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Since 1969, a substantial number of geophysical methods have been applied in the search for porphyry copper and mesothermal type -sulpha-de deposits. These have assisted with geological mapping as well as the definition of various sulphide depos-its. The application of these methods at the Frieda-Nena deposits, Papua New Guinea, can be used as a case study for exploration in other parts of New Guinea.In 1993, Highlands Gold Limited carried out an intensive geophysical program over the Nena deposit. The methods employed included, CSAMT (controlled-source audio magneto-tellurics), airborne and ground elect-romagnetics, IP/resistivity and ground magnetics. The magnetic method was used as a regional mapping tool as well as a way of mapping alteration zones over both the Nena and Frieda River copper deposits. Electromagnetics, in part-icular FLAIRTEM, is a rapid reconn-aissance tool as well as a detailed mapping tool for the location of Nena-style massive sulphide deposits. IP/ resistivity is an expensive but most useful tool for mapping out Frieda porphyry copper style disseminated sulphides as well as Nena style deposits. It can be used to define drill targets in areas of difficult Access.a

Jan 1, 1994

By P Waters, S Miller

BHPBilliton operates the Mt Whaleback Mine located in the semi-arid Pilbara Region of Western Australia. Approximately 200 Mt of net acid generating (NAG) material still remains to be mined. Acid Rock Drainage (ARD) was first identified at the site in 1995 following cyclonic storms. This resulted in the development of strategies that have allowed the mine to successfully manage ARD whilst continuing to operate. BHPBilliton Iron Ore is working toward prevention of ARD in its operations, however, historical practices have left residual areas that must be considered. Three significant sources of ARD have been identified that must be managed: stormwater run-off from exposed pyritic shales in pit surfaces; basal flows beneath overburden storage areas following rainfall events; and contaminated water from pit dewatering. The mine contains all ARD water onsite. This is achieved by: storage of all affected water in the ARD dam; evaporation of affected water from the ARD dam and the adjacent evaporation ponds; pumping from upstream dams to prevent stormwater from being affected; and emergency storage and treatment in-pit as a contingency. The site ARD management strategy is approved by senior management and endorsed by State Government regulatory authorities and relevant external stakeholders. Additional strategies are also under evaluation to effect long-term closure of the operation. Record rainfalls from 1998 - 2001 have tested the capabilities of the ARD strategy and management plan. Learnings from these events, coupled with recommendations from an extensive technical audit in 2000, have been incorporated into the strategy for ARD management. This paper presents the strategy and an overview of the ARD management plan that can be considered and applied by other affected sites in the management of ARD.

Jan 1, 2003

The Ramu chromite deposit occurs in the Marum Ophiolite complex and is the most economically attractive chrom-ite deposit in Papua New Guinea. Its lateritic nickel, chromite and cobalt potential has attracted several compan-ies to prospect the deposit.In the present work, the compositions of chromite in the Ramu lateritic deposit and coexisting olivine-chromite pairs in Marum Ophiolite dunite were analysed with the electron microprobe for Fe, Mg, Cr and Al. The results were used to determine the relationship between the cations in the tetrahedral and octahedral structures of the chromite. In addition, the Fe, Mg, Cr and Al cations of the coexisting olivine-chromite pairs were used to calculate the equilibrated temperatures of crystallisation of the chromite. The variation of Fe", Mg and Cr cation values of the chromite in relation to the calculated temperatures was studied by regression analysis.

Jan 1, 1994

Scientific drilling and blasting techniques are currently being presented to the mining industry as an aid in the overall optimisation process. The degree of success in the development of these techniques over the last ten years has prompted statements that generally relate to blasting becoming a science rather than an art. Many of the techniques are currently operated or at least analysed by scientists. As such, their use has been restricted to project type activities while the more routine activities associated with day to day mining has continued to be carried out by engineering rather than scientific staff. Some of the scientific techniques will remain legitimately as a project or an occasional use facility. Generally speaking a cost/benefit analysis at a particular mine will decide the level of use. This should logically highlight a number of techniques with potential of regular mine site use. Regular mine site use implies mine site analysis and hence the gulf between the scientist and mine operator/engineer must be addressed. There are all sorts of solutions and they are not mutually exclusive. One alternative could be to increase specialisation at the mines. With "career paths" becoming more formalised the trend would seem to be away from mine site specialists unless, for instance, this specialisation was provided by term secondment from research establishments. Another alternative could be the scientists themselves applying their developmental skills to "humanise" and "package" the projects in such a manner that they can be routinely used at mines.

Jan 1, 1990

This paper discusses recent ore reserve methodology at the Woodlawn base metal Mine in New South Wales. The ownership of the Mine changed hands in 1987 and a number of revisions to ore reserve practice were instigated by the new operators. While the overall modeling and calculation procedure remained essentially unaltered, the modifications and revised assumptions significantly increased the ore reserve. While general ore reserve procedures are discussed in this paper, it is the impact of these changed assumptions on the reserves which is our main focus.

Jan 1, 1990

The Late Permian intermediate to silicic talc-alkaline Drake Volcanics of New England, N.S.W., consist largely of shallow marine, redeposited volcaniclastic rocks which host epithermal Ag-Au deposits. Pervasive hydro- thermal alteration is widespread. The 200-300 m Cataract River Member includes several sedimen- tation cycles composed of massive pumice brec- cias, overlain by laminated sandstones and siltstones, interbedded with marine, fossil- iferous mudstones. Two distinct groups of cla- sts exist within the volcaniclastic beds: 1. Lithics of predominantly intermediate compos- ition lavas that have undergone subaerial epi- clastic erosion and transportation; 2.Pumice, quartz and plagioclase crystals which have not been reworked by epiclastic processes. The lithic clasts were derived locally in a sub- aerial environment within the Drake Volcanics, and pumice and crystal fragments from contem- poraneous centres of silicic volcanism else- where in New England, N.S.W. The latter group of clasts was transported to Drake by Plinian airfall or rafting, and fell and was washed on- to emergent portions of the Drake Volcanics, where reworked locally derived fragments occ- urred. Cold state subaqueous mass-flows, prod- uced by slumping, resedimented the mixed vol- caniclastic detritus into the marine basin in a series of cyclic units with massive lower parts, and laminated upper zones. Modern ana- logs of the palaeogeographic setting in New England, N.S.W., in the Late Permian are pro- vided by the Taupo Zone, New Zealand, and sou- thern Kyushu, Japan.

Jan 1, 1987

The Big Bend and Cobra molybdenum prospects which occur near the margin of the Karamea Batholith in the Northwest Nelson molybdenum province are compared. The Big Bend Prospect is a 3000 m by 800 m area of disseminated pyrite and anomalous molybdenum associated with Cretaceous porphyry intrusives and later argillic and potassic alteration within Ordovician schists and phyllites adjacent to the batholith margin. The Cobra Prospect is a 1200 m by 1200 m area of weakly disseminated pyrite mineralisation and anomalous molybdenum-in-rock associated with moderate to strong quartz-molybdenite and quartz-orthoclase-molybdenite veining in quartzite.

Jan 1, 1979

By Pirvics AI, Whitworth NR, Tuppurainen JMI

Process control applications to the unit operations in both the Lead and Copper Smelters are reviewed. The basic aim of this control is to smooth plant inputs to produce an output of consistent quality in terms of chemical composition, temperature and physical properties. Most effort has been put into the process bottlenecks, namely in the process baghouse of the Lead Smelter and in the Copper Smelter reverberatory furnaces. The method of approach is discussed, firstly extensive plant measurement and data logging plus identification of factors which most affect the unit operation and secondly control of these factors to smooth out variations. This has been possible due to the development in-house of on-line instruments to measure the critical variables and the external use of computers for plant control. Some of these instrument developments are also briefly discussed.

Jan 1, 1984

By A Murphy, D Lauder, J Miranda

Minera Alumbrera Limited operates the Alumbrera concentrator, treating a nominal 80 000 tpd of porphyry gold/copper ore. It is located in Argentina, 1200 km north-west of Buenos Aires in Catamarca Province, at an elevation of 2550 m above sea level. Treatment facilities consist of crushing, SAG and primary ball mill grinding circuits, rougher flotation, ball mill regrinding, gravity recovery and cleaner flotation. It is one of only a small number of concentrators in the world, which uses Jameson Cells alone for cleaner circuit flotation. Plant design was started in June 1995, with commissioning commencing in July 1997. Following a successful ramping up to design tonnages and recoveries, a number of options were reviewed to improve gold and copper recoveries. This paper concentrates on a detailed size by size flotation recovery project, commenced in May 1999. Utilising optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and analysis of surface chemistry it has allowed losses by size fraction to be quantified and options for enhanced recoveries to be developed. Coupled with extensive circuit surveys it has also provided an insight into previously unknown properties of Jameson Cell operation. Among these are unique residence time and bubble formation reactions to reagent and pulp flow variations, which has permitted a number of novel changes to the operation to maximise capacity and recovery.

Jan 1, 2000

By Ham G. I, Just G. D

The model considers a range of design parameters and operating condit- ions and evaluates the significance of these in the ultimate design of a mine. It also considers organizational features associated with the mining method and examines the inter-dependence between operations. An important characteristic of the model is the use of both stochastic and deterministic methods to study the behaviour of the complete mining system. The simulator selects the appropriate unit operation, computes and records its time, performs it and then calculates the production and cost data. Output is in the form of shift, day, week or period repor-ts. These reports will indicate problem areas such as restrictions in the production network for a given set of conditions. The likely effects of alternative means of solving these problems can be evaluated by changing the original input. Such information could be used by the mine management to select an

Jan 1, 1974

By P Elliott, D Pershke

In a minerals processing context, sustainability is about using natural resources more efficiently to achieve maximum economic benefits with minimal environmental impacts. It embodies five overarching themes, which the paper will illustrate with practical examples from Australian minerals processing plants. These are:resource utilisation and materials efficiency,process waste reduction and enhancement of co-product values,reduction of water use and impacts,reduction of energy requirements and greenhouse gas emissions, andenhanced control of minor elements and toxic materials. Sustainability could be embedded profitably in minerals plant design in three dimensions: 1.technology,2.design, and3.operations. This presentation discusses a set of principles that could be applied to minerals processing technologies and provides an outline of sustainability assessment and opportunities evaluation tools. The application of the tools is illustrated through a case study by analysing a suite of nickel processing technology routes. The analysis reveals that current generation of nickel processing technologies do possess real potential to emerge as sustainability champions in integrated processing of nickel ores and concentrates, if they are designed, engineered, and operated for sustainability and adapted effectively to site specific constraints and opportunities. The paper will address data gaps and uncertainties regarding the impact of scaling up of pilot-plant performance, and provides strategies to overcome them.

Jan 1, 2006

By Kadoya H, Kondo Y

The Harima works were established in 1964 and started operation in 1966. The initial capacity was 3500 t/month of zinc and 1500 t/month of lead. Until 1990 a lot of improvements had been made and the capacity had increased 6600 t/month of zinc and 2200 t/month of lead without enlarging the furnace size. During the ten weeks campaign shut-down at the end of 1990, many modifications were carried out including the enlargement of the furnace shaft area. By these changes, the capacity has gone up to 7500 t/month of zinc and 2500 t/month of lead. In the sinter plant, the amount of SO2 rich gas supplied to the acid plant was raised to 50 000 Nm3/h from 43 500 Nm3/h. An electrostatic precipitator was adopted instead of a venturi scrubber to clean the rich gas. Oxygen enrichment has been continuously operated since August 1991, because the furnace capacity is more than the rate of sinter production. Utilisation of the sinter plant is high being as much as 97 per cent and the sulphur burning rate has been increased. In 1990 the furnace was replaced except the hearth. The shaft area was enlarged to 19.4 m2 from 15.3 m2. The target blast was designed to be more than 36 000 Nm3/h. Tuyere layout was changed to prevent slag breakouts. Due to these modifications shaft condition has been very good. Automatic launder jacket cleaners were installed to increase the lead cooling efficiency. Many other improvements and developments were also made. Coke powder injection from the tuyeres has been successfully operated since April 1987.

Jan 1, 1993

By M Fahey, A B. Fourie

Over the past ten years, the mining industry has witnessed the introduction of a new and innovative mine filling technique known as paste fill, which consists of placing full stream tailings with small amounts of binder and water into underground stopes. Paste fill has benefits over traditional backfill methods, such as higher solids contents than hydraulic fill and easier transportation than rock fill. From a geotechnical perspective, the behaviour of very fine material in a fully saturated state can be complex, particularly when binder is added. Previously, there has been no rigorous solution to understanding the paste fill deposition process, resulting in uncertainty regarding critical aspects such as barricade load calculations. This uncertainty has the obvious consequences of potential barricade failures (including at least 12 over the past four years), and for many operations attempts to deal with this uncertainty has led to excessively conservative filling schedules, restricting production. This paper presents an application of Minefill-2D, the first rigorous model capable of representing the paste fill deposition process. The model couples the processes of material accretion, consolidation and cement hydration to calculate the distribution of stress around a stope (including the total stress applied to barricade structures) during filling. Minefill-2D is a finite element numerical program, which has been verified using laboratory element tests, centrifuge tests and in situ measurements (Helinski, 2008). The authors present a sensitivity analysis, carried out using the model, to demonstrate some of the critical and less critical aspects relating to paste backfill deposition. The results of this sensitivity analysis are used to devise a fill management strategy that can be utilised to minimise the risk of barricade failures and maximise fill rates where appropriate.

Jan 1, 2008

By R West

The Olympic Dam smelter facility processes copper concentrate feed using direct-to-blister smelting technology to support the current site production rate of 225 000 t/a copper. The metallurgical control of the Olympic Dam smelter is largely managed from a single central control room. Control room operation and management is therefore a key function in ensuring safe and reliable operation of the smelter, including identifying and initiating control of abnormal events. As part of a consolidated smelter reliability improvement program, a team consisting of process and control system engineers was formed. The teamÆs charter was to address and resolve the alarm flooding issues being faced by the control room technicians and the lack of an up-to-date base of supporting functional documentation. The project was successfully resourced with WorleyParsons metallurgists, Citect PLC technicians and the on-site technical team. Implementation was conducted over a 12 month period with the goal of achieving best practice alarm levels. The goal was achieved through a systematic process of alarm design review that analysed every configured alarm versus best practice design standards. Innovative concepts such as group-based alarms, first-up interlock displays, graphic only alarming, alarm help and alarm shelving were developed and implemented in conjunction with improved alarm masking. Total configured alarms were reduced from 20 000 to 5000 while the alarm rates were reduced from in excess of 200 alarms per hour per controlling technician to best practice levels of less than 12 alarms per hour per controlling technician. Completion of this program has provided a firm foundation for implementing further control optimisation and was a key activity in supporting sustained smelter reliability levels.

Jan 1, 2005

By P Bartlett, K Naidoo

Premier Diamond Mine is planning a new, mechanised, block cave, with a production level approximately 1000 m below surface. A high degree of tunnel damage is expected, due to stress and the relatively low in situ strength of kimberlite. An evaluation of the timing of tunnel excavation, tunnel size and spacing has been carried out to define critical parameters for planning layouts and development schedules. Extensive use has been made of three-dimensional FLAC3D numerical models, calibrated against known rock mass behaviour at 650 m depth, to examine the influence of undercut advance on production level excavations. These were able to represent the effect of stress rotation on tunnels during undercut advance and the effect of an inclined undercut. The analysis has provided guidelines that are possibly applicable to any deep block cave layout. The choice of drawpoint layout is of considerably less significance than the proportion of ground extracted on the production level elevation prior to advancing the undercut. The analysis shows that damage to production development will be potentially severe if it is all excavated prior to advancing the undercut, or is mined directly beneath the undercut face. The development of the main production tunnels alone ahead of the undercut may be feasible, but no breakaways should be put in as they appear to trigger a rapid increase in the severity of damage. The optimal sequence is when all production tunnels are developed at least 10 m in plan behind the undercut, where the induced peak field stress is less than 20 MPa and a maximum support pressure of 100 to 500 kN/m2 is require to contain movement. The assessment showed that the conditions are not significantly improved by increasing drawpoint spacing from 15 m to 18 m. The vertical spacing between the undercut and production level beneath is investigated. Provided production level development is carried out beneath the undercut, there would appear to be little benefit in increasing the vertical spacing between the undercut and production level beyond the current 15 m to 18 m.

Jan 1, 2000

There are still vast areas of Australia in which either the hydrocarbon potential has already been indicated but from which no hydrocarbons have been produced or else are completely untested. Despite the lack of recent new oil discoveries, it is anticipated that initial gas discoveries in these areas will be followed by oil discoveries as has happened historically. General exploration activities are continually providing new information that is being input to update previous hydrocarbon assessments for Australia, and all indications are that future exploration efforts will discover a lot of gas, some small oil pools and there is a chance to prove a major new oil province. Because of this, it is anticipated that reserves growth will continue at the average historical rate of about 200 MMB/year until the year 2000. The most frequent scenario will be costly exploration resulting in small oil discoveries and high development costs. This, in the past, has resulted in low profitability for Australian oil exploration, but windfalls for the Australian government.

Jan 1, 1981

By J Pan, G Qiu

In this paper, an analysis is made of the present situation in the Chinese steel industry and its demand for iron ores. It is shown that the demand for iron ores has been growing substantially with the rapid development of the steel industry all over the world, especially in China. However, the iron ore market is currently in the situation where supply exceeds demand due to the economic crisis, with more investment in mines and less output of steel for several years ahead all over the world. Gigantic pressure is confronting the Chinese steel mills due to the too high and irrational price of iron ores. It is time to return the price of iron ores to a normal position much closer to their value. More attention has therefore been paid to developing low-grade and complex iron ore resources in China due to the irrational price of imported iron ores. More innovative mineral processing processes have been developed to tackle these complex resources. A systematic introduction to the development of beneficiation processes for low-grade iron ores is provided, including upgrading low-grade siderite, limonite, micron sized haematite and magnetite resources.

Jan 1, 2009

By E R. Ramanaidou, M A. Wells

Asian steel mills are demanding iron ore with specific chemical, mineralogical, metallurgical and environmental properties to warrant that the ore is of the greatest quality. As a result, a toolkit of analytical techniques becomes important. Hyperspectral analyses of iron ore cores and chips using a HyLogging™ system are now routinely undertaken by BHP Billiton Iron Ore in Western Australia for banded iron formation-hosted iron ores and channel iron deposits to better characterise their iron ores. Objective information can now be expanded by adding new sensors. The current HyLogging™ system provides point analysis reflectance spectra and a red–green–blue high-resolution image, while recent developments, such as hyperspectral imaging using the Corescan system, now provide full spectral image and surface topography. The addition of Raman spectroscopy provides the ability to detect and quantify quartz and magnetite (or maghemite) and cross validate hyperspectral information on hematite and goethite and aluminium substitution in the iron oxides. Micro-X-ray fluorescence mapping also adds chemical information appropriate for cross validation with the aforementioned methods. This paper demonstrates the value of combining these techniques for an optimum characterisation of iron ore.CITATION:Ramanaidou, E R and Wells, M A, 2015. A new toolkit for iron ore characterisation, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2015, pp 587–590 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 13, 2015

Mine site restoration, involving the re-establishment of original ecosystems, is a far greater challenge than revegetation, which simply aims to stabilise the site and to give it a green appearance. One of the challenges is to establish a simple yet effective measure of restoration success. A potentially useful approach is to focus on particular groups of plants or animals which are likely to provide a general indication of the state of the ecosystem in which they occur. Ants have been used extensively by the mining industry in this context, particularly in northern Australia. Ants are likely to be useful bioindicators because of their general importance in the Australian environment, and because of the many linkages they have with other parts of the ecosystem. Moreover, ant community structure responds to stress and disturbance in predictable ways, and therefore provides an interpretable measure of ecosystem change. This is illustrated by a study of ant recolonisation at Ranger uranium mine. However, the extent to which ants reflect the responses of other ecosystem components is poorly documented. This is currently the subject of a collaborative project between OSS and CSIRO.

Jan 1, 1994

At Pasminco Mining's South concentrator. which was commissioned in 1952. an expansion. modernisation and efficiency improvement program commenced in 1986 with a coarse ore stockpile and grinding circuit expansion. the replacement of small flotation cells and the upgrading of reagent mixing and metering equipment. The program continued with the installation of a TDC 3000 based process control system (1988) and concentrate thickeners (1990). By mid-1991 a further grinding expansion and the installation of zinc flotation feed regrind ball mills and zinc recleaner column cells will be complete. leaving the use of ceramic disc fillers and development of process control strategies as probably the remaining major avenues for improved process efficiency at present.

Jan 1, 1991