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By L Lorenzen, H Muller, L Bernard

Australian companies and consultants are becoming ever more involved in projects in African, South American, East European and Middle Eastern countries. However, significant differences in culture and approach to projects sometimes make these projects challenging for reasons that are not purely technical. Often the challenges are rather related to how the project owner and local authorities perceive the reality. These perceptions and sometimes unrealistic expectations regarding project costs and potential outcomes need to be addressed by the æWesternÆ project developer and consultant.This paper will discuss the specific experience of Snowden in studies commissioned by companies from such countries for the development of very large, low-grade gold deposits in some of the most inhospitable areas in the world. The paper will further review similar projects undertaken in other ænew worldÆ countries and compare these to the initial Snowden experience.As the process operating costs of operations in many of these countries are extremely competitive when compared to the typical Australian operating costs, the paper will review the operating costs and the factors which may be pertinent to a large project of this nature, both in the Australian and the ænew worldÆ context. Will Australian-based operations be able to compete in the global gold market when the gold price softens again, as it will do at some stage in the possibly not-so-distant future?CITATION:Muller, H, Lorenzen, L and Bernard, L, 2013. Challenges of developing low-grade deposits in ænew worldÆ countries from a mining consultantÆs perspective, in Proceedings World Gold 2013 , pp 307-314 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Sep 26, 2013

By L. S. Rivett, U. M. Oko

The Strathcona mine, with a large new underground operation and concentrator, was recently brought into\ production by Falconbridge Nickel Mines Ltd. The tailings disposal and water utilization problems at Strathcona are described in this paper, with sections devoted to the Moose Lake watershed system, tailing impounds, the construction of dams and the operation of the Moose Lake neutralization plant for the elimination of acidity, including the equipment used.

Jan 1, 1971

By Pamela J. Watson

The U.S. Bureau of Mines has demonstrated in laboratory tests that drilling with surface-charge-neutralizing concentrations of polyethylene oxide (PEO) polymer solutions simultaneously improves penetration rates and extends bit life. The applicability of this additive to improve drilling performance in coal measure rocks was demonstrated under field conditions at an abandoned mine land site in Pennsylvania and a producing coal mine property in Ohio. Penetration rate improvements ranging from 15 to 50 pet were obtained when core drilling through a variety of coal measure lithologies. Drilling cost analysis indicates that the small added cost of using the polymer is more than offset by the savings that result from demonstrated increased drilling penetration rates, which translate into drilling cost savings of about 10 to 30 pct. This report also gives chemical analyses of a variety of coal measure rocks and some corresponding local drilling water samples, obtained from a wide geographical base, along with threshold concentrations of PEO required to effect the improved drilling performance in these rocks. From these data, the threshold PEO concentrations needed to ensure improved drilling performance can be estimated for any coal measure rock suite. Proper techniques for mixing PEO solutions are also presented.

Jan 1, 2010

By G. Couture

"The Glencore Raglan mine Concentrator, located in Quebec’s Nunavik region, has been in operation since 1997. The nickel metallurgical plant was originally designed to process 100 tonnes per hour of ore to produce 130 000 tonnes of nickel concentrate per year at 16% Ni. The increased grinding capacity and the discovery of rich ore bodies have increased the annual production to more than 190 000 tonnes of concentrate at 19% Ni. In 2014, the Metallurgical group, with support from BBA, implemented an expert control system on the flotation circuit. This project was initiated to cope with the high variability of the concentrator’s feed. Increasing the plant recovery and final concentrate grade were also important project objectives. The implementation of the expert system ensures better control of concentrate inventory while maintaining maximum plant throughput. This paper describes the successful implementation of the new control system, the control technology selection and the flotation circuit optimization. It will also discuss the performances obtained with this new approach and the improved process stability.IntroductionThe Raglan Mine is located in Northern Quebec along the 62th parallel. It has been in operation since 1997 and was originally designed to produce 130 000 tonnes of concentrate annually at 16% Ni. The increasing of the grinding capacity and the discovery of rich ore bodies have increased the annual production to more than 190 000 tonnes of concentrate between 18 and 20% Ni."

Jan 1, 2015

The report of the Annual General Meeting of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy held on Thursday, 20 May, 1971, in the rooms of the Geological Society of London, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, W.1, at 4 p.m. (Chairman : M. J. Cahalan, President) includes details of awards and prizes presented to William Justin Kroll, Sir Gordon Colvin Lindesay Clark, John Convey, Evert Hoek, Peter Reginald Dawson and Christopher Michael St. John

Dec 1, 1971

By William Gleason

"It has been more than 10 years since Montana Resources’ copper/molybdenum mine has had a lost-time injury at its site in Butte, MT. With more than 350 employees and an average production of about 15.5 Mt/a (17 million stpy), which includes 29.5 kt (65 million lbs) of copper and 4 kt (9 million lbs) of molybdenum, the mine’s journey to a decade of exemplary safety is an impressive feat that has required hard work, commitment and, most of all, leadership from every level of the operation.It has not always been an easy journey, nor has it been one without scrapes and bumps along the way, but it is one that has produced stellar results. Mike McGivern, vice president of human resources, and Pete Steilman, safety manager at the mine, spoke with Mining Engineering about how the operation transformed from a site that was accustomed to collecting citations for safety violations to one that is now collecting awards for its safety record.Simply put, Montana Resources has made safety a value and the people its top priority.The operations faced many predictable challenges in 2003, when the mine was being brought back online after three years of sitting in care-and-maintenance status. It had been shuttered in 2000 because of low commodity prices and high operating costs, and, in the three years that the mine was idled, the equipment became dilapidated, and some of it was no longer in compliance. Less than half of the workforce returned to the site for the restart, and the team was challenged with getting the gears turning again to produce copper and molybdenum. But the most daunting challenge of all of was keeping the workforce safe during the transition.In the first few years of operation the mine racked up citations from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) at an alarming pace, so much so that in May 2006, Montana Resources received a letter from the MSHA District Office informing the company that the operation was being placed on the Potential Pattern of Violations list due to its excessive citation history and high rate of significant and substantial citations. It was clear that something significant had to be done to change the course of action at the mine."

Oct 1, 2019

By K. L. Bainbridge

This report describes the results of a study to determine which types of, and to what extent, mining wastes can contaminate groundwater through leaching of acid-forming or potentially toxic constituents. The primary focus of this study was on coal mining wastes, especially overburden spoils and preparation plant refuse. In addition, the potential for contamination by leachates from clean coal stockpiles was also examined. The study approach included investigation of (a) the amounts and geographic locations of mining wastes in the United States; (b) the chemical character of mining wastes, especially with regard to potentially acid-firming or toxic constituents; and (c) the extent to which acid and/or toxic components are leached from mining wastes by rainwater. To evaluate the leachability of coal wastes, a laboratory waste leaching method was developed during this study to specifically simulate the leaching process over a long-term. Waste samples collected during this study were also leached by the EPA extraction procedure and ASTM waste leaching method. Results of the three leach test methods were compared to evaluate their relative capabilities to predict the leachability of mining wastes.

Jan 1, 1980

By E. Hasanbas

Vibrating screens and crushers are the workhorses of material sizing. Unfortunately their natural frequency is often in the range of typical supporting structures, thereby making installations prone to vibration problems. Much of the available literature regarding the support of vibrating screens is fairly confusing and outdated. This paper presents the results of utilizing accelerometers and finite element software in the analysis and design of supports for vibrating equipment. It contains data from field studies of vibrating screen and crusher installations, design of new and repair of existing supporting structures, and the correlation between field data and finite element time history analyses. Finally, the paper summarizes a method for analyzing and designing structures subjected to vibratory loads and predicting their behavior.

Feb 23, 2014

By W. G. Deeks

CANADIANS are world leaders in marketing metal and mineral products. Noranda Sales Corporation Ltd. is an international metal and mineral product marketing company operating from Toronto and London, England, where it operates a wholly owned sales subsidiary and is a 50% partner in Rudolf Wolff and Company Ltd., a charter member and the largest metal broker on the London Metal Exchange. Noranda Sales employs 97 people, of whom 52 are university trained and professionally competent in international resource product marketing. We market for 19 companies or divisions in the Noranda Group and 39 companies for whom we act as agent, consultant and purchaser of resource production. Our business in 1976 was 1.5 billion dollars carried out in 45 countries and covering 24 products and materials. Today, ownership of most of the mining industry in Canada has transferred back to Canadians, and this is said with the knowledge that a significant part of the Canadian industry has been Canadian owned and managed from its very early days. Noranda Mines Limited is such an example. It was born in 1922 as the result of a copper-gold showing at Noranda, Quebec, discovered by Ed Horne, a prospector, financed with a grubstake by a syndicate mainly composed of New York businessmen. Shortly after the discovery, when the shares of the company had risen, the syndicate was sold to Canadian interests and, since that time, Noranda has been dominantly Canadian owned and certainly Canadian managed. Today, over 90% of Noranda's shareholders are Canadian, who hold an equivalent percentage of the stock.

Jan 1, 1977

By J. Janzen

The cost to supply ventilation may exceed 40% of the total mine energy cost for underground mines and is often higher for deeper mines. The goal of Ventilation-on-Demand (VOD) is to ensure that the required quantity and quality of air is supplied to underground mining crews and diesel equipment at the least energy expenditure (minimum cost). A VOD system may include control of surface fans (Supply & Exhaust), underground booster fans, auxiliary fans and automated regulators/dampers to regulate the flow of air with more control elements providing more value. Strategically located Air monitoring stations measure air quantity and quality and provide feed-back enabling control. The modular design involving controls, intelligent instrument and intelligent motor control centres coupled with a communication network allows the quick installation, commissioning and expansion of the system as the mine develops. The result is a very robust, flexible system while reducing maintenance costs and spare parts. This paper discusses the impact of sensors, installation and commissioning on advanced controls and provides solutions for in-field applications.

Aug 1, 2013

By Dan A. Brown

The following paper was written by Dr. Dan A. Brown, P.E. Brown is an Associate Professor at Auburn University's Department of Civil Engineering. The paper was originally presented at a FHWA's Transportation Research Board meeting and is presented here with the author's consent. Construction and design of drilled shaft foundations in hard pinnacle limestone requires flexibility from all parties involved due to the variability of the subsurface conditions. This article describes some strategies which have been found useful in the Birmingham, Alabama area. The importance of well trained and experienced field personnel in these conditions is noted. It is also vital that engineers understand the construction challenges so as to provide both quality assurance and cost effectiveness in design and in the specifications.

Jan 1, 1991

By E. L. BROKENSHIRE

FLUORSPAR, a little known non-metallic mineral, referred to technically as fluorite, chemically as calcium fluoride, is a compound of calcium and fluorine in the ratio of one molecule of calcium to two of fluorine. By weight it is composed of 51.3 per cent of calcium and 48.7 per cent of fluorine. Its specific gravity is 3.2. It is brittle, has a hardness of four and can be easily scratched with a knife. It weighs about 200 Ib. per cubic foot and has a melting point of 1650" F. The color of fluorspar ranges from pure white and opaque white, according to its purity, to various hues of yellow, green, pink, lavender, blue and brown, to bluish black. Although the lumps have color, when ground the fluorspar becomes pure white. The reason for this is because the mineral usually carries no fixed pigment, the color being produced by the re- fraction of light rays within the crystal structure and small quantities of organic matter which readily oxidizes. It crystallizes in the isometric system with perfect octahedral cleavages.

Jan 1, 1929

By R. B. Krog

The use of belt air as an intake source at longwall operations has changed greatly over the past decades. The practical considerations for the use of belt air are controlled by a variety of factors, including airflow quantity and velocity, coal methane content, methane desorption rates, coal mining rate, belt length, stopping leakage and the number of gateroad entries. At longwall operations, the advantages and disadvantages of belt air are different than for gateroad development and longwall panel extraction. During gateroad development, the use of belt air to ventilate the working section will reduce the leakage from the intake to the belt compared to the belt air being ventilated outby the working sections because of lower pressure differentials. A greater quantity of airflow will reach the last open crosscut with the belt on intake than outby, given the same amount of pressure and airflow available at the mouth of the section. This paper will investigate the current ventilation practices regarding the use of belt air during gateroad development and longwall panel extraction. Operating considerations regarding air quantities and pressures to deliver the required airflow will be investigated using ventilation network modeling.

Jan 1, 2010

By G. L. Oldright

By means of a technique developed in cooperation with the Eagle-Picher Mining & Smelting Co. and outlined in the first report of this series (R. I. 4333 ), it was possible to take many thermocouple readings with base-metal couples at temperatures over 2300° F with unsupported protection tubes for over half the lengths of the Henryetta retorts. -This technique made it possible to avoid the use of the usual optical pyrometer, which gives temperatures dependent upon the luminosity of the flames, and which is not conveniently usable to read temperatures for the lengths of the retorts from the front of the furnace. The temperatures of the retorts themselves were necessary in order to set upper limits for safe operation; the lower limits of operating temperatures are set by the zinc content of the retort residues. The zinc content left in the retort residues for various sections of length also varies with retort temperatures rather than with flame temperatures. The variations in temperature along the retort can then be used as guides to distill more zinc from the residues, to avoid fluctuations in the rates ,of flow of zinc vapor into the condenser and to employ lower temperatures if such rates become high enough to cause losses of uncondensed zinc.

Jan 1, 1948

By G. ALBORNOZ, S. Utili, A. AGOSTI, C. VALDERRAMA, R. PELL, N. Morales

The steepness of the slopes of an open pit mine has a substantial influence on the financial return of the mine. The paper proposes a novel design methodology where overall steeper pitwalls are employed without compromising the safety of the mine. In current design practice pitwall profiles are often planar in crosssection and the profile in between ramps especially tend to be planar and defined by a constant inter-ramp angle. Sometimes rock layers exhibiting different strengths require the inclination of the profile to vary with depth, but the inclination across each layer is usually constant. Here instead, a new geotechnical software, OptimalSlope, is employed to determine optimal pitwall profiles of depth varying inclination. OptimalSlope seeks the solution of a mathematical optimization problem where the overall steepness of the pitwall, from crest to toe, is maximized for an assigned lithology, geotechnical properties and Factor of Safety (FoS). Bench geometries (bench height, face inclination, minimum berm width) are imposed in the optimization as constraints which bind the maximum local inclination of the sought optimal profile together with any other constraints such as geological discontinuities that may influence slope failure. The obtained optimal profiles are always steeper than their planar counterparts (i.e. the planar profiles exhibiting the same FoS) up to 8 degrees depending on rock type and severity of constraints on local inclinations. The design of a copper mine is first carried out employing planar pitwalls, secondly adopting the optimal pitwall profiles determined by OptimalSlope. The adoption of optimal slope profiles leads to a 34% higher net present value and reductions of carbon footprint and energy consumption of 0.17 Mt CO2 eq and 82.5 million MJ respectively due to a 15% reduction of rockwaste volume.

Mar 2, 2022

By T Nassis, P Louw, M R. Fry, T du Toit

Business intelligence (BI) and business analytics (BA) are established IT technologies that are used extensively in the business environment. This paper discusses the use of these technologies in production environments and beneficiation plants.Assmang’s Khumani mine is an iron ore operation located in the Northern Cape, South Africa. Assmang Limited is jointly owned by African Rainbow Minerals Limited and Assore Limited. This paper presents a case study of a BI solution applied to this plant, which is used by metallurgists, supervisors and all levels of operations and management to extract and analyse data to control and optimise the operation of the plant.The main advantage of adopting an established BI solution is the ease with which production personnel can extract and analyse data. The data is easily presented in familiar spreadsheets and no IT staff or specific training is required to achieve this.The solution adopted at Khumani mine uses a data mart with a multidimensional model (called an online analytical processing (OLAP) cube) acting as the main repository and source of data. The OLAP cube simplifies the access and analysis of plant data.The OLAP cube stores data in a specifically-designed way, which allows extraction and analysis to be performed quickly. It is designed to hold large amounts of data on a long-term basis, which could be for the life of the plant. It also performs automatic aggregations over many dimensions on a background process.A major benefit in adopting such a BI solution is that it allows common BA methods to be applied. This is due to both the efficient long-term storage of data and the availability of standard BA tools. BA tools are now able to perform data mining, predictive analytics, forecasting and other machine-learning algorithms. This paper presents the possible use of such advanced data analysis methods in a beneficiation plant.CITATION:Fry, M R, Nassis, T, Louw, P and du Toit, T, 2015. The use of common business intelligence and analytics tools in the operation and optimisation of iron ore process plants, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2015, pp 129–138 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 13, 2015

By R. L. Grant

[Detonators are used to explode permissible explosives, dynamites, or other high explosives. This explosion or detonation is brought about by the energy which is liberated as a combination of concussion and heat when the detonator is fired. In Other words; "The detonator is the key which unlocks the energy of a high explosive" (8)4. Being sensitive and latently dangerous, detonators must meet two primary requirements: They must be safe to handle and must detonate when desired, thereby imparting detonation to the explosive charge.]

Jan 1, 1941

By G. L. Smith

This paper consolidates the key elements of seven contributions, on strategic long-term planning, to two of the three international conferences on Strategic versus Tactical approaches in Mining held over the period 2005?2008. The holistic concept of strategic long-term planning as developed and implemented at Anglo Platinum is described. Consideration is given to the planning cycle, principles supporting the construction of the long-term plan, and aspects of unique best practice as developed in Anglo Platinum. Further description of Anglo Platinum?s approach to corporate governance, including the processes, methodology, systems, unique tools and techniques that are applied to value and select capital investment options is also given.

Jan 1, 2009

By Dozier Fircley

SOME nonmetallic minerals and their products, such as portland cement, common brick and hollow tile, sand, gravel, crushed rock, vitrified salt-glaze clay pipe, and the like, are a necessity in every community. They are mineral in nature but the establishment of plants for their production is usually a local and elementary problem. Yet it is probable that an economic study of the problem in every locality will show that such nonmetallic mineral commodities are not always obtained in the most economical way, or in the best quality. Other nonmetallic minerals are of such value that they may be shipped for long distances and sold in sufficient quantities to establish prosperous commercial ventures. Among these are phosphates, barium compounds, borates, nitrogen compounds, magnesium compounds, sulfur, asbestos, and potash. Success in marketing such products depends on quality, production cost, transportation, and similar conditions.

Jan 1, 1932

By W. L. Saunders

(Wilkes-Barre Meeting, June, 1911.) I. INTRODUCTION. IT is now generally admitted by experts that at least so far as rapid progress is concerned the Alpine system of tunnel-driving is superior to any other. This is perhaps natural in view of the record of experience in driving tunnels through the Alps. These great mountain-chains cannot be treated in the ordinary way by shaft-sinking and driving headings, thus multiplying the points of attack. The work must be done from the ends only, hence speed in driving is of the utmost importance; and, as necessity is the mother of invention, the concentration of effort to make progress has resulted in an organization and in mechanical appliances that have produced results so much in excess of the usual practice, even in America, that a discussion of the subject in detail should be of much value to the engineer and contractor. The first Alpine tunnel was the Mont Cenis, length 7.5 miles, driven with a progress that averaged about 7.75 ft. per day. Next came the Saint Gothard, 9.5 miles long, 18 ft. per day; Arlberg, 6.5 miles long, 27.25 ft. per day; Simplon, 12.25 miles long, 36 ft. per day. The figures represent progress when driving from two headings, so that by dividing them in two we get the daily single-heading progress. The latest of the Alpine tunnels is the Loetschberg, now being driven. In this work the world's record has been beaten by a single day's record in one heading of 36 ft. and by an average daily record in. one heading of 29.5 feet. The Alpine range forms a natural barrier between a large section of northern and southern Europe. This range extends from the southeast of France to the frontier of Hungary, between Italy and the plains of southern Germany. The contour

Jul 1, 1911