CBI mineral industry conference

THE CBI Minerals Group, in association with the Associate Parliamentary Minerals Group, is to hold its second major mineral industry conference, ‘Living with Minerals’, on 6 November 2006 at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in central London. The conference will be followed by the formal launch of the ‘UK National Minerals Forum’ at a reception in the Houses of Parliament.

Chaired by Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, chairman of Anglo American, the 2006 conference will hear from leading speakers, including the director-general of the CBI and the Rt Hon John Gummer MP. The plenary session will be followed by four interactive discussion groups focusing on: Sustaining access to UK minerals: challenges and solutions; Security of supply: is the UK vulnerable? An overview of mineral demand and supply for the next 25 years; Building and supplying the Olympics, Thames Gateway and the Growth Areas: challenges and solutions; and Environmental realism: improving mutual understanding and dialogue.

Some 300 delegates and guests are expected attend from the EU and UK government, the GLA and the regional assemblies, mineral planning authorities, NGOs, environmental organizations, industry, suppliers and customers.

Commenting on the event, Nigel Jackson, chairman of the CBI Minerals Group, said: ‘The essential role and contribution UK minerals make to our economy and society is not widely understood. This conference builds on our first ‘Living with Minerals’ conference and takes forward the agenda of how we can all make the link between minerals, the economy and our way of life, and sustain it for the next generation.

‘We will examine how access to minerals is becoming increasingly constrained by the cumulative impacts of both EU and UK regulation and how this may affect security of supply for the long term. We also want to identify what challenges may lie ahead in ensuring that key developments, such as the Olympics, Thames Gateway and the Growth Areas, receive sustainable supplies and what solutions may be needed to achieve this.

‘Critical to all of these issues is improving the dialogue between the industry and environmental organizations and developing a better mutual understanding.’