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Advances in technology have led to larger and deeper open pit mines and, consequently, also increased the potential economic impact associated with slope failures. If the ultimate aim of mining operations is to maximise project profit, it is surprising to see related research activities have mostly been focusing on technical areas such as slope stability modelling, but with limited studies conducted to date to assess the relationship between geotechnical uncertainties and economic risk. Given most major decisions in the mining industry nowadays are made by management staff with financial background, any design approach that would help to link slope stability analysis results with monetary values would no doubt enhance communication between geotechnical practitioners and decision makers. This paper presents a study which assesses economic impact of slope failures to assist in mine planning. The study also estimates the impact of slope failures on project value, which would enable economic risks associated with pit slope designs to be closely examined. The proposed risk assessment techniques, used by financial institutions for many years to assess portfolio risks, can assist geotechnical practitioners in quantifying risks of slope failures. Risk-adjusted concepts are also suggested to assist management in selecting a slope design with optimal risk and return ratio.

May 1, 2010

By Tim Watson

Andacollo Hypogene Project ?Overview Project description: Sulphide copper concentrator Throughput:55,000 tpd Location: Approximately 50 km from La Serena Elevation: Approximately 1,000 m ASL Start feasibility study: July 2005 Start of construction: May 2007 Construction completion: December 2009 Final cost(1,2,3):435 Million US $ (1) Excludes third party costs, 220 kV power line (2) Cost is based on a Chilean Peso to US Dollar foreign exchange rate of 535 to 1 (3) Does not include US$40.3 million for the Elqui River Pipeline Project or US$8.0 million for the stock pile cover

May 1, 2010

By Ivan C. Machado

Jaguar Mining Inc. is implementing a 1.1 Mtpy, 7-year LOM gold project in the Iron Quadrangle (?Quadrilátero Ferrífero?), Brazil. Construction is on schedule and startup is programmed for Q2 2010. Mill feed grade averages 4.43 g/t and LOM gold production is estimated at 800,000 oz. The project entails two sulfide underground mines and three oxide/transition open pit mines. A state-of-the-art flotation/gravity concentration/CIP Plant has been designed based on testwork carried out by internationally recognized Canadian, U.S., and Brazilian laboratories. The mass recovery of the flotation section is only ca 10%, while its gold recovery is about 90%. Therefore, the CIP-ADR Plant will treat only 10% of the solids mass contained in the mill feed, while 90% will be fully cyanide-free material that will be partially used to feed a Backfill Plant. The leached tailings will be conveyed to a rather small tailings dam, whose 20- m3/h supernatant solution will be treated by a new electrolytic technology. The plant design contemplates a High Density Thickener for the cyanide-free rejects exceeding the backfill demand and a Regrinding Section before the Leaching Circuit. The estimated overall metallurgical recovery sits around 92%. This paper focus on the use of modern technologies to reduce costs, risks, and liabilities.

May 1, 2010

By D. R. Wilburn

This summary of international mineral exploration activities for the year 2009 draws upon information from industry sources, published literature and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) specialists. The summary provides data on industry exploration budgets by region and mineral commodity, identifies significant mineral discoveries and areas of mineral exploration, discusses government programs affecting the mineral exploration industry and presents analyses of exploration activities by the mineral industry based upon these data. Two types of information are reported and analyzed in this annual review of international exploration for the year 2009: 1) budgetary statistics expressed in U.S. nominal dollars provided by Metals Economics Group (MEG) of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and 2) information on regional and site-specific exploration activities that took place in 2009 and were compiled by the USGS. The MEG information summarizes planned company budgets for worldwide exploration activities in 2009, primarily for base metals (copper, lead, nickel and zinc), diamond and precious metals (gold, platinum-group metals and silver). Information on uranium exploration was included in the MEG overview for the first time in 2007, although this information was not included in the USGS analysis prior to 2008. The MEG survey methodology was changed in 1999 to include companies with exploration budgets greater than $100,000, as well as those companies included in prior studies whose anticipated budgets were above $2.9 million. MEG estimates that its post-1999 surveys cover at least 90 percent of world nonferrous nonfuel mineral exploration budgets. The 2009 survey is reported by MEG to cover an estimated 95 percent. Companies who chose not to participate in the MEG study, private companies that do not publish data and government-funded exploration activities make up the majority of the remaining 5 percent. MEG included 86 more companies in its 2009 survey than it did in 2008.

May 1, 2010

By David Laing

Completion of a Feasibility Study represents a major milestone in the development path of a mine, and one which typically triggers a need for project financing. Obtaining funding for construction relies on a positive Feasibility Study and a host of other related activities. This paper looks at the financing process and work required to support it, during and after the Feasibility Study, and bring it to a successful closing. It will include comment on the significance of permits, environmental plans, construction contracts, offtake arrangements, hedging, insurance, and others requirements to support a financing plan.

May 1, 2010

An Attractive Investment ?Near term low cost and secure PGM producer ?restricted supply legislated demand ?strong pipeline of resource development ?Building Canada?s largest undeveloped PGM-Cu resource ?All work (resource, reserves, DFS, EA) is NI43-101 compliant ?Strong balance sheet: over $8 m in cash with no debt

May 1, 2010

By Staff

Minerals contribute to U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) at several levels ? from mining and processing to the manufacturing of Anished products. In 2009, the estimated real GDP of the United States decreased by 2.4 percent compared with, and the estimated nominal GDP was about $14.2 trillion (Table 1). Trends in various sectors of the domestic economy are often reflected in mineral production and consumption rates. In 2009, the continued decline of the housing market was reflected in reductions in the production and consumption of cement, clays, construction sand and gravel, and crushed stone (those mineral commodities that are used almost exclusively in construction). Production of mineral commodities associated with the manufacture of goods for the housing market, such as ceramic tile, heating and air conditioning equipment, paint, plumbing and sanitaryware, roofing, wiring and wallboard also decreased. Declines in auto-mobile manufacturing resulted in reduced production

May 1, 2010

Northern Iron Ltd (NIL) is an Australian listed company that recently brought the historic Sydvaranger open pit Magnetite Mine (the Project) in Northern Norway successfully back into production. NIL made the decision to operate the Project on an owner mining basis, due to limited large scale mining expertise amongst Norwegian mining contractors, a long mine life, a limited range in planned mining rate and to minimise costs. As a new mine operator in a country where labour practices are strictly regulated, there was the desire to reduce the risk associated employing and managing skilled personnel. This was achieved by coupling the purchase of the required mining equipment from the original equipment manufacturer's (OEM) regional dealers with OEM supported Maintenance and Repair Contracts (MARC). This paper examines the process that was followed to implement an owner mining operation in a short time frame; approximately 12 months from the initial requests for quotation to actual delivery of mining equipment to site, and some of the challenges faced. By following a formal and well-tested process, not only was the implementation achieved in the set time frame, but significant value was added through the cost savings achieved in the equipment purchase price and MARC rates that were negotiated through this process.

May 1, 2010

By Royston Colbourne

Objectives Of Presentation - Identify specific risks - A fresh look at risk - Provide a moment reflection on risk - Open discussion on risk A route to solution and advanced thinking.

May 1, 2010

The use of teleoperation in mining is increasing due to requirements to improve safety and reduce the number of people required to work in remote and difficult environments. We recently completed a project to develop a teleoperated control system for a rock breaker at an iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, with the objective of demonstrating the feasibility of remote rock breaking over long distances. This required controlling both the rock breaker and an array of pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras using joysticks. Controlling the cameras distracted operators from the primary task of controlling the rock breaker to position and fire the hammer. This lengthened task times as both the operator's attention and their hands have to swap between different control interfaces. In this paper, we present a novel design using human eye gaze as an interactive input for the remote camera control. It follows a simple and natural design principle: Whatever you look at the screen, it goes to the centre. A prototype system has been implemented by integrating computer vision based eye tracking technology, with the advantage of being real-time, robust and marker-less. We conducted a user evaluation, where users undertook a control task while obscuring the direct view of the working area and using a remote camera to transfer the live video stream as the visual feedback. Subjects were required to participate in the experiment using eye tracking camera control and traditional joystick control respectively. The statistical analysis of objective measures indicated that our novel eye tracking control significantly outperformed the joystick control. The results of the post-experimental subjective measures also revealed much higher user preference for using eye tracking control, which provides clear evidence that this design is a better interface for remote camera control in mining teleoperation settings.

May 1, 2010

By Roxanne Scott

Outline ? Overview of Community Investment in the Mining Sector ? Emerging Good Practice: ?Strategic Integrated Community Investment? ? Assessing Local Context: ? Institutional Assessment ? Partnership Assessment Approaches to Community Investment Isolation: No proactive engagement in community development Ad hoc philanthropy: small infrastructure, sponsorships, donations Strategic philanthropy: Community proposes options for development Company decides what to do and carries it out, e.g. building schools, health posts, roads Strategic integrated community investment: ? Aligned with government/community development goals and priorities ? Communities and government involved in decisions and execution ? Focused on training and capacity building ? Partnerships ? Continuation in absence of company support Measured returns on investment

May 1, 2010

By Ruy L. Rodrigues

Vale is in the early stages of commissioning its Onça Puma nickel operations. The project is meant for the production of 58,000 tpa of nickel contained in ferro-nickel, substantially contributing to the company?s vision to achieve world leadership in the nickel business. Mineral resources will be exploited from the homonymous deposits in the Midwest of state of Para, Brazil ? some 100 km southwestwards from the company?s Carajás iron ore properties. Resources as of 83 Mt at 1.73 % Ni will sustain a mine life of approximately 40 years. The property was acquired in late 2005 and Vale has since extended the engineering studies and proceeded with the implementation. Nickel will be mined from saprolitic ore at a rate of approximately 10 Mtpa (ore plus waste) in early years ? ramping up to some 15 Mtpa 7 years later ?, to feed the plant at a rate of 2.5 Mtpa. The process uses conventional RKEF (Rotary Kiln Electric Furnace) pyrometalurgical route whereby the ore is homogenized, calcined in rotary kilns, melted in electric furnaces and further refined to ferro-nickel. The plant has been designed and constructed applying the latest available technology, aligned with Vale?s vison to exceed the highest existing standards for environmental control, health and safety and productivity in the industry. Total investments in these operations are anticipated to correspond to USD 2.3 Bi and will materially contribute to the regional development and well being of the nearby communities and other stakeholders.

May 1, 2010

By Marcio Luis S. Godoy

The Salobo Project will be the first Vale operation to use an HPGR mill to process copper-gold ore. The mine is located in Para state, southeast of the Amazon region in Brazil. The circuit was designed to treat 12 million metric tons per year of finely disseminated sulphide ore with high hardness. The comminution circuit comprises a gyratory primary crusher, secondary crushing utilizing two cone crushers, two 2 x 1.5 m HPGR operating in closed configuration with 6 mm screens, followed by two 26 x 40 ft ball mills. The concentration circuit consists of two rougher flotation stages using mechanical cells, regrinding with vertical mills, three cleaner stages with columns and one cleaner scavenger stage in mechanical cells. The concentrate is dewatered, filtered and transported by trucks and train to the port, to be exported. The circuit was designed on the basis of data obtained from a comprehensive laboratory and pilot plant campaign. The ore variability was assessed through simulation using data from a drilling core characterization program. The start-up of the industrial plant is planned for 2011. This paper describes the main aspects of circuit design, as well as information related to the beginning of the project construction.

May 1, 2010

Training by Inclusiveness ?Background ?Video ?Results ?Partners ?How SEM works ?Future of SEM Background: Inclusivity partners ?Northwest Community College ?Smithers Exploration Group ?With support from the Province of BC ?Federal government ?And First Nations across the northwest

May 1, 2010

Agenda ?Introduction ?Geology ?Mining ?Metallurgy ?Process, Layout ?Environmental Background ?Kinross Gold Corporation owns the Lobo-Marte gold property, located in Region III of northern Chile. ?The property is close to two other Kinross mines, Maricunga 50kmto the south and La Coipa 60km to the north, plus a regional office in Copiapo and district level operating synergies are expected. ?Lobo and Marte were discovered in the early 1980s and are intrusion-hosted, porphyry-type precious metal deposits, typical of the Maricunga District. ?The Marte open pit heap leach mine was in commercial production in late 1988, but was suspended in February 1992 as it did not meet forecasted production levels and recoveries. ?Kinross plans to recover ore from the Lobo and Marte deposits through an open-pit, heap leach47,000tonne per day operation.

May 1, 2010

By Zetti Gavelán

Lack of skilled workforce in mining industry during the current decade has been a serious concern for most mining organization globally. At the beginning of this decade the major envisioned difficulty was related to generational breach of mining professionals. By 2003, mining industry recover from a low metal prices cycle following by a worldwide mining investment boom in 2005 that triggers a talent war among mining companies that was not only limited to professional level but skilled operators as well. Despite world?s economy collapse in October 2008, impact on mining industry was small comparing to other industries and appears to show evidence of healing. Under this context, fundamentals that have been driven lack of skilled workforce for the mining industry in previous years still valid. Starting in 2007, Minera Argentina Gold SA - Barrick Veladero, subsidiary of Barrick Gold, initiated an innovative selection and training program for candidates without exposure to mining. Following our corporate social responsibility mandates, Barrick Veladero decided to change its hiring process entirely, concentrating on selection and training of local people with no experience rather than hire experienced mining operators. This paper shares Barrick Veladero experiences on its hiring program, challenges faced, and current results.

May 1, 2010

By Gary S. Anderson

Rajant Corporation is the global leader in mining communications systems implemented a vision to develop a wireless network that is rapidly deployed, self-powered and managed, for portable or fixed configurations ? Mobile, Portable, Self-Powered, Secure and High Bandwidth. The network configures itself allowing for very rapid deployment without the time delay and personnel typically required for set-up and configuration. Rajant?s proprietary technology ?InstaMesh®? is incorporated in a device called a BreadCrumb®. Rajant has filed several patent applications on its proprietary technology and has received trademark protection on its brand names. The BreadCrumb® uses technology which allows mining, military and first responders to easily establish internet connections at remote sites or situations where existing internet communications has been disrupted. The BreadCrumb® products are standards-based Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g compliant, ruggedized, lightweight, portable; self-meshing and the system can be established by just turning on several of the BreadCrumb® units. The Rajant Network has evolved in the ?One Network? philosophy and has been deployed by both the military and homeland defense organizations. With multiple radios, transmitting on multiple frequencies as the same time, bandwidth is doubled, the speed of the network is enhanced, management is simplified, and manageability is made easier. Rajant has partnered with world class integrators and partners, including ten CAT dealers, a world-wide mining technology company, a mining and construction software company and leading technology innovators in mining automation and operations. Recently, Rajant provided a significant network to Rio Tinto?s Iron Ore of Canada Mine in Labrador City, Newfoundland, Canada, Kennecott Utah Copper Mine, and is currently the wireless standard at Peabody Energy and several mines in Australia. These networks range from 20-250 BreadCrumbs®. The result is a meshed mobile broadband network capable of operating in a vast open pit active mining space. Simultaneous applications currently running on these BreadCrumb® networks in the mining sector consist of Caterpillar?s VIMS?s, CAESultra grade control and Aquila Drill Management Systems, Carlson Grade Control systems, Jigsaw Technologies and Modular Mining fleet management system, Ground Probe Radar, an Automatic Train Operation and various video and VoIP applications. All vendor applications have been turned off and all applications are running on Rajant?s ?One Network?.

May 1, 2010

By Carol J. Odell

As a mining social practitioner, social indicators are within the purview of required competencies. A situation, where the ER manager requested assistance in quickly deriving a few social indicators for the strategic plan motivates this paper: despite ample technical knowledge about indicators, a clear understanding of stakeholder aspirations and concerns, as well as familiarity with management priorities such a request required reflection to produce a satisfactory approach, which combined pragmatism with enough academic rigour to provide reliable measures, while being justifiable to management who are unfamiliar with many of the pertinent debates. Importance: Social indicators enable the identification of more and less effective mine-community engagement strategies as well as providing primary data to better understand how the mine-community social system responds to different interventions, thus guiding future engagement plans. In addition social indicators: ? Assist communication about social strategies with Engineering and Operations management, using a quantitative language that is familiar to them. ? Provides concrete data to engage stakeholders to discuss progress and challenges arising, to move discussions towards technically robust strategies and away from politically interested proposals. ? Finally, social measurement is required more and more in due diligence, covenants and ongoing monitoring in Independent Engineering assessments of projects for financing. This paper begins by considering some technical considerations that are useful to guide indicator development. It then introduces the field research informing this paper and discusses some useful results in the light of further applicable concepts from the literature. The paper ends by considering corporate aims in applying corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs and discusses the application of the research for practitioners at mining operations, in the light of these aims.

May 1, 2010

In spite of the efforts done in the past to implement in Codelco best practice guidelines and standards on several important sampling, assaying and variability issues, many people, particularly top managers and operators, are still not aware of the relevance of the use of the principles and practice of geostatistics, sampling theory, analytical chemistry and the understanding of processes variability from rock to cathodes. As a result, an important challenge for the sampling community is to find out the causes of this lack of awareness and to develop communication skills to influence the organisation, particularly the top management level. This situation is not affecting only Codelco; it is a common characteristic of the copper mining industry. The main cause is cultural. Judeo-Christian and occidental sciences are deterministic. This implies a disregard of process variation and the assumption that homogeneity is omnipresent. Another important aspect of the cultural challenge is education. Education is the most efficient way to transfer a system of ideas, traditions and practices. To implement proper courses of sampling theory and geostatistics and support to multidisciplinary education at universities, mining companies will improve teamwork between geologists, mining engineers, metallurgists and chemists. The improvements will imply a more sustainable and efficient mining business.

Mar 1, 2010

The state of sampling practice in South African minerals industry must be appreciated in the context of the changes that the country has recently lived through. These include the entrepreneurship and investment in local mineral developments, the 'unbundling of mineral assets', the rising foreign control of South Africa's mineral assets, developments in the regulatory environment, and the training that has come to the industry through international experts. In terms of their financial contribution the five most important commodities in the South African mining industry include gold, platinum, non-ferrous metals, ferrous metals, and coal. International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards form the basis for international trade in two of these commodities and have had a steadying influence on sampling practice over the years. The contribution of the minerals industry to the economic well-being of South Africa and the strong financial links between good sampling practice and minerals marketing, has acted as a driver for improved sampling practice. The state of sampling practice at mining operations of the five main commodities was found to be quite widely divergent with 'pockets of sampling excellence' in each of the commodities. The stages of mineral development at mines for each of the commodities have been described in terms of the sampling sites, sampling mechanisms, and associated problems at different stages of mineral production from exploration, through face sampling, blasthole sampling, and in-mine grade control, ore processing and handling, metallurgical subsampling, process subsampling, and subsampling in the laboratory. In each case the principal errors were identified and their potential impact on value erosion was estimated. In the final analysis it is evident that the greatest problems arise in the early stage of mineral development, and that ferrous metals and coal are particularly susceptible to loss of value through poor sampling practice. Several examples of value lost through poor sampling at the marketing stage that arise from breaching contract specifications, either in terms of grade or sizing, are described. The conclusion is that larger companies with larger ore deposits and greater human, financial, and capital resources are probably more compliant with 'best sampling practice' than smaller companies. Finally the message that equipment suppliers are sending is that business is booming and the awakened awareness of the issues around sampling practice are translating into rands and cents spent on improved sampling equipment.

Mar 1, 2010