Dr. Nic Barcza, has a PhD in Metallurgical Engineering and is a registered Professional Engineer. Nic is the Director of Metallurgy for Oriel Resources and an  Executive Consultant to Mintek in South Africa.  He was the Chairman of Mintek’s wholly-owned subsidiary Mindev Pty (Ltd), until the end of 2005 and has served on a number of Boards such as Mogale Alloys (Pty) Ltd, a ferroalloy and stainless steel dust/alloy recycling operation near Johannesburg.

Nic Barcza gained much of his experience in the late 1970’s and 1980’s working on projects in the ferroalloy industry to improve the performance of large submerged arc furnaces for ferrochrome and ferromanganese. He subsequently managed a major programme of development work during the mid to 1980’s into the 1990’s that culminated in the successful commercial implementation of improved DC arc furnace technology in particular for the direct smelting of ferrochromium from chromite ore fines using low cost coal instead of more expensive coke. Mogale Alloys, of which Nic was until recently the Chairman, is one of the plants that has successfully operated this technology for over 15 years.

This DC arc furnace technology has been successfully applied to a number of other projects including the ilmenite smelting and production of a nickel and cobalt -containing ferroalloys. Nic has been working with Oriel Resources for most of the past two years on the development of the Shevchenko Nickel and more recently on the Voskhod Chrome projects based on aspects of this technology.

He is a past-President and Honorary Life Fellow of the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (SAIMM), chairman of the International Committee of INFACON a Fellow of the South African Academy of Engineering and has served on several academic advisory Boards and the Council of Wits University.