The award will be presented at the IMARC conference gala dinner scheduled to be held at Melbourne Town Hall.

The award recognises the work of Dr Geoff Brent and his research team for their published work on innovative strategies for ultra-high intensity blasting.

Orica managing director Ian Smith said the research was a demonstration of the company's commitment to the development of resourceful solutions through innovation to improve mine productivity.

"The use of electricity to mill ore is usually the largest consumer of energy on a minesite and ore comminution constitutes a significant percentage of electricity consumed worldwide," Smith said.

The CEEC award is given out annually to the authors of the most outstanding published paper demonstrating efficient mineral processing strategies.

Brent said by utilising explosive energy in the pit to produce much finer ore, the research team could dramatically increase the efficiency and throughout of the downstream comminution processes of crushing and milling.

"The overall energy consumption across the mining and milling cycle can be reduced with consequent reduction in emissions – this is a step change in ore processing," he said.

"The potential environmental benefits are also enormous. The technique has the potential to cut C02 emissions associated with grinding by up to 30%."