FEI Acquires JKTech Mineral Liberation Analysis Business
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FEI Company has announced it has acquired the Mineral Liberation Analysis business of JKTech Pty Ltd, the technology transfer company for the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre (JKMRC) and other Centres of the Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI) at The University of Queensland.
“FEI and JKTech have been technology partners for more than ten years—delivering MLA™ solutions to major natural resource companies and universities around the world,” said Dr. Paul Scagnetti, FEI’s Industry Division vice president and general manager. “This acquisition follows our recent acquisition of the QEMSCAN solution and the assets of Intellection, the other major force in automated mineralogy, giving FEI a leadership position in this market.”
“We’re pleased by FEI’s commitment to take MLA to the next level,” said Dr. Geoff Gault, JKTech Managing Director, “The resources and capabilities that FEI is putting into automated mineralogy should have a substantial positive impact on the ROI of natural resources companies around the world. The MLA technology has been rapidly adopted by the world’s leading mining companies, giving credit to the MLA inventor Dr Ying Gu.”
Automated mineralogy systems identify minerals in polished sections of drill core, cuttings, particulate, or lump materials, and quantify a wide range of characteristics, such as mineral abundance, grain size, porosity/permeability and liberation.
These geological properties drive business decisions in natural resource recovery operations such as mining, mineral processing and oil & gas drilling, making MLA and QEMSCAN invaluable to geophysicists, geologists, mineralogists and metallurgists who engage in process optimization, feasibility studies and particle characterization analyzes.
Dr. Ying Gu, the inventor of MLA, will join JKMRC and will continue to do research in the field of mineralogy. FEI will maintain an office in Brisbane, Australia, which will serve as the Center of Excellence for Natural Resources.
QEMSCAN and MLA experts from the former Intellection and JKTech MLA businesses are joining FEI natural resources experts at that office to deliver world-class customer support services and to expand product development.
“FEI and JKTech have been technology partners for more than ten years—delivering MLA™ solutions to major natural resource companies and universities around the world,” said Dr. Paul Scagnetti, FEI’s Industry Division vice president and general manager. “This acquisition follows our recent acquisition of the QEMSCAN solution and the assets of Intellection, the other major force in automated mineralogy, giving FEI a leadership position in this market.”
“We’re pleased by FEI’s commitment to take MLA to the next level,” said Dr. Geoff Gault, JKTech Managing Director, “The resources and capabilities that FEI is putting into automated mineralogy should have a substantial positive impact on the ROI of natural resources companies around the world. The MLA technology has been rapidly adopted by the world’s leading mining companies, giving credit to the MLA inventor Dr Ying Gu.”
Automated mineralogy systems identify minerals in polished sections of drill core, cuttings, particulate, or lump materials, and quantify a wide range of characteristics, such as mineral abundance, grain size, porosity/permeability and liberation.
These geological properties drive business decisions in natural resource recovery operations such as mining, mineral processing and oil & gas drilling, making MLA and QEMSCAN invaluable to geophysicists, geologists, mineralogists and metallurgists who engage in process optimization, feasibility studies and particle characterization analyzes.
Dr. Ying Gu, the inventor of MLA, will join JKMRC and will continue to do research in the field of mineralogy. FEI will maintain an office in Brisbane, Australia, which will serve as the Center of Excellence for Natural Resources.
QEMSCAN and MLA experts from the former Intellection and JKTech MLA businesses are joining FEI natural resources experts at that office to deliver world-class customer support services and to expand product development.
