Student: Jonathan Bell

Qualifications: MSc Mineral Economics (2008), BSc Applied Geology (2000)

Affiliations: Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists, Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors

Background: Jon is a geologist and mineral economist with experience in exploration, resource definition, mining and project valuation gained from work with Western Australian mining and consulting companies.  Jon specialises in the field of mineral asset valuations and uses a range of advanced valuation techniques such as Market Block-models (which he pioneered), Monte Carlo simulation, Modern Asset Pricing, Real Options Analysis, Expected Values and Certainty equivalents. 

Jon is the Managing Director of Alexander Research Pty Ltd, a privately held company that specialises in providing concise information on exploration, development and production projects for use in the Comparable Markets Approach to mineral asset valuation.

Jon is also an active Committee Member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists Western Australian Branch.

Thesis Title: Risk Adjusted Evaluation of Mineral Asset Using Transactions Based Statistical Models

Thesis summary:  As part of his Masters degree in Mineral Economics, Jon established that industry standard geostatistical modelling techniques can be applied to the sale of gold deposits spatially distributing the dollar per ounce sales price based on size, grade and a third axis such as a sovereign risk index (Figure 1).  The ‘block-model’ method has the potential to inject some comparability and objectivity in the otherwise somewhat arbitrary application of ‘rule-of-thumb’ in determining transaction prices for in situ mineralisation.  By using the Alexander Research mining specific mergers and acquisitions database, Jon is focussing his PhD on refining the use and broadening the application of the block-model method in addition to incorporating Fuzzy Logic and Neural Network analysis.

Figure 1. Simplified example of a mineral deposit block-model.

Significance:   In 2007, the global value of gold and base metal resource acquisitions was worth in the order of US$43,000 M and in 2008 some US$32,000 M.  Any increases in the accuracy and efficiency relating to the valuation of mineral assets may have an immediate commercial impact, especially when considering that valuers in the minerals industry often assign valuation ranges in the order of ±25% around a preferred value. On a hypothetical basis that the proposed research results in a 1% increase in global accuracy (i.e. well within the current valuation ranges), the economic impact may have a magnitude in the order of US$320 M to US$430 M.

Supervisor: Associate Professor Pietro Guj

Sponsor: Alexander Research Pty Ltd

Email: jbell@cyllene.uwa.edu.au

Telephone (direct): +61 08 6488 5809

Mailing address: Centre for Exploration Targeting, Western Australian School of Mines (Curtin University), School of Earth and Geographical Sciences M006, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Hwy, Crawley, WA 6009