SGS, the world's leading testing, inspection, and certification company, celebrates the 85th anniversary of its Canadian Metallurgical Centre of Excellence in 2026, coinciding with a critical turning point in Canada's mining industry. The world's largest mining conference - Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) - kicks off in Toronto next week, prompting experts from SGS to declare that "critical minerals and rare earths are Canada's 21st century gold rush."
As the Canadian government and industry seek to team up to mine critical minerals and build downstream processing over the next decade, SGS plays a key advisory role while it continues to stay at the forefront of mining industry trends and offers metallurgical consulting, innovation and expertise.
SGS locates its Metallurgical Centre of Excellence in Lakefield, near Peterborough (Ontario). The facility has played an important role in both the Canadian mining and global mining sectors since 1941. Niels Verbaan, Senior Technical Director at SGS in Lakefield, ranks among the leading global experts in processing critical minerals including rare earths. The White House invited Verbaan in June 2024 to help advise on strategies for developing the US battery supply chain industry.
"You turn on the news like CNN and there's talk about a rare earth deal in Ukraine or here or there. There's not a day goes by that people aren't speaking about critical minerals and this will have huge benefits for Canada over the next decade," Niels Verbaan, senior technical director at SGS in Lakefield, said.
The lab maintains a long history of helping mining companies unlock the value in their precious and base metal ores along with critical minerals projects worldwide, punching well above its weight in Canada and beyond. The facility demonstrated this capability in 1997 when its testing proved instrumental in helping uncover the Bre-X scandal, which led to important changes in the mining world.
SGS in Lakefield has developed or advanced notable technologies and process approaches for the mining industry mostly through flowsheet invention, pilot-plant proof, and "bankable" scale-up work. These innovations include the SART process for cyanide recovery and recycling it back into the leaching process. The team has pioneered hybrid BIOX + POX flowsheet development and piloting for refractory gold. SGS has created "gold leaching" process development including several new gold leaching processes. The facility conducts REE processing pilot plant operations including unit operations such as flotation, acid baking, caustic cracking, rare earth separation and rare earth oxide production.
Engineers have developed and piloted techniques demonstrating the reduction of high purity scandium oxide from low grade feed sources. The lab operates pilot-scale HPAL capability for nickel laterites for scale-up and de-risking purposes. Scientists have established process mineralogy workflow to diagnose gold recoveries and design circuits. The team provides comminution/crushing/grinding characterization for enhanced understanding of grinding and crushing properties and processes.
SGS applies modern "risk reduction" and geometallurgy to fundamentally de-risk projects. The facility conducts deep-sea (polymetallic) nodule testing focused on de-risking and optimizing onshore processing flowsheets that can convert nodule-derived intermediate products into battery-grade chemicals.
The SGS team in Lakefield has completed more than 22,000 projects for the global mining industry. Many of the mining industry's leading experts have either built their careers at SGS or have trusted SGS as a technical partner and engaged the team in Lakefield from early-stage metallurgical testing through flowsheet development, scale-up, and into production.
"SGS is recognized as a cornerstone of the global mining industry, because it uniquely combines deep metallurgical expertise, large-scale piloting capability, and independent consulting under one roof. For decades, our Lakefield team has supported projects every step along the way and has helped transform complex ores into viable, profitable and sustainable operations," Stephen Mackie, senior director, for metallurgy and consulting at SGS in Lakefield, said.
He adds, "SGS's Metallurgical Centre of Excellence is more than a laboratory, it's a world-leading trusted technical partner, translating data into defensible, decision-ready insights that underpin feasibility studies, financing, and long-term performance."
"Having a globally recognized facility, located within the beauty of Canadian cottage country - that many people are now getting to know because of everything that is currently happening with critical minerals – it's truly exciting. We look forward to what we can continue to offer as the needs of mining organizations and government continue to advance and expand," Mackie concluded.
SGS aligns its advancing services for the global mining industry with Strategy 27 – "Accelerating Growth, Building Trust." Strategy 27 responds to megatrends driving growth in the TIC industry, including innovation, new technologies and the near-shoring of supply chains. Critical minerals and rare earth mining also connects to the renewable energy transition, which aligns with SGS's IMPACT NOW for Sustainability by supporting the mining industry with delivering on ESG regulation.
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February 26, 2026
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