SGS recently announced the acquisition of E&S Engineering Solutions Inc., Tucson, Arizona, USA, the parent company of METCON Research & KD Engineering and welcomes the highly skilled staff of these groups into the SGS Minerals Services network. These two operating groups, to trade as SGS Metcon/KD Engineering going forward, bring extensive technical expertise and process engineering experience to the Minerals Services portfolio of services, including:

• Comprehensive analytical and metallurgical testing services including sample preparation, hydrometallurgical, beneficiation, and environmental testing for the recovery of base and precious metals
• Bench scale and pilot scale metallurgical test facilities including column leach testing, in-situ leach, flotation, and solvent extraction
• Testing, design and process engineering for NI 43-101 compliant Preliminary Economic Assessments, pre-feasibility and feasibility studies
• Complete process plant engineering design services for small to medium sized green field projects and plant modification/retrofit projects
• Plant audits and process optimization analysis

Our approach of combining metallurgical and process engineering expertise into a single integrated business model unlocks the full economic project potential for our clients. Located in the southwest USA, the facility is ideally situated to support the Arizona-Nevada exploration and mining camps and the strong Mexican minerals community. “I am very pleased with this acquisition. It allows us to add additional technical skills and services to the Minerals Services portfolio and offer these to our clients whether they work in the Americas or globally. Simultaneously, we continue to diversify our US business so, while we continue to serve our traditional coal and trading business community, we now can provide a broad suite of services for gold, base metal and related mineral exploration clients.” said Dave Smercina, Business Manager, Minerals Services, SGS North America Inc.

This acquisition further expands SGS’s unparalleled global network of over 150 commercial, on-site and mobile laboratories, 12 metallurgical facilities and 5 mineralogy facilities. Of these sites, 5 labs are fully integrated GEMM (geochemistry, environmental, metallurgy, mineralogy) labs (located in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile and South Africa) and 3 provide integrated geochemistry-metallurgy services (Mexico, Peru and Russia). Around the world, SGS offers a wide range of services to the minerals sector including geochemical analysis, resource calculation, mineralogy, metallurgy, advanced systems, water treatment and trade services. For further information regarding these and other SGS services, please visit www.sgs.com/mining.