Could you elaborate on the history of SRK in Brazil?

SRK entered the Brazilian market in 2005, providing engineering and geological services to the mining sector, such as reserves and resources certifications, an area where SRK is a leading player. Over time, we have broadened our services to include geotechnical and environmental business lines.

Following the Mariana incident, the mining industry focused on the importance of ESG and geotechnical safety. Thus, we decided to concentrate on enhancing our geoenvironmental and geotechnics business unit in Brazil, which began working with the Renova Foundation, the entity leading the Samarco remediation programs, in 2017. Our work with Renova is very extensive. We help them develop technical studies, act as peer review specialists, and provide technical advice to support their technical team.

How has SRK Brazil performed in the last few years?

SRK Brazil experienced remarkable growth since 2016. In 2020 a new visioning took place allowing rethinking our business strategies and focus, leading us to the best year in SRK Brazil’s history in 2021, and we expect 2023 to surpass SRK's performance in 2021.

Which SRK services are most in demand?

Very often we are contacted by our clients seeking mineral resources and reserves certification, audits, and due diligences, but following GISTM from 2020, the resolution published by the National Mining Agency (ANM) in 2022 brought important updates to what regards geotechnical safety. We have observed increasing demand for services such as dewatered tailings stacking and site-wide water balance.

The second most important area is ESG. We have seen that clients are increasingly prioritizing ESG issues, including mine closure. For Brazil, mine closure is relatively new compared to other mining countries. Therefore, our experience with implemented and long-term monitored closure projects limits our understanding about the challenges that we will be facing. Communities, consultancies, mining companies and regulators must work together in the coming advances. The Brazilian Mining Institute (IBRAM) has recently initiated a discussion on this topic, which will certainly help increasing the Brazilian mining sector awareness toward the subject, which ultimately seeks engineering, social and environmental safety.

In 2021, ANM published a new resolution with more clear indications on minimum requirements for closure. It is a good advance, but there are still various challenges to be addressed, such as the geochemical characterization for tailings facilities need to be further addressed. At SRK, we believe in a "designing for closure" concept. Thinking of closure in the early stages of the project can help companies with related costs as well as facilitate management and minimizing future liabilities by increasing the level of understanding of the impacts caused through the life of mine.

Finally, there is growing interest in critical mineral deposits in Brazil, including lithium, copper, nickel, rare earths, and other minerals. We have been conducting due diligences to assist our clients in making investment decisions. In this context, we observe that the Bahia State (the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahía, with its capital in Salvador) has been targeted by numerous investors as a spot for strategic minerals, such as cooper, nickel and gold.

How can SRK support mining companies in improving their tailings management systems?

Since 2020, our clients have been asking SRK to conduct studies to improve the safety of their tailings facilities. We have been working extensively in collaboration with our colleagues from various countries including our South and North American practices and Australia, who have expertise in dry stack technologies.

Our team has experienced professionals able to provide geotechnical solutions while addressing hydrological uncertainty and climate change potential effects to assess the impacts and risks of tailings facilities for mining projects and their social and environmental surroundings.

What are SRK's main objectives for the coming years?

We aim to achieve organic growth, maintaining our high level of technical expertise when serving our clients. To accomplish this goal, we plan to expand our team by 2024, consolidating a solid group of mining experts focused on providing advice and site-specific solutions, taking advantage of SRK’s global expertise applied locally.

We also expect to continue operating our four business units of mining engineering and reserves, resource geology, geotechnics and geoenvironmental engineering. However, we aim to enhance our technical capabilities by investing in disciplines like rock mechanics, water resources and mine closure.