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By S McGregor, J Sharp, I Entezari, T Boulter

The piezocone penetration test (CPTu) is one of the primary screening tools used by the mining industry to evaluate whether tailings are susceptible to liquefaction (static or cyclic). Liquefaction analysis using the CPTu is influenced by the fines content of the soil, and most CPT screening tools empirically use the behaviour type index (Ic) to correct for fines. The issue with this approach is that such empirical relationships have been developed using data collected from natural soils and their applicability to different tailings deposits needs to be studied. In this paper, we explore the use of machine learning to develop a site-specific model to estimate fines content of tailings using gamma piezocone penetration testing (GCPTu) measurements. The results are then compared to the fines content derived from the soil behavior type index (Ic) proposed by Robertson and Wride (1998). A dataset of paired GCPTu and laboratory results were compiled and a support vector machine (SVM) algorithm was employed to calibrate a model to estimate tailings fines content from in-situ GCPTu data. We calibrated GCPTu data to geotechnical 75 μm fines content measured in the laboratory. The geotechnical fines content is the fines content as a percentage of solids. The development dataset was comprised of paired GCPTu-laboratory results collected in 2009-2019 from a mining area with predominately clay mineral and quartz sand tailings. Results show that the developed model predicts the geotechnical 75 μm fines content of the studied deposits with 7.8% error. The Ic based method estimates the fines content with 31% error. Evidently, the Ic method is not applicable to the studied tailings deposits. It is appreciated that many tailings fines do not contain clay, and that the success on this program may not be repeatable everywhere. However, the authors wish to point out that the application of site-specific machine learning algorithms may be used to significantly improve empirical geotechnical parameters.

Jul 1, 2021

By T Barto, D Thomson, T Norgate, C Doblin

Collaboration between CSIRO Minerals and SunSalt Pty Ltd, a salt producing company located in rural Victoria, has resulted in a commercial process to recover magnesium sulfate (commonly called Epsom salt) from the saline waters of the Murray Basin. The feed for this process is bittern; the liquor remaining after halite (common salt) has been harvested from the saline water by evaporation.SunSalt produces salt and bitterns from three locations, namely Hattah (Victoria), Mourquong (NSW) and Wakool (NSW). The small size and considerable distances between these operations makes it uneconomic to build a stationary processing plant to extract value-added products, in particular Epsom salt, from the bitterns of the three operations. This fact led SunSalt to build a containerised mobile plant that could be moved to each site to process the bitterns at the end of the salt harvesting period.Epsom salt is extracted from the bittern by further evaporation, refrigeration and recrystallisation. In this process the bittern is diluted with five per cent volume of fresh water to minimise precipitation of residual halite in the bittern. Cooling the diluted bittern to between -5 and -10¦C precipitates up to 70 per cent of the magnesium sulfate, which is recovered as 85 to 96 per cent purity Epsom salt by filtration. This product is marketed as an industrial grade Epsom salt. Higher purity (up to 99.9 per cent) Epsom salt (USP or BP grade refined product) is made from the industrial grade product (raw Epsom salt) by recrystallisation.The containerised mobile plant was commissioned in December 2002. The raw Epsom salt generated in the mobile plant is refined to a higher purity Epsom salt in a separate plant located in Mildura. The Mildura plant was commissioned in December 2003.The CSIRO-SunSalt collaboration has demonstrated that the saline waters can be processed into a useful resource, and in addition could create jobs and a new skill base in regional Australia. The production of Epsom salt locally in Australia, which is worth currently about $A600 per tonne, removes the need to import over 3000 tpa from overseas with a net positive impact of $A2 million on the balance of trade.

Jan 1, 2004

By J Nixon

I have to say that my story is not too much different to many others who grew up and worked in the great mining fields like Broken Hill, Mt Isa, Rosebery, Kalgoorlie or Kambalda and any one of them could have stood up here and spun you a good yarn.What does my paper offer you in this volume? By sharing my experiences I want to encourage you to consider your own experience with leadership, taking on change, learning from and contributing to the development of others.I have been very fortunate to be part of many new innovations into underground mining over the past 40 or so years; most of it with Conzinc Rio Tinto Australia (CRA)/Rio Tinto operations.•From hand-held drills and a homemade single boom Jumbo mounted on an old Airtrak, to the sophisticated twin boom jumbos with high speed drifters all controlled by an on-board computer;•from a Scraper winch and a Wagner 2D loader to fully automated electric LHDs that navigate to the tipple, empty the bucket and return to where they come from;•from hand-held cut-and-fill and timber stoping in Broken Hill to the bulk mining methods of a block cave where at Northparkes we mined more ore in a month than we mined in the total five years of operations at Currawang;•from hand-held scaling and bolting with no skin protection to installing ground support with Jumbos and sophisticated Cable Bolters and the introduction of in cycle shotcrete;•from hand-held ladder rising and shaft sinking to Box Hole rigs, Raise Bore Machines and Blind Hole shaft sinking; and•from Gelignite based AN60 stick explosives, ANFO, fuse firing and half second detonators to Powergel, Emulsions and electronic computer programmed detonators that can somehow be initiated by ‘Blast Ped’ travelling through the rock.

Mar 21, 2011

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you, on behalf of the Council and Administration, to this University and extend to you our very best wishes for a most successful and stimulating symposium. We as a College of the University of N.S.W. were always proud of the excellent support we received from your Institute members and the close association that existed between our organisations. Now we have matured into the University of Wollongong and have to stand on our own feet, we will need all the support we can get from such bodies as yours to ensure that we are not only producing graduates but are also playing a vital role in the community. Although there is no planning for a school of Mining Engineering in the near future, we do look forward to this being a viable proposition eventually and we will then be able to offer to your Institute wider facilities for your activities and ones which will embrace both the Mining and Metallurgy phases. Thank you Mr. President.

Jan 1, 1975

By P Dunn

Following civil war in Sierra Leone, London Mining Plc obtained the mining license in 2006 and commenced activity to redevelop the Marampa mining and processing operations. The Sierra Leone Marampa mine is a brownfield development effort, having been operated by a few companies since the 1930s until low iron ore prices forced closure. Peak production of the preceding operations was approximately 2.5 Mt/a in the 1960s. There are two virgin ore deposits of interest for development as well as a resource comprised of tailings accumulated from previous operations. The Marampa tailings operation (Phase 1a) is being implemented first with a 1.8 Mt/a plant producing 66 per cent Fe sinter feed, expandable to 3.6 Mt/a in a Phase 1b. The first phase is currently under construction with start-up expected in the third quarter of 2011. Further expansion (Phase 2) that includes the development of the virgin deposits is currently under prefeasibility study and targets a final 16 Mt/a concentrate production. Outotec partnered with London Mining to develop the magnetic separation flow sheet using SLon VPHGMS machines to process the Marampa tailings (haematite) material. The flow sheet development process started with sample characterisation and detailed parametric investigations to evaluate SLon performance. The final flow sheet configuration, including expected circuit recoveries and concentrate quality, demonstrates the performance of the SLon VPHGMS circuit for iron ore tailings.

Jul 11, 2011

The brown coal deposits of the Latrobe Valley are ideal for open cut mining and this method has been used since the start of coal winning in 1894. Operations at the main Yall9urn open cut commenced in 1922, but after a few years the main excavators were replaced by German continuous excavators and subsequent developments of Yallourn and the newer Morwell open cut have been based on this type of plant. The reasons for preferring continuous to intermittent excavators in the Latrobe Valley are indicated in this paper.Under the pressure of post-war conditions, and from their long experience and ability, German engineers have recently made substantial improvements in their continuous excavators and these developments have been enhanced by some American innovations. These changes have extended the economic limits of open cut mining and also serve to emphasize the close inter-relation between the nature of coal and overburden deposits, excavator design and methods of operation.As an aid to descriRing recent excavator developments, this interdependence is demonstrated by means of diagrams which show typical methods of operations, together with examples of actual machines using these methods. The types of excavator dealt with are mainly those in use at, or destined for Yallourn or Morwell open cuts, together with additional types used in U.S.A. and Western Europe. For completeness, and also because they will continue in service at Yallourn and Morwell for some years, rail-mounted dredgers have been included in this paper even though in Europe they are now regarded as obsolescent.Explanations are given of how the intrinsic qualities of Latrobe Valley brown coal and overburden have sometimes prevented overseas plants from operating with the full efficiencies and/or in the methods visualized by the manufacturer, and references are made to the modifications and investigations being undertaken to overcome these problems.A compresensive bibliography is given. Dates shown on illustrations are not commissioning dates of the plant concerned, but the year when photographed.

Jan 1, 1960

By D Frost, G Harbort, T Lipiec, N Deonarain

"The use of flotation columns has remained a contentious issue among mill operators. There are those who consider them an essential part of any mineral processing operation, while others consider them a necessary evil, which should only be installed if there is no alternative. Lastly, there are those who believe they should not be installed, no matter how great the perceived benefit.This paper provides an analysis of over 4000 installed flotation columns, contained in the Amec Foster Wheeler flotation database. Changing trends in column flotation use by type, commodity and geographical region are discussed. The effect of changing commodity prices and the China ‘phenomenon’ are reviewed. Special reference is made to the changing face of column flotation in Australia.Of note is the fact that after falling to a 20 year low in installed flotation column capacity in 2014, flotation columns during 2015 went through a resurgence in popularity. This resurgence was in direct contradiction to depressed metal prices and was driven by brownfield optimisations to reduce off-site costs, particularly in base metals. A case study is presented comparing the benefits of column flotation at high commodity prices with low commodity prices.Citation:Harbort, G, Deonarain, N, Frost, D, Lipiec, T and David, D, 2016. Changing Trends in Column Flotation Use - Their Impact for Australian Mill Operators, in Proceedings 13th AusIMM Mill Operators’ Conference 2016, pp 93–104 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne)."

Oct 10, 2016

By R Wheeler, E Stalenberg, J Lemon, M S. Crowther, D Lunney, K Ross

Gunnedah, in north-western New South Wales (NSW), including the town, the surrounding Liverpool Plains and the Pilliga forests to the west, are currently the subject of intense mining interest for coal and coal seam gas. Achieving positive outcomes for koala conservation on mined landscapes will require a sound grasp of koala ecology; and local knowledge of koala movements, tree choice and associated threats to the continued survival of koalas, particularly roadkill from increased mining infrastructure. This requires a research-oriented approach to testing ideas applicable to the long-term survival of koala populations. Our recent koala research in NSW has shown that, in 2006, Gunnedah had the largest koala population west of the Great Dividing Range, and the only population in NSW that was expanding. That prompted us to instigate a detailed study in 2008 - 2011 to determine, inter alia, whether the koalas were using trees that were planted in the 1990s to cope with rising soil salinity. Our GPS-tracking has shown that regrowth trees as young as ten years old can attract koalas. In 2009, the demise of about a quarter of the local koala population from an intense heatwave gave us a foretaste of how habitat and climate change interrelate at the landscape scale. We are now examining the optimal combinations of tree choice, and patch size and shape, for habitat restoration. This will be relevant to local coal seam gas and coal mine proposals, and ongoing mitigation actions. The Senate enquiry of September 2011 on the koala and demonstrated the intense public interest in the survival of this iconic species. Its subsequent listing for Queensland and NSW under the Commonwealth Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 further raises its profile and obligations for management of koalas and their habitat. It will take considerable effort to manage the Liverpool Plains koala population for the next 50 years in the face of extensive land-use changes from mining, and the attendant threats from road kill, compounded by the new threat of climate change manifesting itself as an increased frequency of heatwaves and more severe droughts. This paper describes the research that underpins these conclusions, identifies some of the research approaches needed, argues for working strategically now, rather than try to patch up matters after the event, and presents a set of guides for environmental plantings. CITATION:Lunney, D, Lemon, J, Crowther, M S, Stalenberg, E, Ross, K and Wheeler, R, 2012. An ecological approach to koala conservation in a mined landscape, in Proceedings Life-of-Mine 2012 , pp 343-352 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 10, 2012

By K Evtiminova, G Jobson, M Nolte, S Meik

Chelopech Mining EAD (CMEAD) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dundee Precious Metals Inc (DPM) and operates the Chelopech underground mine and processing facility located in Bulgaria. The final product sold is a flotation concentrate containing copper minerals with associated gold and silver. The increase in production from 0.6 to 1.0 Mt/a by 2009 occurred with the original (1975) secondary/tertiary crushing, and primary/secondary ball mill circuits. As part of the mine/mill upgrade project to 2.0 Mt/a, a new single stage semi-autogenous (SAG) mill and ancillary equipment was installed, replacing the original circuits, with commissioning occurring during the first half of 2011. Aspects of the design, commissioning and operation of the new comminution facility are the subjects of this paper.An extensive program of comminution characterisation test work was completed in 2004/2005, which indicated moderate hardness and competency characteristics. The characteristics were considered suitable for a range of comminution approaches which were assessed with respect to power requirements and capital and operating costs. Retention of the existing primary crushing facility, and installation of a new single stage SAG mill located within the existing mill building, was selected as the design for the expansion.An extended ramp-up schedule for the overall concentrator upgrade turned out to be necessary as the comminution and flotation circuits were completed prior to several downstream unit processes (concentrate filtration and tailings thickening), which were required to reach the design mill feed throughput rate on a sustainable basis. This resulted in the opportunity to gradually increase the SAG mill ball charge as necessary, to obtain the throughput corresponding to the various downstream processing constraints.A relatively fine cyclone overflow stream particle size distribution is a feature of the Chelopech comminution circuit that has not been fully overcome with increasing ball charge conditions. However, design throughput has been met even under the finer product size conditions and will be consistently achieved following the commissioning of two further process improvement projects scheduled for late 2012.CITATION:Jobson, G, Nolte, M, Evtiminova, K and Meik, S, 2012. The modernisation and upgrade of concentrator operations at the Chelopech Mine, Bulgaria - Design, installation and operation of the 250 tonnes per hour comminution circuit, in Proceedings 11th AusIMM Mill OperatorsÆ Conference, pp 325-332 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Oct 29, 2012

By G Fahey, S Rose

"Mining geology as a defined profession is only about 100 years old. The successful modern mine geologist needs to be a multidisciplinarian, but also needs to maintain a focus on the key outputs of the role. The technical skills needed in the role have increased as mining methods move to increasingly mechanised techniques. As well as being the guardian of the orebody and ensuring minimal dilution to expected ore grades, the mine geologist should be competent in the 12-point mine geology process. The mine geology process should include:a statement of purpose (a ‘mission statement’)geological mapping/logging system that supports consistent and regular geological data collection, storage, and interpretationsampling system that can produce representative samples and fits in with the mining scheduleassay database with relevant controls to ensure only ‘clean’ data is loadedsimple quality assurance / quality control (QA/QC) system for samples and assays, with a response process to react to out of specification resultsconsistent method of exporting, visualising, processing and interpreting assay data to create mining blocksdevelopment sign-off system so that all development and stoping is controlledproduction tracking system to monitoring and reporting what ore and waste volumes have been moved from the face, to any intermediate stockpiles, the run-of-mine (ROM) pad and into the crusherreporting system for daily, weekly and monthly reporting of tonnes and gradesdocumentation so that the grade control system has simple, but effective descriptions of how it works, who has responsibilities, and authorities, and be easily maintainedreconciliation system to compare resource and reserve to grade control and to mined and milledtraining system so that the geology team can quickly become competent.In this paper, the authors discuss the requirements of each point, and comment on common shortfalls observed by them over several years’ experience on producing mines worldwide.CITATION:Rose, S and Fahey, G, 2014. Modern mining geology, in Proceedings Ninth International Mining Geology Conference 2014 , pp 461–466 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne)."

Aug 18, 2014

By I D. Gregson, A Gandhe, A S. Garcia, K M. MacAndrew

"Falls of ground still cause around one-third of all underground mining fatalities. The recent introduction of mechanised room and pillar working into Indian coalmines is an example of the application of new design by measurement and safety monitoring strategies, which can be used to reduce falls of ground risks in mines.Rock Mechanics Technology, now part of Golder Associates UK Ltd (Golder), is providing rock bolt support and pillar design services to the mines using a design by measurement approach. This involves in situ monitoring to confirm support and pillar designs and pillar extraction sequences.Site examples are given of the support designs determined and the monitoring programs undertaken for both design and safety.Routine safety monitoring of roof movement using telltales is also described. A new auto warning telltale has been developed specifically to warn of imminent caving as pillars are extracted.The approach used by Golder has played a major role in ensuring the success of these projects. As a consequence, mechanised room and pillar working is now firmly established in India, and wider application is planned to help meet future demand for coal.The experience confirms that the design by measurement method for this application has important advantages over conventional design approaches using analytical or empirical methods. Firstly, it measures the design performance or outcome rather than trying to calculate or predict it. Secondly, it provides the opportunity for the design to be adjusted to obtain the optimum outcome. Thirdly, it can do this at a local level, so that the support design can be matched to changing conditions to give the most cost-effective design. Finally, it incorporates long-term monitoring of support performance, again at a local level, so that subsequent change can be identified to enable corrective measures to be implemented in a timely manner and to ensure that ground control safety is maintained.CITATION:MacAndrew, K M, Garcia, A S, Gregson, I D and Gandhe, A, 2014. Application of design by measurement for support and pillar design in mechanised room and pillar coal mining in India, in Proceedings AusRock 2014: Third Australasian Ground Control in Mining Conference, pp 65–76 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne)."

Nov 5, 2014

By M S. Kizil, T OÆConnor

It is predicted that underground coal mines in the Bowen Basin will have a significant rise in heat problems as mines aim to increase production, depth of extraction and length of longwall panels. At an actual Bowen Basin mine, extended longwall panels greater than 4 km in length are planned to be mined at depths with a virgin rock temperature (VRT) of more than 40¦C. Research has been completed into the reasons for the substantial increase in temperature at the face for underground coal mines in the Bowen Basin. An analysis into heat loads produced at the Bowen Basin mine for the development and production phases shows a significant amount of additional cooling will be required to ensure safe working temperatures. All of the major sources of heat, which included both natural and mine induced heating, were considered for the analysis. Maximum heat loads were assessed, together with peak intake surface temperature to determine the maximum cooling capacity required at a Bowen Basin mine. These maximum heat loads were assessed for a specific longwall panel, Longwall A, which extends to over 4.1 km in length and at a maximum depth of over 330 m, resulting in a VRT above 40¦C. The cooling system positional efficiency was analysed, determining that underground cooling via an indirect heat exchanger was preferred to increasing the capacity of the current bulk air cooling (BAC) on the surface. A preliminary cost analysis was also detailed which compared the cost of additional BAC compared to implementing underground cooling.CITATION:OÆConnor, T, Kizil, M S and Belle, B, 2013. Required cooling system capacities for extended longwall panels at a Bowen Basin mine, in Proceedings The Australian Mine Ventilation Conference , pp 249-256 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 1, 2013

By D Howe

The Athena gold deposit was discovered in 2007 by Gold Fields Australia Ltd, at the St Ives Gold Mine, 35 km southeast of Kambalda, Western Australia. Gold anomalism was identified in sheared Paringa Basalt as a result of a regional scale aircore drilling program, in association with geophysics. In the 18 months following discovery, the deposit was intensely drilled and by June 2009, it was announced that the Athena deposit contained an ore reserve of 1.7 Mt @ 5.6 g/t for 316 koz. This was followed by a feasibility study, and as a result mine development commenced in November 2009.The Athena mineralisation is hosted in a discrete, north-south striking, steep to moderately dipping shear zone within the southwest dipping Paringa Basalt. Vein intensity has a strong correlation to grade and vein type varies from early thin quartz-albite-sulfide (pyrite and/or pyrrhotite) shear parallel veins to strong brecciation and irregular veining with quartz-albite-actinolite-biotite-pyrrhotite infill. The geology preproduction process developed at the Argo mine was refined and improved following a business improvement project. The aim of the process is to construct detailed geological interpretations prior to development allowing informed mining decisions to be made. The process delivers significant cost savings and revenue enhancements.The development of macroscopic classification scheme was critical to determine ore or waste in the early phases of mining. The Style of Deformation, Alteration and Veining (SAV) Code was the result, and has been enhanced as greater geological knowledge is gained over time.

Aug 22, 2011

By K Akiro

Volcanogenic massive basemetal sulphide and gold mineralisation of predominantly low sulphidation style has been located within Lower Tertiary basaltic and felsic volcanic and sedimentary sequences at Ufuo, in the Left April River area, northwest Papua New Guinea. The four discrete massive sulphide bodies, which have been so far identified, occur within a 3 +5 km area situated within a north west trending structural corridor. The sulphide bodies are all localised on the margins of the corridor where the bounding major through going faults are transected by regional faults. Mineralisation is characterised by massive pyrite-bornite-sphalerite-barite-quartz-anhydrite deposition with later galena-tennantite-chalcopyrite. Minor phases include enargite, goldfieldite and bismuth sulfosalts. Jasperoidal silica lenses and bioturbated sediments are closely associated with the massive sulphides. Basemetal sulphide mineralisation is also closely associated with phyllic-style quartz-sericite- altered host rocks underlying the massive sulphide lenses. This mineralised phyllic alteration is localised to fractures, veins and breccias that cross-cut propylitic style alteration characterised by quartz, epidote, chlorite, adularia and zeolite. The mineralised system possesses several hydrothermal features consistent with a copper-rich submarine exhalative volcanic hosted massive sulphide (VHMS) system, ie discrete massive sulphide bodies with abundant barite, associated jasperoidal silica and bioturbated sediments. However, exploratory drilling of the alteration zone underlying each of the massive sulphide bodies has not identified a well-defined zoned alteration pipe that is characteristic of such systems. The alteration is also similar to that of a porphyry-related low sulphidation system in which phyllic alteration has overprinted a regional propylitic style assemblage. The presence of sporadic enargite (and ?tennantite/tetrahedrite) suggest there were intermittent pulses of acid fluids in the system probably derived from exsolved magmatic SO2 which flowed directly to the surface along reactivated faults. The occurrence of tellurium and bismuth minerals is also consistent with a magmatic contribution to the metalliferous hydrothermal fluids. It is proposed that the VHMS orebodies are the products of submarine exhalative deposition generated by a crystallising magma emplaced within crust of on-going tectonism. Ufuo mineralisation is similar to many VHMS deposits elsewhere in that it is unclear whether the metals are derived from the magma directly, or via seawater leaching of the wallrock. Additional studies such as oxygen isotope analysis may assist in resolving this issue. If the metals are shown to be of direct magmatic origin then there may be good prospects for discovering economic-grade porphyry-related mineralisation at depth below the massive sulphide deposits.

Jan 1, 1999

To enable ammonium nitrate-fuel oil (AN-FO) to be used on an equal weight basis with nitroglycerine explosives, smaller diameter bore holes became necessary with consequent modifications to drill steel and burden on holes. Detonation of AN-FO in small diameter holes proved successful both with and without primer charges but some alterations were required to adapt anoloders to the smaller holes.Important factors in training all operators in the new charging method were the retention of improved fragmentation, avoidance of excessive overbreak and keeping wall rock dilution to an absolute minimum. The successful storage of ammonium nitrate in climatic conditions with daily temperature fluctuations above and below the critical 90°F has been achieved.INTRODUCTIONTechnical aspects of ammonium nitrate-fuel oil (AN-Fa) blasting agent are well covered in recent literature. This paper deals primarily with the manner of its introduction as the principal explosive underground at Great Boulder Gold Mines Ltd. and with the many problems encountered in the process. Following reasonably successful experimental firings in June 1962', using granular ammonium nitrate and an anoloder, permission was granted by theWestern Australian Mines Department to carry out test work in selected areas of the mine. The permit allowed for fuse firing only, and for a mixture of AN-Fa containing between 5t and 6 per cent fuel oil, with an adequate primer.The use of AN-Fa on an equal weight basis with nitroglycerine explosives, involved smaller diameter holes with alteration to ground burden and modification to drill steel.Initial tests indicated that it was apparent that AN-Fa could not replace gelignite on an equal weight basis if the...

Jan 1, 1965

By A Remes, A Dennis, M Talikka, T Kotiranta, S Horn

A mine project combines vast amounts of information from various disciplines including but not limited to geology, mining, metallurgy, technology, environment and economics. In many cases, all relevant information is not fully shared between all disciplines. Thus, project performance (technical, economical and sustainability) may be evaluated on basis of insufficient information resulting in non-optimal decisions, project execution and risk management. Advances in computing power and simulation software enable various data sets to be incorporated in a single digital platform enabling more efficient and transparent data sharing. In addition, linked data sets and simulation can support assessment and optimization of the project as a whole rather than focusing on optimization of individual events. CITATION:Horn, S, Remes, A, Kotiranta, T, Talikka, M and Dennis, A, 2018. Evaluation of sustainability of copper production value chain from ore to metal using advanced simulation, in Proceedings Life-of-Mine 2018, pp 87–89 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 25, 2018

By F Rashidinejad

Iran has had an active mining sector for some 7000 years. Exceptional in terms of its mineral diversity, Iran produces 62 minerals, and is ranked among the world’s 15 most mineral-rich countries. Many people around the world know Iran as one of the major petroleum exporters. Oil and natural gas dominate Iran’s economy, and oil exports provide the principal source of income, contributing more than 80 per cent of foreign exchange earnings. Transformation of Iran from an oil exporter to an independent country to oil has been on the table for many years, even before the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Development of the Iran’s mineral industry is one of the major replacements for petroleum exports. In the last decade, Iran invested billion dollars in the mining and mineral industry sectors and to increase the added value, tried to export processed minerals instead of the raw materials. In accordance with the ‘20-year Perspective 2025’ that targeted by the Supreme Leader, Iran will be a country with the first rank in economy, science and technology in its region. The objectives over this perspective include briefly increasing annual production to 55 Mt of crude steel, 800 000 tonne of copper cathode, 1.5 Mt of aluminium, 200 Mt mineral products, 300 000 tonne of zinc and 5 000 kg of gold. These goals are achievable in normal circumstances, but concurrency of the 20-year Perspective 2025 with commencement of the UN Security Council sanctions against Iran, frustrated objectives of the perspective, at least the ones related to the mining and mineral industry sectors. This paper tries to elaborate the development programs and following challenges for the mining activities of Iran by 2025.

Nov 22, 2011

By K Osten, N Scagliotta, G Lane

Oceana Gold (New Zealand) Limited operates the Macraes Gold Mine near Dunedin on the South Island of New Zealand. The orebody is mineralogically complex and comparatively low grade requiring a series of unit processes and resulting in a relatively complex plant. As part of Oceana GoldÆs ongoing Business Improvement program, a concerted effort has been made to focus on operational efficiency. One aspect of this has been the efficient use of energy in the gold recovery process. A benchmarking process has been developed for the Macraes operation that includes comparison with other operating mines and theoretical design. Criteria for determining operational efficiency have been developed. While benchmarking is, in theory, a simple process, this paper looks at putting benchmarking into practice by catering for variability in ore and associate processing methods. The unit processes discussed include the comminution circuit, flotation plant, pressure oxidation plant and gold recovery circuits.

Jan 1, 2004

Many young mining engineers do not consider consulting as a possible job, believing that many years of working on-site is required to achieve practical experience, develop expertise and acquire industry contacts. However, mining consultancies employ engineers with varying levels of experience, including part-time university students, graduates and engineers who are relatively new to the industry. This paper outlines the role of a young engineer in a large mining consultancy and the benefits to both the consultancy and the client of having a mix of consultants with a diverse range of experience. From the authorÆs perspective, the work experience, lifestyle and rewards of mine consulting are compared to site based work, including a discussion on whether consulting is able to offer the professional development that a young engineer needs.

Jan 1, 2009

By X Tian, J Forster, A Olmsted, E R. Bobicki, M Goldbaum, D Boucher, C A. Pickles

As the global demand for metal values expands, it becomes increasingly important to create more sustainable mining operations. Consequently, considerable research and technology development is required to produce processes which are both more energy efficient and have a minimal environmental impact. One potential technology is the utilisation of microwave pre-treatment to reduce the energy requirements in comminution. Microwaves can preferentially heat the valuable mineral phases in an ore and the resulting differential thermal expansion leads to the formation of microfractures along the grain boundaries. As a result of the preferential heating, ore competency is reduced, mineral liberation is enhanced, a coarser grind size can be employed, and plant throughput can be increased. Furthermore, microwave pre-treatment can be combined with advanced ore sorting, to decrease the quantity of gangue material processed downstream and hence reduce tailings production. Previous studies on the microwave treatment of ores over the last 30 years have mainly been limited to low power bench-scale studies and there is a paucity of information on pilot and/or commercial scale studies. In the present research, the microwave heating behaviours of over 40 ores have been studied at the bench-scale. These results were used to generate a database, from which a unique classification system was developed. This system was used to rank the amenability of any given ore for microwave pre-treatment. This knowledge can be employed to predict the performance of the ores in the high-power pilot scale tests and thus can be used as a pre-screening tool. The effects of high-power microwave pre-treatment on grindability and liberation were reported. Additionally, the ore sorting potential was evaluated using a combination of X-ray transmission (XRT) and microwave infrared (MW/IR).

Aug 24, 2022