vancouver. He brings to AMC more than 40 years of diverse geological experience in a variety of mining situations and geological environments. On the exploration side, Mort has managed and contributed to grassroots and brownfields exploration around producing mines, as well as mine exploration replenishing Mineral Resources. He has worked on open pit and underground mine production geology and evaluation work, including Mineral Resource estimation and reporting.

Bryan Pullman

Bryan, Principal Mining Engineer and the General Manager of AMC’s office in the UK, has acquired more than 19 years of experience in many facets of underground and open-pit mining operations and projects. His mine engineering proficiency is in mining methods, equipment and systems productivity, mine design, scheduling, and mining geotechnical. Bryan has extensive experience with strategic planning, risk assessment, and financial analyses. He is experienced at determining production rates, cut-off grades, and Net Smelter Return calculations. Bryan is also well-practised at estimating capital and operating costs, generating project cashflow models, and identifying the key variables for sensitivity analyses for many commodities.

Paul Salmenmaki

Paul is a mining engineer with more than 20 years of experience in mine engineering services, mining operations, explosives and blasting consulting, and all levels of studies from scoping to feasibility. His expertise has largely been developed in the field of underground copper-nickel mines, industrial minerals, narrow vein precious metal deposits, and aggregates. He has also worked on numerous technical studies and authored an article in the E&MJ for dilution mitigation, which examined narrow vein drift and fill, as well as longhole open stoping mining methods, and suggested improvements for drill and blast designs, and equipment utilization of existing and proposed fleets.

Randal Olafson

With a combined 30+ years of experience in potash, hard rock, and uranium mines with both operators and with engineering consultancies, Randy’s operational background includes development planning, supervision, and oversight of mine and construction contractors. Consulting projects include mine and mechanical design, with extensive time spent at various mine sites. He is a user of Vulcan, Gemcom, Maptek, Surpac, and AutoCAD for 3D Plant Design.