Transparency and credibility in the disclosure of information on Mineral Resources and Reserves
IMEB, one of the 6 professional organizations of PERC (CRIRSCO), ensures the veracity and transparency of public information on Mineral Resources and Reserves. Its goal is to protect investors and promote ethics in the sector.
About Us
The Iberian Mining Engineers Board for the declaration of Mineral Resources and Reserves (IMEB)
IMEB is a non-profit professional organization, dependent on the High Council of Official Colleges of Mining Engineers of Spain and the Ordem dos Engenheiros of Portugal, established by an agreement signed in Lisbon on January 23, 2017.
IMEB registers Spanish and Portuguese mining engineers with the necessary training and experience to act as Competent Persons for signing public reports on Mineral Resources and Reserves, according to the PERC Standard and other international standards of the CRIRSCO family.
Functions
Accreditation
To accredit mining engineers who meet the requirements for membership and to maintain a public register of the same.
Ethical Compliance
To ensure compliance with its code of ethics and conduct, as well as to establish disciplinary procedures and penalties that may arise from malpractice when acting as a “Competent Person” by its members.
Continuous Development
To promote, carry out activities, and supervise the continuous training and professional development undertaken by its members.
International Cooperation
To liaise with national mineral resource and reserve reporting organizations (NROs) and other recognised professional organizations (RPOs), especially those represented in the Pan-European Reserves and Resources Reporting Committee (PERC).
Mission
To accredit, register as members, and train Spanish and Portuguese mining engineers who meet the requirements to act as Competent Persons.
Vision
To serve the mining community by unifying criteria and ensuring quality assurance procedures from a technical, economic, social, and environmental point of view.
Our Values
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Ethics
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Transparency
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Technical Competence
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Professional Excellence
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Continuous Development
History
Beginnings
In Spain, the reactivation of exploration and mining projects in the first decade of this century, many of them driven by junior mining companies, and, consequently, the emergence of a new niche of activity for mining engineers, led the High Council of Official Colleges of Mining Engineers to create a working group in 2012 whose first mission was to develop a Spanish Code for the Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources, and Mineral Reserves.
This code, inspired by the JORC, PERC, and the Chilean Code, was presented to Edmundo Tulcanaza, then president of CRIRSCO, who referred us to PERC and recommended that we integrate as a Recognised Professional Organisation (RPO) within PERC, as it is the National Reporting Organisation (NRO) at a European level.
Towards European Integration
In November 2013, PERC presented the Council's request to the CRIRSCO General Assembly in Bogotá, proposing that the new RPO for European mining engineers within PERC should be FEANI, as a European-wide professional association similar to the European Federation of Geologists, an RPO that was already a member of PERC.
Conversations between the Council, FEANI, and PERC continued throughout 2013 and 2014, and were closed in July 2014 without agreement between PERC and FEANI, by decision of the latter's Executive Committee. Concurrently, the Specialized Group on Mineral Resources and Reserves of the National Association of Mining Engineers was constituted.
Birth of IMEB (Iberian Mining Engineers Board)
With the FEANI route exhausted, conversations began in 2014 between the High Council of Official Colleges of Mining Engineers of Spain and the Colégio de Engenharia Geológica e de Minas de Portugal, with the aim of requesting PERC to recognise both bodies as a single RPO.
With this approach, the Agreement between the Ordem dos Engenheiros of Portugal and the High Council of Official Colleges of Mining Engineers of Spain was signed in Lisbon on January 23, 2017, with the following objective:
- To request PERC recognition as a Recognised Professional Organisation (RPO) for the two institutions signing the Agreement.
- To draft the bases that will develop the activity of this Agreement and which contemplate the constitution of a Technical Committee for the accreditation and registration of those Member Mining Engineers, eligible to act as a Competent Person under the terms established by PERC.
This Agreement was presented at the PERC Annual General Meeting held in Heidelberg on May 13, 2017, where a vote was cast in favor of recognizing the Ordem dos Engenheiros of Portugal and the High Council of Official Colleges of Mining Engineers of Spain as a Participating Organisation (PO) and as a Member Professional Organisation (MPO) of PERC, under the name of Iberian Mining Engineers Board (IMEB).
Since 2019 and up to the present, IMEB has developed its activities by accrediting and registering new members, promoting training activities on mineral resource and reserve reporting systems, publishing materials related to mineral resource and reserve estimation and, more generally, on the mining sector in Spain, and actively participating as a Professional Organisation of PERC.