Search Documents

By R. W. Stahl

Employees and dollars are necessary to all enterprises and any force, such as fire, which destroys either, can bring very serious consequences, including business failure. Since everyone acknowledges the necessity of conserving human life, we will devote most of our paper to the economic factors involved. A coal-mine fire is considerably more difficult to combat than a fire in a surface building because of the combustible surroundings in the mine, the explosive gases emitted from the coal, the suspension of explosive dust when mine timbers burn and the unsupported roof falls, the limited space in which approach to the fire can be made, and the limited avenues of escape. A survey of coal-mine-fire protection indicated that a rather low value was being placed on property and equipment. This prompted comparison with other industries. The comments made in this comparison are not intended as an indictment of the coal industry, since we do have mines that are well protected against fire, but the comments on conditions at the mines visited are factual and may help others to improve similar conditions. SURVEY PROCEDURES Plants of the steel, aluminum, rubber, chemical, and petroleum industries were surveyed, and all facets of the fire-protection scheme were covered. The industrial plant invariably had four times as much water readily available for instant use than the mine. In many mines where water is available, no equipment for applying it is provided, such as hose, nozzles, and adapters, so that time is lost in collecting this equipment. (See Table I.) EXTINGUISHERS Many more and generally larger portable extinpishers are available at the plant as compared to the mine. The extinguishers are generally placed nearer to sources of danger. In addition, respiratory protective equipment is always available at strategic points in plants but only in a few mines. (See Figs. 1 and Table 11) INSPECTING AND TESTING EQUIPMENT Plant water facilities are checked weekly and flushed at 6-month intervals, and hose is pressure-tested at least yearly; some mines check water yearly, but hose is not tested unless used. Fire extinguishers are inspected weekly in plants and completely overhauled yearly; one mine had monthly checks and overhauls only after use. FIRE BRIGADES AND TRAINING Every plant had designated fire-fighters and some complete full-time brigades; at one mine a chief mechanic was designated as being in charge of fires, and other depended entirely upon officials who might not be familiar with the equipment. COST OF FIRES AND PERCENTAGE OF CAPITAL INVESTMENT IN FIRE PROTECTION The direct cost of recent mine fires ranged from $128,000 to $240,000; indirect costs, such as lost tonnage, idled equipment, lost orders, and the like might run the cost to over $500,000. (See Figs. 2 and 3).

Jan 1, 1961

By H. H. Murray

The largest reserves of palygorskite in the world are located in Anhui and Jiangsu Provinces in East Central China. The deposits are Middle Miocene in age and range from 3 to 6 m in thickness. The deposits are the alteration product of basaltic volcanic ash. The Chinese Geological Survey estimates the palygorskite reserves are in excess of 200 million tons. The elongate particle shape results in unique colloidal properties. Large quantities are exported to Japan, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, New Zealand, Australia, and West and Gulf Coasts of the United States. The markets include agricultural carriers, paint, joint tape compounds, animal feed binders, catalyst support, drilling muds, and suspending agents for chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and medicines. The viscosity is high and the quartz content is generally 5% or less.

Jan 1, 2009

The Bega granite at Whipstick, N.S.W., consists of a granite metasomatically altered to leucogranites and a spessartite-granite. The ore occurs in pipes controlled by jointing and shows evidence of post-depositional tectonic forces.The principal ore minerals are molybdenite and bismuthinite, with minor amounts of uraninite, pyrite, gold, bismuth, joseite A, joseite B, tetradymite, chalcopyrite, arsenopyrite, and skutterudite. The gangue minerals are microcline, albite, quartz, muscovite, and spessartite, with fluorite, chlorite, magnetite, and biotite as accessory minerals.The intrusion of granite was followed initially by ascending metasomatic fluids which penetrated along joints to be trapped in the domed roof of the intrusion to form the leucocratic granite. Iron-manganese-rich fluids metasomatically altered the granite to a spessartitegranite which is associated with the later deposited ore.Quartz veins and dykes of varying composition post date the ore deposition.

Jan 1, 1968

By A. G. Yapo, T. W. Camm

"All-in sustaining cost is a metric used by mining companies to reflect the cost of gold mining in a consistent format useful to both investors and mining professionals. Cost reporting focused on the direct cost of mining and processing ore was summarized in the non-GAAP cash cost developed by the Gold Institute in 1996. In 2013, a group of mining companies, working with the World Gold Council, developed a more inclusive approach to reporting costs designed to solve the dilemma of showing a more comprehensive reflection of recurring costs involved in producing gold, without discouraging investors. INTRODUCTION Mining today plays a key role in the development of our civilization as a source of essential raw material and provider of essential fuels, producer of jobs, and a factor in support of the international balance of monetary payment (Camm, 2014). Professionals in mining locate, develop, design and manage ore deposits in an environmentally safe and profitable manner. As mineral deposits become increasingly scarce, new challenges face the industry. A current trend is to an increased emphasis on underground mining techniques for deeper deposits. Operations are safer today than before as companies understand better their work environment and the importance of mining responsibly. A continual challenge for the industry is accurately reflecting the costs and selling price of ore. An enduring characteristic of mining is the situation where the market typically determines the price of a commodity; the main control a company has on the bottom line is to control the cost of production. An attempt to bring light and clarity on the cost of their business will give a better idea to investors on the true profitability of the mining business. Gold producers face this struggle to accurately reflect the cost of production while also seeking to attract the interest of the investment community (Hill, 2013). In order to have a consistent format to report on their production costs, leading gold producers through their alliance inside the World Gold Council (WGC), worked on the adoption of a new cost framework: the All-in Sustaining Cost (AISC) and All-in Cost (AIC). Since 1996, the traditional cash cost reporting has focused only on the mining and processing costs incurred in mining an ounce of gold, which included the costs of goods sold (labor, energy, and consumables costs) and royalties (Table 1). But cash cost reporting ignores many important aspects, like sustaining capital, general and administrative expenses, and site rehabilitation at the end of the mine life (Whelan, 2013). The cash cost was used to attract many investors into the business. In fact the high gross margin (sales minus cash costs) has been promoted the past decades by the industry instead of the net or operating margin. As a result, even when the gold price was high, nearly $1900 per ounce in August 2011, gold producers were not reporting excessive profits in their cash flow / income statements, to the disappointment and incomprehension of investors (Milstead, 2014). The truth was simply that the other costs omitted in the traditional cash cost were reducing the apparent profits."

Jan 1, 2017

By Mayfield P. L J, Honeyands T. A

BHP's two million tonne per annum nominal capacity Hot Briquetted Iron (HBI) plant at Port Hedland in the Pilbara region of Western Australia is based on FINMET¦¦ direct reduction technology. The FINMET¦¦ process produces direct reduced iron (DRI) by reacting fine iron ore with reformed natural gas in a series of fluid bed reactors and then hot briquetting this DRI into dense, high quality iron briquettes. The Port Hedland HBI project represents a major investment in the chemical processing of Australian minerals to higher value products prior to export to Asian markets. This paper describes the FINMET" process and technical aspects of the high-quality HBI product, and provides an update of the current status of the project.

Jan 1, 1999

By Merwin H. Howes

Gnome shaft, situated about 24 miles southeast of Carlsbad, N. Mex., was designed and sunk by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission for conducting a peace- time experimental nuclear explosion in the thick salt beds of the Permian Salado formation. Excavation was started July 1, 1960, and completed July 26, 1961. The 10-foot diameter shaft, lined with concrete through the rock section, was sunk 1,216 feet. A drift was driven approximately 1,140 feet on the 1,200- foot level terminating in a shot chamber. On completion of 100 feet of shaft, by means of a truck-mounted crane, facilities were installed for conventional sinking. About 709 feet of rock and 506 feet of salt were encountered in the shaft. Salt beds at this place are reported to be over 1,200 feet thick. The overlying rock section varies greatly in composition and thickness of beds and contains a 28-foot bed of water-bearing dolomite. The aquifer was sealed to facilitate shaft sinking and to prevent water-seepage damage in the salt section of the shaft. Sealing was accomplished by grout injection through holes drilled into the aquifer and by grouting behind the concrete liner.

Jan 1, 1963

By Frank Sames

The control of the environmental effects, especially blast vibration and airblast, has become a dominating planning criterion for most surface blasting operations. Compliance with existing regulations is generally achieved through constraints in the blast design, or monitoring programs. Commonly, blast vibration and airblast signals are rated and compared only by their maximum amplitude and the principal frequency associated with the peak.

Jan 1, 1997

By Merwin H. Howes

Gnome shaft, situated about 24 miles southeast of Carlsbad, N. Mex., was designed and sunk by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission for conducting a peace-time experimental nuclear explosion in the thick salt beds of the Permian Salado formation. Excavation was started July 1, 1960, and completed July 26, 1961. The 10-foot diameter shaft, lined with concrete through the rock section, was sunk 1,216 feet. A drift was driven approximately 1,140 feet on the 1,200-foot level terminating in a shot chamber. On completion of 100 feet of shaft, by means of a truck-mounted crane, facilities were installed for conventional sinking. About 709 feet of rock and 506 feet of salt were encountered in the shaft. Salt beds at this place are reported to be over 1,200 feet thick. The overlying rock section varies greatly in composition and thickness of beds and contains a 28-foot bed of water-bearing dolomite. The aquifer was sealed to facilitate shaft sinking and to prevent water-seepage damage in the salt section of the shaft. Sealing was accomplished by grout injection through holes drilled into the aquifer and by grouting behind the concrete liner.

Jan 1, 1963

By S. H. Lorain

This paper briefly describes the principal commercial and near-commercial deposits of gold-bearing gravel and the important placer-mining operations in Lemhi County, Idaho. It is on of a series on western mining districts being published by the Bureau of Mines. This paper is based on a field survey of the placer-mining districts of Lemhi County in the summer of 1938. Available information concerning gold-bearing gravels was obtained from prospectors and claim owners; operators supplied the data on mining operations. No attempt was made actually to test the gravels. The principal object of the examination was to indicate placer areas worthy of further investigation by prospective operators.

Jan 1, 1939

By Sidney Katell

This report, covering the period January 1968 through December 1968, is a continuation of a series that began with the publication of Information Circular 7516 in October 1949. It is the tenth in a series of reports prepared in cooperation with the American Association of Cost Engineers. The abstracted articles are concerned with all phases of cost of engineering in the field of chemical and petroleum plants and related subjects. They are from the following sources: 1. American Association of Cost Engineers Bulletin. 2. Bureau of Lines Information Circulars. 3. Bureau of Mines Reports of Investigations. 4. Chemical Engineering. 5. Chemical Engineering Progress s 6. Chemical Week. 7. Coal Age. 8. Coal Mining and Processing. 9. Cost Engineering. 10. European Chemical News. 3 11. Hydrocarbon Processing. 12. Industrial and Engineering Chemistry 13. Oil and Gas Journal. 14. Petroleum Engineer. 15. World Oil.

Jan 1, 1969

By G. W. Poling

This paper evaluates current environmental protection legislation, guidelines and criteria, focusing mainly on the land and water disposal of mill tailings. Effluent criteria and regulatory mechanisms are proposed, and submarine tailing disposal is discussed at length. The importance of basing regulations on the best available rationale is stressed.

Jan 1, 1979

By Malte J. M Gurgel

Subsurface spatial planning is becoming increasingly important in view of competing underground applications. This development is influenced by global agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, precise knowledge of the underground space is a basic prerequisite for future applications. The three-dimensional registration and reliable georeferencing of underground infrastructures can establish a holistic geodata basis for such tasks. Those tasks are discussed both for the development of energy projects such as deep geothermal energy as well as for storage applications. Research on geothermal energy has been carried out at RWTH Aachen University as part of the SuperC project in a license field in the Aachen area since 2001. Recently, this research has been extended to include monitoring aspects in the overlapping GEObservatorium Aachen field. The documentation and visualization of underground activities using photogrammetric methods like Structure from Motion is discussed based on recent research in sites for the final disposal of radioactive waste. Finally, both applications provide an outlook on supporting underground projects by using high-resolution geodata.

Feb 1, 2025

By A. J. Kraemer, H. M. Thorne

The following account of oil-shale operations in Australia is based upon infor- mation obtained by the authors while visiting Australia from September 15 to October 7, 1947, supplemented by published data, and augmented by analyses of samples of oil shale and its products at the Oil-shale Research and Development Laboratories of the Bureau of Mines at Laramie, Wyo. The primary objective of the authors' trip to Australia was to obtain, first hand, information regarding the equipment and methods used by National Oil Proprie- tary, Ltd., at Glen Davis, New South Wales, in mining oil shale, extracting oil from it, and refining the shale oil. This company was operating the only oil-shale plant that had been active in Australia since 1945. The plant comprised an oil-shale mine, 104 modified Pumpherston (Fell) retorts in 2 batteries, a hele refinery, and a 3-inch gusoline pipeline to the railroad loniing terminal t Sun Junction, 30 miles away. There were, also, the usual and necessary any uralities, such as a power house, mechanical shops, offices, and laboratories One Information regarding the company's operations was wance because of its bear- Ing upon the synthetic liquid fuels program of the Bureau of Mines, pursuant to the Synthetic Liquid Fuels Act of April 5, 1944 (30 U.S.C., 321-325, as amended). objective of the Bureau's program. In accordance with the maniate of the Act, is to furnish American industry cost and engineering data necessary for the development of synthetic-liquid fuel industry, and an obvious means of obtaining some of these data is to learn how oil shale is being mined and retorted and how shale oil is re- rined in countries where these operations have been conducted on a plant scale for many years. The authors spent 2 weeks at the plant of National Oil Proprietary, Lt., at Glen Davis, and were afforded every opportunity to obtain letailed and specific information regarding all aspects of the company'a operations.

Jul 1, 1951

Who's Who in Mineral Engineering 1977 - SME Membership Directory of the Society of Mining Engineers of AIME

Jan 7, 1977

By Primak. George J.

"In the development of a new product as well as during its introduction on the market, it is very important to give due consideration to problems involving patents, licenses and trade marks. At the very beginning of the research and development program, it is obviously essential to ascertain, through a suitable patent search, that the product in question will not infringe any patents which are still in force. Then, a possibility of achieving one's own patent or proprietary position on the product or the process of its manufacture should be carefully explored. Licensing arrangements that one may reach with respect to patents and know-how covering such new product may, in the final analysis, determine its over-all success or failure. If one can count on licensing revenues or some favourable cross-licensing arrangements with respect to a newly developed product, this may go a long way to achieving profitability and success. The selection of a good trade mark is probably one of the most important acts that one has to perform once the product is developed, as customers will identify the new product by such a trade mark. In many instances, successful marketing and widespread acceptance of a product are largely due to its appealing name or trade mark, accompanied by proper promotion and advertising. Once the trade mark has been adopted, it should be registered in the Trade Marks Office to provide the protection afforded by federal statute. If the product is to be manufactured, sold or licensed in some other countries, similar considerations should be made with regard to each such country."

Jan 1, 1973

Some design and feasibility studies have been made into possible methods of economic recovery of sulphur from smelter gases emitted at Western Mining Corporation's Nickel smelter at KalgoorIie in Western Australia. The smelter discharges some 330 000 tonne/yr of sulphur dioxide in a stream of approximately 6 per cent by volume of S02.Three possible recovery methods have been considered:1. The manufacture of sulphuric acid using the contact process.2. The concentration of sulphur dioxide to a pure form using dimethyl aniline as an absorbing medium.3. The reduction to elemental sulphur using natural gas as the reducing agent.Design studies were carried out by final year chemical engineering undergraduate students at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in 1981 under the supervision of the author and other teaching staff of the chemical engineering department. These studies indicate that sulphuric acid manufacture is the economically preferred recovery route.Markets for sulphuric acid include several potential mineral processing applications and the established fertiliser industry.Sulphuric acid is currently manufactured in a number of plants located at coastal regions of Western Australia using imported sulphur. The sulphuric acid is then used for superphosphate or titanium dioxide pigment manufacture at adjacent plants.The possibility is considered of manufacturing superphosphate at Kalgoorlie from locally produced acid obtained from the smelter gases and from phosphate rock railed to the site from the coast. The advantages of such a scheme include improved scale and technology of operation compared with some existing coastal operations, use of a waste material to replace imported sulphur, and avoidance of costs and hazards associated with railing large quantities of sulphuric acid.

Jan 1, 1983

By John R. Goode

"This paper reviews options for the separation of a mixture of rare earth elements (REE) into its component elements. Earlier separations used selective chemistry such as double salt precipitation and reductive/oxidative processes – methods that still have a place in the industry. Fractional crystallization was developed for more complete separations of adjacent REE. The latter method was replaced by ion exchange (IX), which was in turn replaced by solvent extraction (SX). Two main SX chemistries are in use, solvation and cation exchangers, with several variants (mixed solvents, ionic liquids, etc.) now under investigation. SX plant configurations have evolved including advanced techniques like “hyperlinking”, novel saponification methods, and alternative stripping techniques. The classic mixer-settler is the most commonly employed device although centrifugal contactors have been pilot-tested. Non-dispersive SX options including microfluidic devices and membrane-assisted SX techniques are being developed and could revolutionize the SX option. Other REE separation techniques now being studied include Molecular Recognition Technology (MRT), Free Flow Electrophoresis (FFE), newer IX systems, and electrolytic processes. Additionally, the classical crystallization and selective precipitation methods and newer bacteria-mediated processes, chloride volatilization, high performance liquid chromatography, and magnetic separation systems have been studied. This paper reviews the options and concludes that conventional SX is the technology of choice but viable alternatives could be demonstrated and acceptable within a couple of years.INTRODUCTIONThe chemical properties of the individual REE are very similar which is why REE minerals and ore deposits almost invariably contain a mixture of all fifteen REE, i.e., La to Lu plus Y. That said, the distribution of REE in a given deposit is frequently dominated by the light REE (LREE, i.e., La to Nd). Examples include the Bayan Obo, Mianning, Lynas Mt. Weld, and Molycorp Mountain Pass deposits where heavy REE (HREE – Sm to Lu and Y) typically account for well under 5% of the REE content. The LREE operations produce some HREE but the main sources of these important elements are the ionic clay deposits of Southern China. Importantly, all of the REE recovery operations referenced above, except for cerianite-bearing ionic clay deposits, initially produce a mixed REE precipitate or calcine with a REE distribution similar to that in the ore (Goode, 2016). However, the consumers of the REE, the manufacturers of magnets, phosphors, catalysts, optical glass, etc., require separated products with purities generally ranging from 99% to as high as 99.9999% depending on the element in question and the end use. Hence there is a need to separate the individual REE one from the other. This paper is intended to review the options."

Jan 1, 2016

"The characterisation of resources and description of variability across different ore domains is key to accurate prediction of probable metallurgical performance. Such characterisation testwork often has limited drill-core from which to work and this immediately confines the characterisation method to smallscale. For flotation feeds, the JKMSI (Mineral Separability Indicator) is being developed as a potential characterisation tool, building on earlier work by Chudacek, (1990), which used shaken test tubes, and was called the EMDEE device. In addition, the consistency of flotation recovery for specified size fractions has shown to be preserved, irrespective of the amount of material in that size fraction obtained by different milling conditions, so that the overall recovery can be estimated from knowing the particle size distribution (McIvor and Finch, 1991; Bazin et al, 1994, Runge, 2007 and Wightman et al, 2010) The JKMSI unit uses less than 10 g of material per test in narrowly sized classes and results to date have demonstrated the value of the test. This paper discusses the potential of the test by demonstrating the link between JKMSI performance and mineralogy of five different ores from Laguna Seca, Escondida Minera Limitada as well as the correlation to plant scale performance obtained in an earlier survey (Coleman et al, 2006). Further work to tie down the proof of representatively of the small sample has been identified and is discussed and included in the paper. INTRODUCTIONSince the uptake of the flotation process at the turn of the twentieth century, small scale, laboratory methods have been sought to characterise flotation response. Although laboratory batch flotation tests are the most widely used method to evaluate reagents, characterise ore variability and obtain suitable model parameters using various scale up factors Runge (2101) other methods using less ore would be useful where ore samples were limited.A method using test tubes for testing ores’s flotation response to reagents was first developed by Ian Walk (Wark & Wark, 1935; Wark; 1938; Sutherland and Wark 1955). In these tests a 50 cc stoppered measuring cylinder served as a means for a qualitative experiment, the aeration being effected through violent shaking by hand. In these experiments about 10 g of mineral was ground by pestle and mortar under water after which the ground material was deslimed and adequately conditioned with the appropriate reagents."

Jan 1, 2013

"Increasing demand for timely and accurate information about flotation plant performance requires metal accountants to increase the scope and reporting frequency of plant production. This trend has brought in-process inventory estimation at the forefront of metal accounting issues. Such significant in-process inventories can be locked in diverse process equipment (bins, holding tanks, flotation cells, thickeners, pipeline, etc.) or in stockpiles (ore, concentrates, tailings, etc.). Practice has shown that boldly ignoring these in-process inventories or the errors associated with their estimation lead to unreliable metal balances thereby creating confusion in plant production planning and operational performance assessment. To this extent, the characteristics (physical bounds, spatial heterogeneity and residence time) as well as the available measurements (volume, density, humidity, mass, composition, etc.) of each unit/section found in a generic flotation plant are jointly reviewed with respect to the particular metal accounting issues they present. The daily and monthly metal accounting tasks are then reviewed together with possible methods for obtaining reliable inventory estimates including different procedures for end-of month reconciliation.INTRODUCTION Most of the cost reduction initiatives of the mining industry aim at improving capital efficiency and asset utilization. Among the possible paths through which these goals can be achieved are mine-to-metal optimization, real-time plantwide process control (Hodouin, 2011) and knowledge sharing databases (Bascur & Linares, 2006). However, the successful implementation and subsequent monitoring will ineluctably results in an increased demand for timely and accurate information. This more than often requires metal accountants to increase the scope and reporting frequency of plant metal production. A striking example of such scope expansion is the Minas-Rio iron ore project in Brazil (Anglo American, 2013) having a pipeline route of 525 km between the concentrator and the concentrate shipping area. Several other mining companies have also set an increased frequency for their key performance indicators thereby shrinking the metal accounting period from monthly to weekly and daily. Those concurrent trends have brought in-process inventory estimation at the forefront of metal accounting issues. Indeed, as illustrated in Figure 1, improving trading reactivity requires improvements in production planning which strongly impacts the requirements for reliable metallurgical accounting. Furthermore, practice has shown that boldly ignoring significant in-process inventories or the errors associated with their estimation can lead to unreliable metal balances. In other words, since metal balances are the cornerstones of metal accounting, some of the risks associated with important business decisions are linked to errors associated with in-process inventory measurements."

Jan 1, 2014

By John Sasadi

The mining industry depends upon inexpensive water transportation. Today, large quantities of mined products are transported by ships over oceans, from continents to continents, over lakes and waterways to the ultimate users. Sometimes, the routes these Bulk Carriers travel cover only a few hundred miles, sometimes thousands of miles halfway around the world. Most of the products of the mining industries are relatively inexpensive. A significant portion of their cost to the ultimate users are in the cost of transportation and not in loading and unloading these commodities at the ports of origination or destination. So far, the industry has produced very efficient loading and un- loading installations, but has very little influence over marine transportation or the design of the vessels themselves. Very little was ever published dealing with integrated transportation systems properly correlating all phases of the operation; namely, loading, marine transportation and unloading bulk materials.

Jan 1, 1967