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Solid Energy New Zealand Limited has grown significantly since becoming a State Owned Enterprise in 1987. Exports, profit, turnover, output per employee are all trending upwards. The company has identified the management of Health and Safety as a key capability to sustain future growth, and to add value to the business. It has set a target of being the best practice in managing Health and Safety.   This paper examines the company's activities in the Health and Safety area, and how it sees that value can be added by preventing and containing losses through accidents involving people, property, process and the environment. Solid Energy is confident that a Planned approach to managing Health and Safety can achieve this. It will explore historical events, strategic changes, Health and Safety systems, Benchmarking, Performance Measures, initiatives, progress to date and challenges for the future.

Jan 1, 1997

By A Turner, P Hills, D Johnson

Underground mining for gold began in Beaconsfield in 1877 and development of the Tasmania Mine saw the sinking of multiple shafts, including the Hart Shaft over the ensuing 35 years. The mine closed in 1914 at a depth of 455 m due to prevailing economics, eventually reopening in 1999. The modern mine closed in 2012 after extending the mine from a historical depth of 455 m to the exhaustion of the modern Ore Reserve at a depth of 1210 m. West Tamar Council took over the lease for the immediate area around the Hart Shaft as an extension of the adjacent museum. The Hart Shaft and above ground structures became a significant drawcard for visitors. Tasmania was affected by sustained wet weather during May, June and July of 2016 which caused severe flooding and significant Statewide damage. This uncharacteristically intense wet weather caused saturation of the ground surrounding the Hart Shaft. Eventual shaft failure was first identified in August 2016. The failure of the shaft occurred at approximately 50 m below surface and resulted in a plug of material completely blocking the shaft. Significant surface subsidence affecting the surface infrastructure ensued. Due to the unstable nature of the surrounding material, it was determined that addressing the failure above the blockage would not provide a permanent solution to prevent the continued flow of material into the shaft. Many options to stabilise the shaft were considered, however it was assessed that a concrete plug in the shaft in competent ground at a depth of 100 m below surface and well below the blockage, would provide the only long-term solution. Man-entry was considered unsafe. The solution to access ultimately entailed filling the entire shaft with granular fill up to 100 m depth to act as formwork for a concrete plug. The rising mains at 400 mm and 250 mm diameter, which remained in place in the shaft, provided the avenue for placing the fill and ultimately, the concrete plug. Once the plug was in place the remainder of the shaft up to the underside of the blockage and over the top of the blockage to the surface was successfully filled with a combination of more granular fill and flowable cement stabilised sand. The Hart Shaft and surrounding above ground infrastructure was successfully stabilised and re-opened to tourist access. CITATION:Johnson, D, Turner, A and Hills, P, 2018. Stabilising and filling the Beaconsfield Hart Shaft, in Proceedings The Fourth Australasian Ground Control in Mining Conference (AusRock), pp 42–57 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Nov 30, 2018

Although the Diamond that is cut and polished and made up into an article of jewellery, is so well known, there are, comparatively speaking, very few outside the industry who know this beautiful crystal in the crude state, as turned out ofNature's laboratory, and the means employed in winning this precious stone.This article is written with the endeavour to give the reader some idea of the geological formations in which the Diamond occurs, and as it is reported that Diamonds have been found in Western Australia, as well as in other parts of the Australian Colonies, a few hints as to the means employed in working the ground in South Africa may be of use to those intending to prqsecute the search in this country. The general geological formation of the South African Diamond Fields is Lacustrine shales and sandstones, intersected by dykes of various eruptive rocks, varying considerably in their character. and in places vesicular in texture, the vesicules being more or less filled in with zeolites by permeating waters.

By D-J Min

Strategies and achievements in the Asian steel industry to construct industrial ecological chain are reviewed largely in the case of Japan, Korea and China. Emphasis is placed on the development of resource circulatory system for the minimisation of various wastes and emissions of green house gases (GHG), toxic gases and polluting particulates. The minimisation includes:Rationalisation of iron and steelmaking processes; Implementation of available relevant measures/technologies; Life cycle assessment in designing steel from semis to assembled products; Reduction, reuse and recycling of materials and energies; and Utilisation of core competence technologies to process domestic and industrial wastes. In view of global nature of the above wastes- and emission-issues, inter-industrial linkage and international cooperation across the borders in the Asian countries have become more important. Inter-industrial linkage definitely serves to cut back the wastes and emissions. Examples of such linkage and factors influencing the sustainability of the linkage are described with expectation for further development of the linkage. Importance of international cooperation cannot be overstressed under the circumstances where steel production in China exceeded 220 Mt and world production exceeded 945 Mt in 2003 and is still increasing. Practical measures are discussed to enhance the linkage and cooperation for effectively promoting the reduction, reuse and recycling, including implications for the nonferrous industry.

Jan 1, 2004

James Barnes is Managing Director of James Barnes & Associated Ltd which is a company that has invested ten years of development to provide developers with a transparent, user friendly consultation framework that identifies who needs to be consulted, how they are to be consulted and procedures required to manage the risks associated with getting all the wrong! Despite the assertion above, this paper is not about to provide delegates with the answer to whom they ought to consult or identify the expectations that Maori might have in regard to the consultation process. It would be a very brave person indeed who would venture an opinion on such a sensitive subject. There are no short cuts to finding out what expectations Maori might have on any given situation. Nothing can be taken for granted. What this paper will attempt to do however is provide practical insights into what might be on the minds of Maori interests as they deal with the issues associated with mineral resources, particularly those under Treaty of Waitangi Claim. The Treaty of Waitangi has a significant bearing on the current debate between Maori and the Crown regarding ownership of mineral resources in New Zealand. The Waitangi Tribunal is currently hearing a case presented by a number of Iwi over the ownership of oil and gas resources in Taranaki and Hawkes Bay. Others will follow. The Crown and Maori have never been able to settle differences over ownership rights without resorting to legal action and it looks like this scenario is about to be repeated in regards to minerals. The Crown has a duty to actively protect the Maori interest. This is a fundamental expectation in the relationship between Maori and the Crown. In the case of minerals, Maori have yet to see the Crown do its duty. The impact on developers has become evident through Maori objections to consent applications as the issues of mineral right remain unresolved.

Jan 1, 2000

By J Coombes

Within the mining industry there is a growing trend of placing inexperienced technical people into positions of responsibility beyond their readiness. Their responsibilities often include providing the fundamental basis for decision-making: the resource model or even the daily grade control estimates. Whilst software continues to make the processes more accessible, the thinking and rationale for selecting parameters still requires control rather than auto-piloting. Operators run these systems in virtual isolation, and have limited immediate access to experts. Beyond the stress of the professional burden are the increased risks to the mining operations and overall project success.While many experienced experts recall being thrown in the deep end, the relative isolation from experts coupled with the gravity of professional burden before readiness, is less familiar. Many recall in intimate detail the experts who gave them direction, assisted them along the way and even helped them claw out of inadvertent mistakes. Experienced professionals all have a responsibility to enable capability across the generations, to ease the burden and to mitigate the risks.This paper provides an outline of how mentoring as an on-the-job professional development process can be structured to more fully enable success of a mentoring program. Three examples complement the principles presented.CITATION:Coombes, J, 2012. Structuring meaningful mentoring, in Proceedings International Mine Management 2012, pp 15-22 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Nov 20, 2012

By A Rantala, K Aberkrom, O Haavisto, P Blanz

More complex ore bodies with lowering grades increase the challenges of maintaining high throughput, energy efficiency and required particle size for optimal downstream processing in grinding circuits. Continuous and often rapidly changing characteristics of the mill feed requires constant focus to operate the circuit at optimal level. Modern process instruments, on-line analyzers, monitoring and process control systems provide attractive and managed options to increase the circuits’ capability to respond to the challenge, often in phases and in rather short time period. Furthermore, well instrumented and performing base level automation in the grinding circuit enables advanced process control (APC) strategies that utilize measurements from the whole circuit to stabilize and optimize production. In this paper alternatives for incorporating process measurements and controls to typical grinding circuits are proposed. The expected benefits to throughput, availability, energy efficiency and particle size stability are described in recent case examples.CITATION:Rantala, A, Blanz, P, Aberkrom, K and Haavisto, O, 2015. Increasing grinding circuit robustness with advanced process control, in Proceedings MetPlant 2015, pp 129–141 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Sep 7, 2015

By B Hou

The Eucla Basin in southern Australia is emerging as an important global source of zircon from heavy mineral sands. Understanding the geological evolution of the basin and movement of heavy minerals down peripheral paleovalleys and along paleocoastlines is essential to effectively refine exploration strategies for heavy minerals in the basin. Integration of geoscientific datasets in a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment has proved to be effective in reconstructing depositional environments along the Cenozoic basin margin and in tracing the buried paleorivers that once drained broad areas of the Archean-Paleoproterozoic Yilgarn and Gawler cratons, the dominantly Mesoproterozoic Musgrave and Albany-Fraser Provinces, and the Neoproterozoic-Early Paleozoic Officer Basin. Sea level highstands during the late Middle Eocene (39 - 36 Ma) are associated with formation of the Ooldea coastal barrier complex and the zircon-rich heavy mineral deposits at Jacinth, Ambrosia and Tripitaka. More extensive transgression during the Late Eocene (36 - 34 Ma) built the complex Barton shorelines that host the Cyclone deposit and the extensive ilmenite-dominated occurrences of the Barton West prospect. Multi-generation reworking of the source sands is indicated by the high proportion of deposits that are zircon-rich relative to titanium minerals. The age distribution of zircon grains in heavy mineral concentrates from the Ooldea and Barton barrier systems points to the Musgrave Province as the predominant ultimate zircon source. Paleorivers discharging along the northern basin margin presumably carried a sediment load that was then redistributed by easterly longshore drift to build the extensive coastal sand deposits along the northern and eastern basin margin. The south-eastern extension of these deposits was reworked during Miocene-Pliocene (15 - 2 Ma) times into a series of regressive strandlines that show angular discordance with the Eocene coastlines. This discordance is consistent with evidence for long-wavelength tilting of the Australian continent from Middle Miocene times, as the continent drifted toward a dynamic topographic low induced by convective mantle processes associated with the South East Asia subduction systems. The Dromedary and Gulliver’s deposits probably formed at this time. Ongoing research is focused on the geological features of the basin that influence heavy mineral transport, concentration and preservation, and the processes leading to deposits with high zircon content.

Oct 5, 2011

By R M. Krek

The haulage system used to convey ore from an underground mine to a surface stockpile at the mine process plant is a vital component of the mine’s overall infrastructure and economic viability. The system selected has a significant impact on the set-up of the mine and the access to the underground mine. In turn, the set-up of the mine and the access to the underground mine have a significant impact on the system.A number of haulage technologies are available to transfer the ore from the underground workings to the surface stockpile, including hoists, conveyors, rail and trucks.This paper focuses on the shaft hoisting and inclined conveyor haulage technologies. These technologies have been used consistently to deliver ore from at depth and/or at high tonnage. Previous reviews of the appropriate vertical haulage systems have nominally been restricted to the respective systems only, with no consideration for any other scope or issues that may affect the selection. The selection of the appropriate vertical haulage system, whether shaft hoisting or inclined conveying, needs to consider numerous key factors.CITATION:Krek, R M and Northcote, A E A, 2014. A holistic viewpoint for selecting the vertical haulage system – shafts and conveyors, in Proceedings 12th AusIMM Underground Operators’ Conference 2014 , pp 289–296 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Mar 24, 2014

Study on Mineral Processing of Refractory Copper-Nickel Ore

Sep 13, 2010

Minerals processing needs a step change in energy efficiency. While the search for new technology breakthroughs is important, huge gains are still available by better using existing research outcomes. This potential remains untapped due to a combination of organisational 'silos', inappropriate performance measurement, and poor science in some areas. It is time to see the elephant in the mill.

Sep 13, 2010

The Winton Basin is one of three Southland sub-basins. The oldest known sediments are Early Oligocene terrestrial shales, sands and lignites deposited in half grabens formed as a result of oblique extension. A marine transgression in the Oligocene deposited mid-outer shelf to upper bathyal mudstones. Shallowing of the basin and tectonic quiessence lead to limestone deposition in the Early Miocene. Regional tilting led to uplift in the north and east and deposition of terrestrial lignites and gravels across the basin and the basement high to the south.

Jan 1, 1992

Removal of As(III) and As(V) in Aqueous Solution There are toxic arsenical species such as As(III) and As(V), and arsenious species have specially strong toxicity. The strong toxicity causes contamination of groundwater and water pollution for the semiconductor production process. This study is concerned with the removal of As(III) and As(V) with various kinds of Mg/Al layered double hydroxides (LDH) containing CO32-, SO42-, Cl- and NO3- as interlayer anionic species. The anion exchange property is different from the kind of layered double hydroxides and the Mg-Al-NO3-LDH is superior in the anion exchange property of As(III) and As(V) due to the nature of nitrate ion existing in the interlayer. The pH condition suitable for As(V) removal is 7.1 or more. If the initial conditions such as 10mg/dm3 of As(V) concentration, 7.1 of pH, 1 m3 of amount of solution and 99 per cent of removal are fixed, the required amount of Mg-Al-NO3-LDH is 0.27kg for two step-batch operations. The As(III) is suitable to oxidize to As(V) before the removal processing.

Sep 13, 2010

Application of Discrete Element Method for Simulating Feeding Conditions and Size Reduction in Cone Crushers

Sep 13, 2010

By R Fury, I Skepper, D White, G Miller

Although the Pressure Acid Leaching (PAL) of nickel laterites has been conducted at Moa Bay, Cuba, since the early 1960s, the commissioning delays generally encountered by the æsecond generationÆ of PAL lateritic nickel producers in the late 1990s have demonstrated the potential complexity of the PAL process and the importance of technical risk management in maximising the realised project value. This paper describes some of the strategies used by the Ravensthorpe Nickel Project (RNP) to manage the technical aspects of the Ravensthorpe project risk. Central to these strategies is the use of Front End Loading (FEL) to deal with issues early in the development phase, when changes to the project structure can be made most effectively and cheaply. Such an approach requires a management philosophy that recognises risk as a potential cost, which accepts responsibility for dealing with risk, and which is prepared to provide adequate resources for risk management.

Jan 1, 2004

Electroosmotic Dewatering and Consolidation of Mineral Waste Tailings

Sep 13, 2010

By X Hu, C-C Yang, J Pan

In this work, preheating and roasting tests of pellets made from blends of Western Australia ultra-fine (WAU) magnetite concentrate and Chinese domestic magnetite concentrate or Brazilian hematite concentrate were carried out. The results showed that pellets made from 100 per cent WAU magnetite concentrate possesses inferior preheating and roasting performance when preheating at 1050°C for 20 minutes and roasting at 1300°C for 40 minutes, the compressive strength of preheated and fired pellets is 502 N/pellet and 2313 N/pellet, respectively. When 40 per cent Chinese domestic magnetite concentrate or 20 per cent Brazilian hematite concentrate was blended with 60 per cent or 80 per cent WAU magnetite concentrate, the appropriate preheating temperature of the pellets are reduced from 1050°C to 950°C and 975°C, and also the firing temperature of two types pellets are decreased from 1300°C to 1250°C and 1280°C respectively. Moreover, the compressive strength of fired pellets is obviously improved up to 2746 N/pellet and 2630 N/pellet respectively. Microstructure analysis of the fired pellets made from 100 per cent WAU shows its poor growth of Fe2O3 grains, low interlinkage degree of hematite grains, small size of crystallised grains and high porosity of pellet; however, the fired pellets that blended with domestic magnetite concentrate or with Brazilian hematite concentrate have fully growth of Fe2O3 grains, closer interlinkage of hematite grains, lower porosity and stronger consolidation. The preheating and roasting performance of WAU magnetite concentrate pellets can be improved by optimising ore matching.CITATION:Pan, J, Hu, X, Zhu, D-Q and Yang, C-C, 2017. Pelletising performance of Western Australian ultra-fine magnetite concentrate and strengthening technique by optimising ore matching, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2017, pp 97–104 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 24, 2017

By R Memary

The environmental and economic impacts of a significant dependence on fossil fuels are affecting the future of sectors such as of mining. These impacts are prompting the Australian Government to seek solutions for reducing its dependence on fossil fuels more generally, such developing clean energy and improving energy efficiency. However, limited research has been undertaken to assess the potential synergies between clean energy and mining in an uncertain global future. This paper analyses current energy use by mining in Australia and reviews the drivers and opportunities for energy efficiency and cleaner energy technologies to be coupled to mining under three future scenarios. Linkages between mining and clean energy are investigated for three global scenarios for mining and metals to 2030, developed by the World Economic Forum (WEF), namely Green Trade Alliance, Rebased Globalism and Resource Security. These scenarios are applied to assess how they could change the barriers, opportunities and trade-offs required for the development of a more sustainable energy sources by the minerals industry in Australia.

Nov 22, 2011

By G P. Taylor

Mining Lease SML 57 was registered to Mount Kasi on 5 January, 1995. The Mount Kasi gold mine is located in Vanua Levu, Fiji's second largest island and operated from 1932 to 1946 producing 261,000t of ore at an average grade of 7.5g/t Au. The deposit represents a structurally controlled style of high sulphidation copper gold mineralisation with peripheral low sulphidation mesothermal vein type gold mineralisation. The resource consists of 1,048,000 tonnes of residual soils (eluvium) containing 1.9 g/t Au at 0.5 g/t Au cut off and 1,240,000 tonnes of hard rock at 3.0 g/t Au and 1.0 g/t Au cut. 94 drill holes, 298 auger holes and 85 pits were modelled to outline the resource. 29% of the pits bottomed in mineralisation and it is likely the full thickness of eluvium has been understated. The pit is scheduled to produce 500,000 tonnes of ore per annum to yield 35,000 ounces of gold with an initial 2 years of eluvial ore followed by a further 2 years of hard rock ore. Total capital costs are estimated to be less than 10.0 million dollars with construction planned to commence in 1995. The likelihood of locating further ore is high.

Jan 1, 1995

By R Edwards

Greater efficiency of capture of minus 6 mm to fine micron size particles of free gold is achieved with the Knelson Concentrator. The development, principles of operation and recent innovations relating to this enhanced gravity concentrating device are described by the inventor, followed by a description of application and consequent economic benefits in low grade alluvial gold deposits by a large scale user of Knelson Concentrators in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Jan 1, 1990