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By P. Cleyle, K. McDermott, M. Hall, C. A. Harris

"This paper describes the implementation of an expert system for monitoring and control of the NO. 4 autogeneous mill and spiral circuits at Wabush Mines.This process control system incorporated the mill operating expertize of Wabush Mines operating personnel and was implemented to improve spiral iron recovery and mill productivity by:1. Continuously monitoring the mill power draw and ensuring that the mill feedrate is regulated to prevent damage to the mill motor, while simultaneously maintaining the feedrate at or as close as possible to the maximum feedrate determined by the process supervisor.2. Improving control over the spiral density and feed rate.3. Improving control over both tbe rougher and cleaner wash water.4. Reducing the frequency with which pumps are plugged.5. Allowing modifications to be made easily and quickly to test various operating strategies.This system was installed using COMDALE/C, a real-time Expert System for Process Control. It was readily accepted by the process operators and produces higher production performance in comparison to the other 5 parallel mill lines at a lower power draw."

Jan 1, 1992

By Neil R. Burns, Michael Doggett

Abstract - The Nanisivik mine offers a unique opportunity to examine the economics of a mining scenario from its original feasibility study through to closure. In the early 1970s, the Strathcona Sound project (exploration around the Nanisivik mine) had advanced to the point where a significant mineralized body had been defined and a feasibility study was initiated. The study supported development of the Nanisivik mine, with government investment in regional infrastructure, and the mine was constructed and operated for 26 years. Many elements of the feasibility study were difficult to estimate because the project was unique in its high Arctic setting. As a result, many differences were found when comparing the actual mining data to the feasibility study. The majority of these differences were the result of an actual mine life of 26 years instead of the planned 12.5 years. Most of the mining costs were higher than estimated and production occurred at a much higher extraction rate than planned. On a constant dollar basis, the metal prices were, on average, below the feasibility estimates. For the most part, these differences balanced out, with the actual mining being only slightly more profitable than anticipated in the feasibility study.

Jan 1, 2004

By Peter Richards, Alexander Lewis-Gray, Mark Davies, Nicholas Katsikaros

"Gekko Systems developed the Gekko Resin Exchange Column (G-REX) in order to optimise the recovery of gold in complex leach-to-electrowinning processes, as an intermediate step using a highly gold-selective resin to isolate contaminant metals. The AuRIX®100 resin produced by Purolite is licensed exclusively to Gekko, with the G-REX column designed specifically for this resin (Lewis-Gray et al, 2015). Operational experience has been gained at the CGT Ballarat Gold Plant in near continuous operation since 2008, treating unclarified concentrate leach solution. The extension of the technology to higher throughputs and more complex chemistry is discussed.Aurix®100 ResinAuRIX®100 resin is a cross-linked polystyrene alkaline resin developed by Henkel (Virnig et al, 1996). The resin beads are off-white in colour, spherical, with a nominal size of 100% +600µm. This resin is highly selective for gold and silver over many metals, by way of extracting precious metal cyanide complexes from leach solutions with a pH less than 11.5. The higher end of the pH scale produces best selectivity according to the order of preference: Au > Ag > Hg > Zn > Ni > Cu > Co > Fe. Purolite produces the resin and Gekko Systems maintains licensing of AuRIX®100 resin for use in its G-REX column as part of its unique suite of gravity gold handling equipment.Significant cost savings over carbon-in-solution (CIS) systems are realised with AURIX®100 resin, of around 4% to 12% in capital savings and 27% to 40% in operating costs (Virnig et al, 2004). Allied to this is that AuRIX®100 resin is not susceptible to fouling, that is, the resin does not load with inorganic salts or organic compounds which would affect the loading and extraction of precious metals. To counter any potential for fouling by inorganic salts, in service a dilute acid wash is carried out periodically on the resin to unblock resin pores."

Jan 1, 2016

By Bernard Jones

LTUG ? A meeting of many mining companies that are using large tires ? Introduction of the mines and size ? Companies go over their usage of tires and performance ? As a group we discuss how the manufactures are doing with supplies and performance (who's running what sizes and manufactures they are using) ? The mine's best practices they use (which ones work for them and which ones don't) ? Where the mines see themselves going in the future ? What type of tire management the mines have in place

May 1, 2009

By Gavin Ritson, Chris Ward

"The oil sands industry is still fairly young with the first viable oil sand operation having been started in Alberta in 1960. Since then numerous modifications and improvements have been tried and implemented. The current process makes use of high velocity pumping of oil sands slurry with hot water (hydrotransport) to achieve separation of bitumen from the sand.A number of the oil sands processes have been adapted from unit operations that are used in mineral processing, such as crushing, screening, flotation, cycloning and thickening. This paper outlines a typical oil sands process flowsheet and investigates the differences and similarities in technologies and costs to other mineral processing industries. It also considers the very large throughputs required, and presents some of the difficulties and challenges currently faced by the industry as a result of high demand for oil and environmental pressures.INTRODUCTIONOil sands (also known as tar sands) deposits are found throughout the world. The Athabasca Oil Sands deposit in Aberta is the largest of these. Oil sands consist of a mixture of crude bitumen (a semi-solid form of crude oil), silica sand, clay minerals, and water. The Athabasca, Peace River and Cold Lake deposits cover 141,000 square kilometers and contain about 1.7 trillion barrels (270×109 m3) of bitumen in-place, comparable in magnitude to the world's total proven reserves of conventional oil"

Jan 1, 2009

By Chris Larsen, Carole Fortin, Dave Scott, Curtis Deredin, Ian Orford, Jean Guy Gauthier, Andy Trusiak, Lyne Côté, Mike Cooper

"Upon successful commissioning of the Stage Grinding Project (Cormier et. al., 2002), process improvements predicted through pilot plant testing were obtained in several flotation circuits, resulting in higher grades and recoveries for zinc and lead concentrates. Subsequent to establishing new baseline operating conditions from the Stage Grind Project implementation, additional opportunities were identified, and through the application of Six Sigma methodologies further gains were made. Six Sigma improvement projects were carried out in the copper-lead, zinc, lead upgrading and bulk flotation circuits. The overall performance increase resulting from incremental improvement projects has been substantial.Most remarkably, given the operational maturity up to the late 1980’s, the Brunswick concentrator team has continued to deliver a steady stream of major improvements over the past fifteen years. While senior managers and their programs have changed several times, there have been some critical constants over the long run. Common elements have been a commitment to team work, a commitment to recruit and maintain technical personnel, a structured business improvement framework supported organizationally by senior management, and focus on a few priority initiatives rather than trying to fix everything at once.The paper briefly discusses the longer term setting and then endeavors to illustrate, with examples, how improvements are presently achieved by applying the Six Sigma quality program.INTRODUCTIONThe Noranda Inc. Brunswick Mine, located near Bathurst, New Brunswick, is one of the world’s larger lead/zinc mines. Milling of ore began in 1964 from the No. 12 orebody, with an expansion in 1966 to accommodate ore from the No. 6 mine. In excess of 100 million tonnes have been milled to date. The concentrator employs differential flotation to produce lead, zinc, copper, and lead/zinc bulk concentrates. The ore is massive sulphide, with approximately 20% valuable minerals, 60% pyrite and 20% silicates."

Jan 1, 2005

By O. P. Garg

"The Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC) operations in Labrador and Quebec, in Canada, is among the largest openpit mining complexes on a world wide basis. Since the 1981-82 recession, IOC has embarked on a comprehensive cost reduction and productivity improvement program in order to survive in the world iron ore market.This paper will outline the approach used in prioritizing the cost reduction items.IntroductionMuch of the mining industry in North America is in a crisis state. Most producers are operating at production levels well below capacity, some have been merged or sold, while others have been mothballed or closed permanently. For many of us still operating, the future is uncertain. Despite the many cutbacks and closures, there is still an abundant supply of minerals in the world market and there is almost no hope for any relief on price pressures on most mineral commodities in the near future. The Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC) operates an iron ore mine, a concentrator and a pellet plant known as the Carol Project located in Labrador City, Newfoundland. This concentrator and the pellet plant have the annual capacity to produce 20 million and 10 million tons respectively. A company owned and operated railway links this operation with the dock terminal facilities in Sept-Iles, Quebec.In the past decade the Iron Ore Company of Canada has been one of the largest producers of iron ore products in the world. Its pellets and concentrates as well as natural ores were sold in North America, Europe and the Far East. In 1981-82, sales, particularly in North America, went into a serious decline. For almost 30 years, the gospel IOC preached to employees was ""production, production!"" There were many innovations, and millions of dollars were spent on the biggest and best equipment, on research and development, on training and developing employees."

Jan 1, 1987

By W. A. Lang

"I.-IntroductionAn attempt bas been made in this paper to provide a basis for appraisal of the future of the coal briquetting industry in Alberta by outlining the processes used for briquetting various ranks of coal, by specifying the requirements of a briquetted fuel, by indicating .the status of the industry in the United States, by giving developments in Western Canada, by assessing costs of processing, and by discussing briquetting researches in progress. Much of .the detail bas been omitted since this might mask, rather than reveal, the more important phases of the problem. Reference will be made when possible to published articles where many of the details can be obtained.It should be stated at the outset that, in the writer’s opinion, there are three possible developments in Alberta as regards briquetting: (a) an expansion of the briquetting of the fines of • non-coking and coking coals of semi-anthracite, and of low and medium volatile bituminous rank; (b) the processing of the fines of high-volatile C bituminous coals; and (c) the upgrading of the lower rank high-moisture sub-bituminous coals. Details of the chemical and physical properties of these coals can be obtained in publications of the Research Council of Alberta (1, 2), and of the Fuel Research Station, Bureau of Mines, Ottawa (3).Semi-anthracite and low and medium volatile bituminons coals occur in the mountain areas of Alberta, where, during the upthrust of the Rocky mountains, the coal beds served as the sliding surface. This resulted in the coals being; crushed and consequently they contain a h1gh percentage of fines. In some cases they are high in mineral matter and require to be cleaned before being processed. However, the cleaning of fine coal is both difficult and costly. Both the amount of fines present in the mine-run coal and the amount of mineral matter associated with the coal have increased through the introduction of mechanized mining and through the recovery of coal by stripping operations."

Jan 1, 1950

By J. Cayouette

In 1995, Louvicourt mine started one of the first paste backfill operations in Canada. From 500 000 t in 1995, the annual paste backfill tonnage produced reached 800 000 t in 1999. The maximum throughput of the surface plant (including binders) is 3500 tpd with a final density of 75% to 76% solids which gives a slump of 15 cm to 17 cm. Following the start-up of the paste backfill plant, the backfill strength performance levels were well below the pilot plant’s predictions. The introduction of ferrous slag, laboratory tests on various binder ratios with or without additives, and the desliming of the tailings enabled us to optimize the mix and operation costs. Primary and secondary stopes are filled respectively with a paste containing 4.5% and 2% binders in a mixture of 20% cement to 80% ferrous slag. In certain stopes, the binder ratio may vary from 2% to 7%, but always in a ratio of 80/20. Six years after start-up, or 4.5 Mt of paste backfill later, this paper discusses the present operation and the major changes that have occurred over the years to optimize both the operation and the paste fill quality.

Jan 1, 2003

By Jonathan Matthews

Efficient and effective management of mine tailings is essential for continued successful development of Alberta?s vast oil sands resources. Syncrude Canada Ltd. continues to research novel tailings management techniques in an effort to improve production efficiency and environmental sustainability. During the summer months of 2001, Syncrude Canada Ltd., in collaboration with members of the Canadian Oil Sands Network for Research and Development (CONRAD), conducted field-scale trials of thickened tailings technology at Syncrude?s Aurora mine, north of Fort McMurray, Alberta. This paper provides an overview of the test program including discussion of objectives, test configuration, and program observations. 0Data collected during the field trial indicate that substantial swings in feed slurry composition challenge effective thickener operation. When coarse mineral solids dominated slurry composition, thickener rake torque rose to unmanageable levels. It was determined that the end-of-pipe depositional characteristics of thickened oil sands slurry were generally consistent with present understanding of oil sands tailings slurries. After shear, thickener underflow product exhibited very shallow beach angles and a limited capacity to keep coarser particles in suspension indicating that stacking of ?paste-like? thickener underflow product from a conventional thickener is not practical in an oil sands setting unless process adjustments can be made to increase the underflow density and/or preserve the initial high yield stress of the underflow during transport and deposition. These technical challenges notwithstanding, Thickened Tailings technology offers considerable promise for recovery of warm water from oil sands process tailings.

May 1, 2003

By John Russell

"The South American mining community leads the world in recognition and adoption of the latest grinding mill relining technologies. Clearly this region has recognised the benefits of improved relining performance.Six of the seven RUSSELL TWIN 8 Mill Relining Systems, ordered to date, are either operating or being manufactured for South American mine sites.This paradigm shift, towards very short relining times, aims at displacing mill relining activities from the critical path of concentrator maintenance shutdown schedules.The first uses of the RUSSELL TWIN 8 Mill Relining System have seen some of the highest SAG mill new liner placement rates ever observed by RME, as would be expected with two, independent Machines working simultaneously in the one mill.The liner-replacement-rate, averaged over the whole reline, is good (27% improvement over single Machine System in the same mill) but short of full potential. This modest result can be attributed to reline crews unfamiliarity with RUSSELL TWIN 8 System operation.This paper compares a sample of conventional (single machine) RME Mill Relining System performance data with one ‘double head’ mill liner handler by others. Early performance of Escondida’s new RUSSELL TWIN 8 System performance is then compared with recent single Machine data from Escondida, immediately prior to RUSSELL TWIN 8 commissioning. RME and Escondida look to constantly improving RUSSELL TWIN 8 System performance as full operational familiarity is achieved.Also, the preparation of this paper revealed a need to develop a global industry standard for mill relining data collection. A web based platform, to develop and then distribute standardised data collection templates, is discussed in Annexure 1."

Jan 1, 2010

By David Davidson

Overview- Points To Be Addressed ? Review the building blocks of a successful and vibrant industrial economy ? China?s current position in the global economy ? China?s voracious appetite for raw materials ? Distortion in import/export trends ? Areas of strategic importance for China - Steel and its components - Agriculture self sufficiency - Energy now and for the future ? Do current valuation techniques fairly value ?strategic? assets? China ? The Economical Miracle - Massive shift in population from rural to urban - ?Middle class? growing rapidly, hence strong consumer growth - China is the manufacturing center for the world ? cheap labour and - modern facilities - Infrastructure build out ?US$585b stimulus package and 5 year plan - Rail ? 30,000 kms of new track planned by 2020 - Power ? 50% capacity increase, including 35 nuclear reactors - 100 major new airports - State of the art process and manufacturing facilities - Port capacity ? 100m TEU capacity increase by 2020 Class 1 national highway ? 35,000 km?s by 2020

May 1, 2010

By Paul Voigt, Mike Hourn, Glenn Stieper

Sable Zinc Kabwe Limited ("Sable") is a base metal processing plant, two kilometres south of Kabwe Town in Central Province, Zambia. The region has a rich history in mining and minerals production, being a major lead and zinc producer from the 1900s up to the mid-1990s. In 2006, a copper plant was built at the Sable processing site to treat third-party copper and cobalt oxide ores and concentrates. The oxide leaching plant included whole ore leaching, solvent extraction and production of 8,000 tpa LME Grade A copper cathode. The plant was placed on care and maintenance in 2014, and Glencore Plc ("Glencore") took the opportunity to convert the plant using a minimal budget, to an Albion Process™ plant to treat local refractory copper concentrates unsuitable or uneconomic for smelting. The Albion Process™ plant comprises an M100 IsaMill™ operating in acidic conditions such that raffinate from the downstream process is recycled back to slurry the concentrate delivered to site thus maximising copper tenor in solution and reducing water consumption. The finely ground concentrate feeds an oxidative leaching plant using the existing stainless steel oxide leach reactors converted to Albion Process™ duty by fitting HyperSparge™ supersonic oxygen injectors and gas dispersing agitators. The leached slurry is then directed to the existing solid/liquid separation equipment, and the PLS is then sent to the existing SX/EW plant. The plant also allows for cobalt recovery from the raffinate. The plant was designed based on testwork on regional copper concentrates. The plant was designed to toll treat a range of concentrates, and so the design was flexible With the flexibility of the Albion Process™ being one of its distinct advantages, the plant was ideally suited for tolling regional concentrates. The plant was commissioned and ramped up in six weeks using low-grade Zambian copper concentrate, and produced exclusively LME Grade A copper with over 99% leach recovery in the Albion circuit. INTRODUCTION The Sable Zinc Kabwe Limited ("Sable") process plant is located 2 km south of Kabwe town and 140km north of Lusaka in Central Province, Zambia. In 1902, rich deposits of zinc and lead were discovered with mines and processing plants operating in and around the town until mid-1994. In 2000, the Kabwe Mine tailings dams were sold to Sable, a newly established company, as part of a purchase deal for other plots and facilities. Up until 2004, Sable produced zinc cathodes in an SX/EW plant treating wash plant tailing material. In 2004, Sable was acquired by the South African mining company Metorex Limited ("Metorex"), and in 2006 a copper/cobalt SX/EW plant was built to produce copper cathode from malachite ore supplied from the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2011, Jinchuan Group International Resources Co. Ltd acquired Metorex and Sable was in turn sold to a subsidiary of Glencore Plc ("Glencore").

Jan 1, 2019

TABAKOTO / SEGALA ? Annual gold production approximately 100,000 oz ? Debt free ? Unhedged ? Combined surface reserves 949,000 oz ? Combined 9 year life Tabakoto open pit reserve 568,000 oz (3.4m tonnes @ 5.26 g/t Au) Segala open pit reserve 381,000 oz (3.98m tonnes @ 2.98 g/t Au)

May 1, 2006

By W. E. MacDonald

This paper relates the story of 100 years of mining in the Harbour Seam at the Princess Colliery, Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia. Several interesting anecdotes are included along with the discussion of the evolution of coal mining methods in the area. Finally, some of the recently introduced equipment at Princess Colliery is described, and prospects for the future of the industry are outlined.

Jan 1, 1968

By Marcel Vallée

Frequently, costs overruns and defaults in mining project performance result in serious problems and headaches for all project participants and impact on corporate objectives, profits and image and, occasionally, lead to project failure. As mining professional s, we should be very concerned that, in a recent World Bank paper (Weber-Fahr, 2001), geological and technical risks were considered the most important ones facing mining projects. Whenever we manage to reduce or minimize these risks, we are in better position to overcome the environment-, market-, finance- and community-related ones. The causes of this situation seem rather systemic, as a fairly long list of industry problems with new pro jects has been described in industry papers in pas t and recent years. A brief review of industry problems with mining projects will be given first, followed by a review of the basics of the current Quality Management and Continuous Improvement perspectives that have evolved from earlier quality control and quality assurance systems and policies. Particular particular attention will be given to the work of W. E. Deming. As the system approach is an essential part of such policies, it will be described succinctly. Given that poor communications and interactions among geologists, mineral processors and mining engineers/operators ca n seriously affect project efficiency and profitability, these interrelated processes with in the mining systems will be analyzed and modelled and the impacts of such situations will be described through a number of anonymous case histories and examples. A synthesis of Dr Deming's management system, includ ing his Four teen P oints and System of Profound Knowledge, will be prese nted .

May 1, 2002

By Y. Sasseville

"Niobec has been using vibrating screens and screw classifiers as a double stage classification in its grinding circuit since the very beginning of its operation in St-Honoré. Most of the other mineral processing plants around the world uses cyclones as the classification device in their grinding circuit. The difference between these two methods are well known in terms of capital cost and grinding efficiency but the differences in terms of the impact on the downstream processing stages are a lot harder to predict and are case specific. In the interest of lowering the capital cost of a future expansion project, Niobec decided to test the cyclones in its actual grinding circuit and evaluate their impact on the recovery of the downstream processing stages as well as the operating cost of the mill. We switched between cyclones and screens for 8 month in 2013 and early 2014 and we are now operating only with cyclones since march 2014.INTRODUCTIONThe Niobec mine and concentrator were built in the mid 70’s and at that time, the mill was processing 1 500 tons per day. Over the years, many expansion projects have brought the plant to 7 000 tons per day. Throughout the initial concentrator design and commissioning, screens have been chosen over cyclones because of their higher classification efficiency which is known to reduce variability and limit the fine generation especially due to a high undersize classification efficiency. Just like many other plants, fine particle generation is a major problem at Niobec because of its negative effect on downstream processing stages. In the interest of lowering the capital cost of a future expansion project, Niobec’s engineering team decided, 35 years later, to test the cyclones in its actual grinding circuit and evaluate their actual impact on the final recovery and the operating cost of the mill.The grinding circuit is separated in two lines which will be called Circuit #1 and Circuit #2 along this paper. Circuit #1 is, as you can see in Figure 1, composed of a rod mill and two parallel ball mills in closed circuit with screens and screw classifiers. The screens oversize are sent to the screw classifiers while the undersize are sent to the next processing stage. The screw classifiers overflow are both sent back to the pump box while their oversize streams return in their corresponding ball mills for further grinding. Circuit #2 is, as you can see in Figure 1, quite the same as Circuit #1 except it has only one set of screw classifier and ball mill. Figure 1 also shows the modification in arrangement each circuits went through to integrate the new cyclones. One of the ball mills in Circuit #1 now appears dotted because it can still be used but is not now"

Jan 1, 2015

By W. E. Davies

"This paper is the sequel to that on Developments in Sintering Efficiency delivered by Davies and Mitchell at the International Ore Dressing Congress, Stockholm, 1957. Attention is drawn to the fundamental concept of sintering as a heat transfer process, in which the ignition heat is continually transferred onward through the bed as a heat wave. By its passage, this heat initiates endothermic 'changes, such as carbonate decomposition, whose energy requirements are supplied by the combustion of the fuel contained in the bed.Ideally, the heat wave should be generated by the ignition hood followed by the pre-heating of the incoming air. The fuel content of the bed should be no more than the theoretical quantity needed to balance the endothermic changes. In practice, the heat wave is seriously short of energy and this is offset by excess fuel in the bed. As a result, sinter quality suffers, more return .fines are produced, and fuel is wasted, a loss of efficiency which could be avoided if the fundamentals of correct ignition were more widely appreciated.Sintering speed, otherwise heat wave velocity, is a function of the rate at which the incoming air acquires .heat from the cooling sinter and imparts it to the unburned feed below the combustion zone. It is thus a function of rate of air flow and so depends on bed permeability>. Ways of• improving and maintaining permeability at the maximum consistent with thorough sintering are discussed, particular reference being made to taconite concentrates. The possibilities of recrystallizing refractory ores into forms more amenable to physical concentration techniques by sintering are visualised, very little expenditure on heat energy being required when the process is operated near the ideal conditions."

Jan 1, 1960

By P. H. Agson Gani, T. Sitorus, N. P. Widodo

"PT ANTAM UBPE Pongkor underground mine use blasting to develop its tunnels which will cause poisonous and dangerous gases trapped inside mine. To analyze this case, a study of mine ventilation, the dispersion of carbon monoxide (CO) gas concentration and diffusion coefficient is commenced. At the end, the re-entry time formula will be determined. Results indicate that this study is site specific and could only be applied in the place this study executed. The aim of this study is to be further developed by applying Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to find a universal re-entry formula. KEYWORDS Mine Ventilation, Re-Entry, Smoke Clearing, Diffusion Coefficient, Carbon Monoxide Gas, Gas Dispersion INTRODUCTION Pongkor underground mine is using cut and fill as its mining method. Thus, its development and production processes require blasting to develop its tunnel. This process caused poisonous and dangerous gases spread and trapped inside the mine, one of them is carbon monoxide (CO) gas. CO is formed in an unbalanced reaction of explosives detonation and could be the cause of headache, blackout and death to people who inhale CO at certain concentration (McPherson, 2011; Hartman, Mutmansky, Ramani, & Wang, 2012). Mine ventilation system is installed in the mine to resolve this problem. Mine ventilation play an important role to disperse CO gas by absorb the poisonous/dangerous gases and deliver clean air into mine. The important parameter is diffusion coefficient, because diffusion is affecting particulates or gasses spreading from its sources throughout the mine. Diffusion coefficient is the total diffusion in axial direction of turbulent flow mainly by convection of bulk motion, advection and eddy diffusion, while the effect of molecular diffusion is appreciably negligible (Widiatmojo et al, 2015). Taylor (1953, 1954) develops a theory about the dispersion by inducing a slow stream of solvent into a capillary tube. Taylor used Reynolds assumption of radial diffusivity to be analogous with the transfer of the matter in turbulent flow as well as the transfer of momentum and heat. Then, Taylor proposed the formula of diffusion coefficient, D (m2/s), against pipe diameter and turbulent shear velocity are as follow:"

Jan 1, 2019

By Karl J. C. Harries

"6.1. INTRODUCTIONThis chapter comments on some of the more common types of agreements related to property examination and acquisition, other than the farm-in/joint venture agreement or common undertaking, which is dealt with in the next two chapters. Many of the comments made in Part IV of Chapter 4 apply equally to any such agreement. In addition, many of the comments in Chapter 8 and the examples in Volume II are most certainly relevant to many other types of agreement.6.2. RIGHTS OF FIRST REFUSAL1A right of first refusal is a right that obligates an owner to offer his property, or an interest therein, to the holder of the first right if the owner intends to sell or otherwise dispose of it. It may be triggered either by the owner wishing to offer his property for sale or by receipt of a bona fide offer to purchase his interest from an “outside” third party. The mechanics and procedures to implement a first right should be set out clearly in the agreement, and their basics are the same, whether the first right is a stand-alone document or is part of an acquisition agreement.2Rights of first refusal are common in agreements to permit some control over the disposition of an interest and there they can be a valuable provision. However, some explorationists feel that they are also a good stand-alone agreement to have while a property is being evaluated to decide whether or not it is worth optioning. The reasoning is that such an arrangement will tie up the property to allow a quick look and, if the property looks interesting, the balance of the term of the first right will give an ample exclusive period of time to negotiate with the owner and settle an acquisition agreement. In addition, the explorationist is protected by the first right if the owner decides to negotiate a deal with another party."

Jan 1, 2003