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By Rob Boom, Yasuyuki Tozaki, Greg Traquair

The objectives of the business case are to examine a proposed metallurgical project and answer fundamental questions about project feasibility, risks, opportunities, and value. A business case fulfills these basic functions: estimates economic value; helps to understand competitiveness; serves as a risk management tool; and serves as a communication tool. A business case evolves with the project life cycle, and supports the gate reviews at the end of each phase of engineering, through to project construction and operations. A business case must be holistic, including all elements of scope that can impinge on project risk and value.

Jan 1, 2015

By R. D. Brown

The Federal Government's White Paper on Tax Reform received further major criticism in the reports of the Committees of the House of Commons and the Senate, which recently completed a lengthy review including public hearings of the government's proposals. These reports both criticized the emphasis placed by the White Paper on its concept of tax equity rather than on a system which would promote economic growth. However, the Finance Committee of the House of Commons was prepared to accept, with modifications, a number of the White Paper's key reform proposals. The Senate Finance Committee was more critical of the basic thrust of the tax reform program and recommended that a modification of the existing tax system would be more appropriate to Canada's needs. Both Committees re-commended a more favourable treatment of mining income than that originally proposed in the White Paper, and to some extent both Committees suggested proposals that were even more favourable to the industry than those set out in Finance Minister Benson's amended proposals made in August of this year. This article out-lines the principal recommendations and comments in the reports of both the House of Commons Committee and the Senate Finance Committee.

Jan 1, 1971

By Stephen van Duin

As productivity in coal extraction demands increase in underground coal mines, the industry is faced with finding new ways to support production without jeopardising safety. In modern mines the capacity and scale of longwall coal extraction has steadily increased to a point that support processes are failing to keep pace. In particular, roadway development is continually placed on the critical path of activities which maintain mine production, so any inefficiency in this area is quickly exposed. Original equipment manufacturers are under immense pressure to modify their machines to be more interconnected with each other, with machine communication and logistical sharing of space becoming a known requirement. This paper looks at the changing trends in mining practice, analysing available technology as well as currently emerging research into hard automation and discusses the need to integrate machinery and processes in order to see increases in productivity and safety.

Aug 1, 2013

By Edith Lafontaine

Modern underground mines operate fleets of mobile production equipment including drill jumbos, long-hole drills, load-haul-dump machines, trucks and bolters. Their availability has a substantial impact onto production cost and thus onto mine profitability. Through appropriate collection of pertinent data and information, use of adequate performance measures and their analyses, mine operators can identify the most promising and cost effective opportunities to get more from their equipment and to reduce the overall cost. This paper presents results of the study aimed to review and analyse means and measures used to quantify equipment availability and its contributing factors (reliability, maintainability and maintenance support) in several Canadian underground mines. It overviews current reporting procedures, sources, quality and quantity of the data and information collected as well as examines performance measures and their definitions used by the surveyed mines. Problems concerning data acquisition as well as meaningfulness and usefulness of the above mentioned metrics are also discussed. The paper concludes with some suggestions and recommendations concerning several aspects of equipment availability assessment. It is believed that the latter may become a more useful tool for mine operators in their efforts to reduce production cost than it seems to be the case at present.

May 1, 2007

By G. S. Hume

Introduction Core drilling of the bituminous sands of northern Alberta has been carried on by the Mines and Geology Branch, Department of Mines and Resources, under the supervision of the Director, W. B. Timm. This was part of the Dominion Government's wartime investigations, which included an agreement with Abasand Oils, Limited, for the study of commercial possibilities of obtaining oil from the bituminous sands. The drilling programme, commenced in 1942 by the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada, was continued in 1943 and subsequently by Boyles Bros. under contract with the Mines and Geology Branch. Several areas have been investigated and one of these, the Mildred-Ruth Lakes area, ' herein described, is of special importance in that it contains a sufficiently rich and large deposit of bituminous sands and bitumen beds to warrant consideration of commercial developments for the production of oil. The Steepbank Area, East Side of Athabaska River The Steepbank area, on the east side of Athabaska river in township 92, about twenty-two miles north of Fort McMurray, was selected for drilling in 1942 because previous investigations by Ells indicated it was one of considerable promise both from the standpoint of having reasonably rich bituminous sands under relatively light overburden and also having an excellent tailing disposal and plant site for large-scale operations in proximity to Athabaska river. The drilling done in 1942 and 1943 was largely exploratory, and, when it was found that the southerly part of township 92 had only low-grade material, closer drilling was done in 1944-45 in the richer, more northerly part.

Jan 1, 1947

By N. H. Grace

"IntroductionDURING the past half century, the economy of Western Canada was largely centred on agriculture. However, the impact of World War II has led to an acceleration in the development of a variety of natural resources so that, today, Western Canada is experiencing great industrial development. Consequently, the availability •of low-cost energy assumes prime importance. In the final analysis, industrial growth and expansion are intimately linked to the energy resources.Coal ReservesHas Western Canada adequate coal reserves to meet the present accelerating demand for power in the days that lie ahead? This question must be answered before detailed consideration can be given to the probable patterns •by which various energy sources in Western Canada may be expected to meet the expanding demand. Figure 1 indicates the extent and distribution of the Canadian coal reserves, the data having been prepared by Dr. B. R. MacKay for the Royal Commission on Coal in 1946 (1). The amount of readily recoverable coal is listed as one-half the quantities shown on the chart. It is interesting-to note that upwards of 90 per cent •of the Canadian coal reserves .are located in the three most westerly Canadian provinces. It has been estimated that the coal reserves, at the present rate of mining, would be adequate for about 3,000 years. Consequently, it may be concluded that the coal •reserves in Western Canada •are indeed adequate to meet tremendous energy demands for many centuries. When the oil and natural gas have been exhausted, the great coal reserves will still be available."

Jan 1, 1953

By M. Lindgren, M. Latva-Kokko

Process performance can be significantly influenced by proper design of hydrometallurgical reactors. Optimal reactor configuration is case specific and depends on process requirements such as reaction rate limiting factor and particle size distribution. Choice of materials and manufacturing methods also play important roles in highly corrosive and abrasive environment often involved in hydrometallurgical industry. In this paper performance of different reactor designs has been compared in some typical hydrometallurgical applications. Results show that significant improvement in energy consumption, gas utilization efficiency and equipment lifetime can be achieved with process specific reactor design.

Jan 1, 2014

By Malcolm Scoble, Nick Vagenas, Greg Baiden

Recent advances in underground communications technology have demonstrated the feasibility of teleoperation and automation in underground metal mines. One major challenge lies in the automation of underground mobile machines from surface, with the potential to reduce significantly the need for human involvement in underground operations. This paper reviews the evolution of underground metal mining automation, principally related to the development of teleoperation and automation of mobile mining machines. Examples of prototype systems are given and the associated benefits that have been observed are reviewed.

Jan 1, 1997

By Dalton Fowler

"Pressure vessels used in pressure leaching and pressure oxidation processes in the mining industry are often lined with acid resistant brick and membrane systems. Although the options available when it comes to selecting materials and linings designs for these vessels appear somewhat limited there are, nevertheless? several choices which must be made in order to successfully design, manufacture and construct these linings. These choices require careful evaluation of materials properties which include, among others, thermal conductivity, thermal expansion, chemical swell, and modulus of elasticity, as well as a variety of construction methods.Some of the options available, and some of the means of evaluating them objective of this discussion."

Jan 1, 1999

By Catherine N. Mulligan

Thickening of mine tailings is a relatively new concept for their sustainable management. Removal of water from the tailings to form a paste instead of slurry disposal decreases environmental and geotechnical concerns. As the use of these pastes is relatively new, their behaviour requires investigations such as liquefaction and seismic stability, freeze-thaw behaviour, consolidation and leachate characterization. Slurry density, ore type, particle size distribution, specific gravity and environmental conditions can all influence paste characteristics. In this paper, the effect of the above-mentioned parameters is examined. New developments in water removal, and additives (such as flocculating agents, cements, organics, fertilizers, etc) leading to low moisture content tailings are reviewed, and the potential for thickening to enable sustainable management of mine tailings is discussed with respect to storage volume requirement, use of virgin land, consolidation of the tailings, land use after decommissioning.

May 1, 2007

By Daniel Hodouin, Claude Bazin

"This paper examines the economic advantages of tuning the operation of a differential Cu-Zn flotation circuit as a function of metal prices. Three operating strategies are considered in the analysis: 1) the operation of the circuit at planned copper and zinc concentrates grade with maximum recovery of both metals; 2) the operation of the Cu circuit at maximum copper smelter return per ton of ore and of the Zn circuit at a maximum zinc smelter return per ton of ore; and 3) the operation of the circuit at maximum copper and zinc smelter return per ton of ore. The second strategy tunes the copper circuit independently from the zinc circuit, while the third strategy tunes both circuits simultaneously IntroductionMetal prices play a very important role in the mineral industry (Malhotra and Dowling, 1991). In many cases, metal prices can be the basis for the GO/NO GO decision of a mining project (Malhotra and Dowling, 1991; Apostolides, 1983; Davis, 1996). This direct impact of metal prices on company revenues is highlighted in many annual reports. The 1995 Noranda Annual Report indicates that a variation of 10% of the copper price impacts its yearly revenues by $25,000,000. Some mine operators claim to mine stopes as a function of metal prices (Liimatainen, 1996; Hartman, 1992). This impact of metal prices is also recognized by mill operators that seek strategies to tune ore processing circuits to maximize revenues from the concentrate they sell to smelters (McKee, 1991; Barker et al., 1989; Hales and Ynchausti, 1994; Cipriano et al., 1995). In many cases the problem of tuning the operation of an ore processing circuit is complicated by the fact that the ore contains two or more valuable metals which have to be recovered into separate products. The Agnico-Eagle (Robitaille and Cousin, 1995) and Barrick East Malartic (Pelletier, 1996) Cu-Au mines are examples, as well as the Cu-Pb-Zn Brunswick mine (Shannon et al., 1993) or the Cu-Zn Louvicourt (Whiteway, 1995) and Selbaie (Wright, 1995) mines."

Jan 1, 2000

By A. H. Burns

"Regenerative and recuperative burner systems require advanced combustion techniques to minimize NOx emissions. Various methods of pollutant minimization and furnace design considerations are described. Cited examples are a large high temperature furnace and a small Zinc vaporizing furnace. The concept of total carbon footprint is introduced. The application of Biomass combustion as an effective method of cost and green-house gas (GHG) reduction is discussed. Practical considerations of scale, location and process limitations are discussed. Two examples of biomass fired equipment are cited. Ideal sites have large biomass resources available locally. Processed biomass fuels will be an important substitute for fossil fuel. INTRODUCTIONIn 1992, I presented a paper entitled Combustion Strategies In The Modern Industrial Environment (1992). At that time an abundant supply of cheap fossil fuel made many of the measures I talked about difficult to justify for anything but new equipment.Since 1992 we, as a society, have demonstrated an ability to accelerate the pace of industrial and societal change. The term industrial revolution applied to this age of incessant change is completely meaningless, implying a discrete moment in historical time. What our society has built is a system capable of unfettered, continuous and accelerating technological change. With this change comes an increasing demand for energy and materials.This year is the anniversary of the Titanic disaster, a moment in time when technological certainty met the caprice of nature and gave us a brutal reminder of what can happen to us if we underestimate that power (Mowbray, 1912). In the intervening interval we have regained the technological arrogance that was lost in 1912 bringing us back to the problems of climate change and the need for sustainable industrial activities.We use advanced mathematics to describe many complex systems, sometimes with disastrous results. For example there has been a recent attempt to model the global economy as a completely deterministic system. This premise is flawed at its foundation as human nature and emotion are indeterminate constants in the equations, yielding probabilistic solutions at best. As engineers we are all familiar with stiff problems. The solution to such a problem is meaningless and we have all had the misfortune to live through and rue the effects of that miscalculation over the last few years."

Jan 1, 2012

By M. W. Grabinsky, B. D. Thompson

ABSTRACT: Use of cemented paste backfill (CPB) offers economic and environmental advantages over other backfill methods. However, many operations have limited knowledge of how their CPB behaves in situ. Therefore, to avoid over-pressuring containment barricades, backfilling strategies necessarily tend to be conservative. In situ monitoring at Barrick Gold Corporation’s Williams Mine and Inmet Mining Corporation’s Cayeli Mine has been conducted and factors controlling barricade pressures are demonstrated, including rise rates, binder content, stope geometry, and tailings properties. The application of barricade pressure monitoring on a stope-by-stope basis can increase backfilling efficiency and, thus, reduce stope cycle times, while maintaining optimal safety.

Jan 1, 2011

By Ali Montaser

Hauling trucks are important part of equipment fleets for large earthmoving operations such as those encountered in dams and highway construction projects. This paper presents an automated methodology for tracking and estimating productivity of hauling trucks fleet operations in near-real-time. Recent advancement in automated site data acquisition technologies made their use in tracking and monitoring of construction operations feasible. However, these technologies fail to track hauling truck fleets due to the change in the cut and fill locations from one cycle to another; making tracking and progress reporting difficult and inaccurate. In addition, there is very little work done utilizing data sensed directly from equipment, for example sensing when truck dumping bed is raised during the dumping process. The technologies deployed in the developed method are Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and equipment control sensors. Low cost passive RFID tags are attached to hauling trucks and fixed RFID readers are attached to loaders or excavators. The read range of the used RFID tag is centimeters, to be activated only when a loader with an attached RFID reader is loading a truck. On the other hand, control sensor is connected to the truck control system and operated by the motion of its movable bed. The function of control sensors is to record the signal time when the truck operator gives order to the truck control system to raise or lower truck bed. The captured data is then transferred wirelessly from the RFID reader and control sensor to a computer housed in one of the temporary offices onsite and subsequently to the main server in the contractor?s head office. Fusing the data captured from RFID reader and control sensor is used to identify loading, travel, dumping and return time that constitute the hauling truck cycle time. The collected data is analyzed and processed automatically, without human intervention, to calculate the productivity of the hauling truck and to report it directly to onsite personnel. Relational database is developed to support the implementation of the proposed method. The developed database is used to process the data captured by the RFID and the control sensor to calculate the productivity achieved in cutfill operations in near-real-time. The developed methodology is expected to facilitate early detection of discrepancies between actual and planned performances.

Aug 1, 2013

By Michael W. Russnak

Productivity and operating expenses are everything when it comes to judging how well your mine and company are doing. Stakeholders are always looking at these numbers and trying to understand if productivity is improving, if operating costs are trending downward and what you are basing your decisions on. o make improvements you first need to understand how you are performing. If you can?t get this basic information, you will never improve. You will not be able to make simple decisions related to maintenance, operations or production. Forget about planning, as you will only be guessing based on the numbers some stakeholder or your executive wants to see. The problem miners run into is not that the data doesn?t exist; it does, but typically it?s raw, it?s everywhere and its volume is huge. Today there is more on-board computing capability in shovels than we had on our desktops three years ago. Add other mobile equipment, plant systems and multiple OEM vendors to the equation and the challenge is daunting.

May 1, 2007

By C K. Bell, L. S. Collett

An AFMAG survey was flown in 1968 over the Upper Nelson River area, Manitoba. The flight direction was northwest-southeast and flight spacing was 2 miles. In the Cross Lake Subprovince, AFMAG showed that an isolated peridotite outcrop was part of a dike that extended over 80 miles. Diabase dikes are not always marked by an anomaly, but isolated cross-overs, when used in conjunction with geological and magnetic data, permit their extrapolation. Anomalies coincide with areas of sulphide mineralization. In the Flin Fion Subprovince, known and unknown northeast-trending faults are detected. The Berry Creek fault was extended south through Tramping lake, then under the Paleozoic cover. Conductors were detected at, or near, the axes of major synclines within Amisk and Snow Group sediments. Granitic terranes have low conductivity and, because they are characterized by smooth AFMAG profiles, they can be delimited. AF.MAG is being recognized as a geophysical method that can aid geological mapping and interpretation. Its most important contribution to the geologist will be in regions where out-crops are sparse.

Jan 1, 1971

Mining Subscribes to Murphy?s Law Personal observations on the past ?Perfect, benign deposit mines can be screwed up-spills and concentrate handling issues ?Long term contamination and water management assessments inadequate ?The ?permitting mentality? and its effects on the application of proponent and regulator resources ?Reliance on simple principles but nature and chemistry is more complex

May 1, 2010

By G. M. Ritcey

The recovery of copper from low-grade solutions res ulting from dump leaching is well known, whereas the recovery from highly concentrated copper solutions has not been practiced. This paper discusses the use of Ashland Chemical's Kelex 100, a substituted quinoline, for the recovery of copper from solutions resulting from leaching copper-nickel concentrates. A flow sheet is described, and an economic comparison shows Kelex 100 to be superior to either the LIX 64N or LIX 70 reagents of General Mills for the recovery of copper.

Jan 1, 1973

By Tom Cooney

A small number of mining contractors worldwide have evolved their businesses to be able to provide a ?total service solution? to their clients. Thiess, an Australian-based international mining service provider, works with numerous clients to tailor delivery methods and commercial arrangements to suit individual projects. The benefits of Thiess? extensive experience is brought to each client and project, whilst business improvement within projects, to the mutual benefit of both the client and Thiess, is a key part of all long term contract relationships. Historically, optimal business outcomes were closely related to the achievement of production and cost performance measures. Whilst these remain fundamental to successful mining businesses, other elements of sustainability are assuming increasing importance. As a large energy user, greenhouse and energy management is becoming an important part of Thiess? business. Thiess is a signatory to Australian government initiatives such as Greenhouse Challenge Plus, and is integrating energy management into its operations and business improvement programs, in many cases to the benefit also of the client. This paper will highlight the benefits that an organisation such as Thiess can bring to a mine owner. Thiess? approach to business improvement and cost reduction, sustainability and energy management, as well as the relationship between these will also be considered. Increasingly, overall mining performance is dependent on the alignment of formally disparate elements.

May 1, 2007

By P. J. Bourassa

Incorporated in 1957 under the laws of the Province of Quebec, Quebec Cartier Mining Co. undertook the development of its low-grade iron ore reserves located at Lac Jeannine in the southwest extremity of the Quebec-Labrador trough. This challenge comprised the construction of a 200-mile access road, two towns, a 191-mile-long railroad from Port Cartier to Lac Jeannine, a hydro-electric generating plant on the Hart Jaune River, and mining, crushing, concentrating and ancillary facilities to support a yearly production of 8.0 million tons of iron ore concentrates at 66% Fe. In order to meet increasing market demands for iron ore concentrates concurrently with the depletion of its Lac Jeannine reserves , Quebec Cartier announced, late in 1969, the first step toward bringing into production a new iron ore deposit, known as Mount Wright, located 70 air miles northeast of Lac Jeannine and 25 miles southwest of Labrador City, Newfoundland. In September 1970, the company announced its decision to develop and bring into production its Mount Wright reserves at an annual rate of 1 8.4 million dry long tons. The scope of this project included the construction of an access road linking the mine, the new town and Labrador City, Newfoundland, the extension of the railroad by some 86 miles, the construction of an ore concentrating plant with all the ancillary facilities, the development: of the mine, the construction of a pourer transmission line and a new town adjacent to Lake Daviault. The Mount Wright story is divided into five individual papers covering: (a) the history and development of the project; (b) the mine; (c) plant control by a process computer; (d) crushing, grinding and concentrating; and (e) the townsite of Fermont.

Jan 1, 1977