What would the senior technical and strategy manager at Africa’s largest ever mining and infrastructure project do differently if the project – effectively initiated by mining major Rio Tinto in the 1990s – was kicking off today? Mike Apfel’s answer was in tune with one of the main themes of a large industry conference in Western Australia this week, but was definitely still surprising.
Apfel, a London-based manager of the Simandou mega-iron ore project in Guinea, was a keynote speaker at the 2026 AusIMM Iron Ore and Open Pit Operators Conference (IOOC26) in Perth. The event drew more than 700 attendees from over 20 countries to what AusIMM CEO Stephen Durkin called the “home of Australia’s mining industry”.
