METS has provided engineering consulting services to the resources industry for more than 37 years, working across every region of the world and every stage a project moves through: scoping, testwork, feasibility, detailed design, and into operation. We’re not a generalist engineering firm that occasionally picks up mining work. Mining and mineral processing is what we do, and it’s the only thing our team has spent nearly four decades getting better at.
Our in-house, multi-disciplinary team covers process, electrical, mechanical, civil and structural engineering under one roof, backed by senior metallurgical consultants who’ve run testwork and flowsheet development on ore types most consultants have never had to solve for. Whichever stage your project is at, a senior team member is involved from the first enquiry, and stays involved, so the assumptions made early aren’t lost, or second-guessed later by someone new to the file.
If you’re weighing up whether a project deserves further investment, need an independent technical view before a funding decision, or want consulting engineers who can take a project from concept through to commissioning without handing it between firms, this is where METS spends most of its time.
In the resources sector, engineering consulting services span a wider brief than most people expect. It’s not just producing drawings or a cost estimate. It’s the technical judgement that sits behind every major capital decision a resource company makes, from whether an orebody is worth pursuing to whether a flowsheet will actually perform once it’s built.
That typically includes:
Metallurgical testwork and flowsheet development, to establish whether and how a mineral can be economically separated from the ore around it
Engineering studies, from Concept and Scoping through Pre-Feasibility, Feasibility, and Definitive Feasibility Study, each one narrowing the uncertainty around cost and return
Multi-disciplinary design across process, electrical, mechanical, civil and structural engineering
Independent technical review, for boards, lenders, and project owners who need a second opinion before committing capital
Optimisation of existing operations, where the goal is squeezing more value out of a plant that’s already running
Working out which of these a project actually needs, and in what order, is often the first useful thing a good consulting engineer does for a client.
Crushing, grinding, flotation, gravity and magnetic separation, dewatering: METS manages metallurgical testwork from planning through to piloting and reporting, and uses it to guide flowsheet and equipment decisions before serious capital is committed.
From a first-pass Concept and Scoping Study through to an investment-grade Definitive Feasibility Study, our processing, electrical, mechanical, civil and structural engineers work as one team, so a project’s assumptions carry through cleanly from stage to stage instead of being re-litigated by a new consultant each time.
For clients who already have a design or EPCM contractor engaged, METS can act as an independent set of eyes, reviewing deliverables, testwork, and cost estimates on the owner’s behalf, so decisions aren’t made on a contractor’s word alone.
For plants already in production, we look for the gap between design intent and actual performance, and the process, mechanical or control changes needed to close it.
Continuity, not handoffs. The senior engineer who scopes your project is still on it at commissioning, not passed off to whoever’s available next.
Experience across commodities and geographies. 37+ years on resource projects worldwide means we’ve usually seen a version of the problem in front of you, even when the ore looks nothing like the last one.
A genuinely independent view. As mining engineering consultants, our job is to give you a technically defensible answer, not the answer that keeps a design fee flowing.
Reporting you can actually use. Regular written status updates through the life of a project, and a final report built to be taken to a board or a lender, not a spreadsheet of raw numbers you have to interpret yourself.
If your project has stalled, or you’re deciding which stage of engineering it needs next, we’d like to hear about it.
Engineering consulting covers the studies, testwork and technical advice that determine whether and how a project should be built. EPCM (Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management) is the delivery phase that follows, once those decisions have already been made.
Often, yes, mainly for independence. Even resource companies with strong in-house teams bring in outside metallurgical consultants and consulting engineers before committing major capital, simply to get a technical view that isn’t shaped by the assumptions already built into the project.
A consulting engineer typically covers the broader design disciplines: process, mechanical, electrical, civil and structural. A metallurgical consultant focuses specifically on how a mineral behaves through testwork and flowsheet design. METS keeps both under one roof, so they’re never working from different assumptions.
It usually comes down to how much uncertainty your project can still tolerate. Early-stage projects generally need testwork and a scoping study; projects heading toward a funding decision need a feasibility study or DFS. If you’re not sure where yours sits, that’s a reasonable first question to bring to us.
Please send through your enquiry today from the form below and we will get back to you to discuss your project.