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By R Long

The founder of social psychology is sometimes identified as Kurt Lewin. In a 1947 article, Kurt Lewin coined the term ‘group dynamics’. He described this notion as the way that groups and individuals act and react to changing circumstances. Lewin theorised that when a group is established it becomes a unified system with unique dynamics that cannot be understood by evaluating members individually. The discipline of social psychology really emerged out of World War II and tackled questions associated with human judgement and decision-making by the Nazis. For a comprehensive look at the development of social psychology look at Abelson, Frey and Gregg (2004).Social psychology is concerned with the way social arrangements affect human judgement and decision-making. What the author has done is apply the knowledge of this new discipline to an understanding of risk, safety and leadership. This paper will explain some of the developments in social psychology, such as the discovery of the bystander effect, Groupthink, bounded rationality, heuristics, risk homeostasis and the Milgram effect.The social psychology of risk tackles the way decisions are made about risk in their social context. Unless organisations understand that decision-making is socially conditioned, they are unlikely to be able to tackle the complexities of culture change or the development of risk maturity.The paper will offer a new understanding of why people do what they do, how risk makes sense and why a ‘dumb down’ approach to safety is dangerous. A model will also be presented that shows the pathway to risk maturity.CITATION:Long, R, 2016. The social psychology of risk, safety and leadership maturity, in Proceedings Seventh International Conference and Exhibition on Mass Mining (MassMin 2016), pp 31–42 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

May 9, 2016

By S Worden, P A. Kirsch, A Kirsch

Despite the current downturn, coal remains an important commodity in the Australian economy. Increasing coal resource development has resulted in increasing competition for land use in coal mining regions across the country with communities and other stakeholders becoming more adept at articulating their concerns regarding this competition in a range of traditional and social forms of media. In this environment, obtaining and maintaining a social licence to operate (SLO) is problematic and has been identified as the fourth greatest risk facing the international mining industry.This research presents the findings from a longitudinal study on how Australian newspapers frame the views of coal mining stakeholders across each stage of the coal mining life cycle. News stories from national, state and regional newspapers in 2000, 2006 and 2013 were analysed.Over the study period, there have been significant changes in the coal mining themes being covered by Australian newspapers, the number of stories being published, the number of newspapers covering coal mining stories, and the diversity of stakeholders being quoted. How do the dominant themes in media communication change over time? How do these changes impact mining across the life-of-mine?The research confirmed that Australian journalists use framing, priming, labels and bias to conceptualise and understand the events that they report, and that this behaviour has a profound effect on public opinion.CITATION:Worden, S, Kirsch, A and Kirsch, P A, ?2014. Moving beyond economic framing of the Australian coal industry, in Proceedings Life-of-Mine 2014 , pp 365–376 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 16, 2014

By J F. Carswell, G Cheshire

The Pajingo gold operation in Queensland is approximately 55 km south of Charters Towers and 134 km south-west of Townsville. The gold deposit was discovered on the northern end of the Drummond Basin in 1983 and first open pit production began in 1986. Mining progressed underground in the 1990’s and gold production peaked in the early 2000’s as the main Vera/Nancy lodes were extracted, producing 330k oz in 2003 (a record at the time). More recently, as Ore Reserves and grade have diminished, the mine has had to develop innovative mining practices to maximise recovery of the remaining Mineral Resource. This has included a modified sublevel caving method against previously mined/backfilled zones. The method has been coined modified sublevel shrinkage (MSLS). Full scale trials of the new mining method have been successfully completed. This has allowed the site to revaluate the Mineral Resource and include areas into the Ore Reserve that were once deemed sterilised, adding significant value to the operation and extending its life-of-mine. This paper describes the first of two large scale MSLS trials and key operational learnings from it.

Mar 15, 2021

By P Mesquita, A Nolan

Using a scientific-principled definition of global socio-ecological sustainability can be a useful basis for planning precious and base metal mining projects. The mining industry faces key challenges of; viability of the minerals industry; the control, use and management of land; national and local socio-economic development; environmental management; materials stewardship; and access to information. Using a framework for strategic sustainable development to assess the current reality of mine project development has resulted in identifying areas of strength and opportunities for improvement between current best practices and a desired vision of sustainability constrained by science based principles. These gaps indicate opportunities to strengthen current strategies, tools, and actions with a deeper understanding of socio-ecologic systems and a first-order, principled definition of sustainability, enabling success in moving towards achieving a sustainable society, ie sustainability. Evaluation of mine project development and their impacts on ecological and social systems using a systems perspective which recognises the underlying principles of operation, delays, feedback loops and response to change highlight specific opportunities to create value for social, economic and ecologic systems. Envisioning this future for mining projects within a sustainable society can be done by evaluating their development and operations guided by the sustainability principles. Performance indicators play a key role in measuring progress towards achieving sustainability goals yet it is necessary to consider whether indicators capture the whole systems perspective. Connected to this broader view, indicators can contribute much value to the mining industryÆs sustainability journey. This paper examines how current processes for mining projects can be developed using a whole systems perspective and measured using holistically designed performance indicators.

Jan 1, 2009

By E Mare

Recent highly publicised incidences of disastrous containment failures, none more pertinent than the 2019 iron ore tailings dam failure in Brumadinho, have focused the world’s attention squarely on the often-challenging subject of tailings storage. Unwanted ultrafines, that are deemed to be unworthy of further treatment or not to have further saleable value, are therefore a significant issue for mine owners looking to reduce risks and perceptions associated with long-term storage of tailings. In this context, there are strong drivers to identify safer approaches to ultrafine tailings management, especially if it can also lead to increased revenue, together with better water stewardship and environmental outcomes. The better management of tailings needs to be considered from both containment challenge and processing opportunity perspectives. This paper focuses on the latter, reviewing from a technical and economic perspective, the feasibility of more extensive processing and/or reprocessing of specifically iron ore tailings, in a bid to reduce the overall volume for management in long-term storage. Herein the opportunity lies in recovery processing, as much as enhanced thickening and/or mechanical dewatering, and therefore the paper discusses both issues as equally important sides of the same coin. Recent interest in iron ore ultrafines processing and reprocessing studies suggests that the enhanced processing of iron ore tailings offers multiple perceived advantages. Apart from a potential reduction in tailings volume, associated with safer containment, lower environmental impact and improved water management, the prospect of increased revenue from additional Fe recovery presents supplementary motivation for iron ore players to embrace this approach, as further elaborated in this paper.

Nov 8, 2021

By H Arvidson, V Chamberlain, J Joughin, N Pollock, F Cessford, T Flitton, T Rowl

Environmental, social and governance issues (ESG) have become a defining feature in the marketplace to differentiate preferred investments. With the sustainability commitment and reporting landscape anticipated to evolve exponentially, it is now imperative to rapidly develop the approach taken by mineral companies to adequately identify and address ESG risks and opportunities in the reporting of Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserve (MRMR). MRMR cannot be effectively reported as technically and financially assured and realistically executable, if ESG is not integrated into the strategy, business model, input assumptions and process that defines and drives robust MRMR public reporting. Regulatory reporting codes across the globe are presently in various stages of being updated and modified to ensure ESG factors are appropriately covered as a key part of diligent and transparent disclosure. Security exchanges are making it clear that companies must not omit ESG risks from reports to investors. This paper discusses associated challenges for MRMR reporting and suggests avenues for improvement. Key themes include: the importance of procedure rather than prescription and checklists; how ESG criteria impact Modifying Factors and determination of Reasonable Prospects for Economic Extraction (RPEE); the need for financial models to account for material ESG commitments; the uniqueness of each mineral asset; the need for education, upskilling and accreditation of both ESG experts about MRMR reporting and equally Competent Persons in ESG matters; and the need for clear and balanced reports that meet the needs of end users. (RPEE is adopted here for simplicity and consistency, recognising that some reporting codes still include ‘Eventual’ in the term (ie RPEEE). Whilst RPEE and RPEEE are subtly different the intent is to point to the process of assessing ESG factors in determining reasonable prospects.) The principles of transparency, materiality and competence remain paramount when considering the impact of ESG matters on MRMR reporting, and this necessitates an inclusive, cohesive, and integrated approach to assessing ESG issues to ensure the necessary expertise and diligence is applied.

May 24, 2023

The ASC has a dual role of business facilitator and law enforcer. Only certain types of expert report are of interest to the ASC. The powers of the old Companies Code and the Corporations law are compared. NCSC Policy Release 149 was dependent on the prescriptive powers given to the NCSC in the Companies Code. The Corporations Law does not give the ASC power to prescribe the contents of expert reports. The requirement now is for all necessary information. Research evidence is that some investors want simpler prospectuses while others need more detail. The ASC's examination of expert reports is after registration of primary documents. This leads to a necessity for experts to maintain adequate records.

Jan 1, 1994

By S H. Begg

There is strong evidence that many major oil and gas (O&G) projects are plagued by large cost and schedule overruns, or significant underperformance in productivity. Similar evidence exists for large mining projects. This paper claims that uncertainty is the underlying reason why projects fail to deliver the metrics used to justify their investment, or to deliver the economic value possible if alternative decisions had been made.Most technical and economic analyses are performed to reduce uncertainty to help make decisions. Decision-making is about ranking alternatives and choosing the best; rarely are precise predictions required, if this is even possible. Better uncertainty assessment is one of the keys to better decisions, thus better business outcomes. To get better decisions it is suggested that the focus or reward/penalty incentives be shifted away from the quality of outcomes to the quality of decisions. High-quality decisions are those that are generated from the skilled use of the tools, methodologies and processes from the discipline of decision analysis.Uncertainty is quantified by probability, which is a degree of belief in the truth/falsity of some proposition about a quantity relevant to a decision, such as volume of in-place resource, future price or action of a competitor. The probability a person ascribes to a proposition depends upon their information set; hence probability is subjective – it is not an inherent attribute of the quantity of interest or the physical system.The above simple observations have profound implications for modelling approaches, how they deal with uncertainty, the use of data to help assess uncertainty and the reliability of information provided by subject-matter experts. The limited circumstances under which frequency data (from spatial or temporal variables) can be used to assign probabilities is also reviewed.People, in general, are subject to a range of biases and cognitive errors. Research with O&G subject-matter experts shows that their expertise offers little or no protection from making errors in probability assessments and other judgements.CITATION:Begg, S H, 2016. Decisions, decisions – uncertainty, variability, modelling and psychology, in Proceedings Seventh International Conference and Exhibition on Mass Mining (MassMin 2016), pp 9–18 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

May 9, 2016

By S Worden, A Lee Zhi Yi, E Sellers, G Corder, A Littleboy

The global shift towards decarbonisation is driving competition for the extraction of critical minerals such as nickel, lithium, and copper. To meet this demand, new mines are being developed while mines approaching closure are being reimagined as sites of potential resources. This reimagining challenges how mine closure is being conceptualised. In the conventional case, when a mine reaches the end of its economic life, it is closed or put into care and maintenance until it transitions to the next land use, such as agriculture, native ecosystem corridors, solar farms or integrated eco – precincts (Murphy et al, 2019; Holcombe, 2020) (the authors acknowledge that unplanned mine closures have left a devastating legacy of contamination, safety and cultural heritage impacts). Extracting minerals from closed or closing mines will extend mine life and, therefore, delay relinquishment and transition. In this context, innovative technologies are needed to make mining economically viable. In the first year of her doctoral research on improving stakeholder engagement in mine transitions, Lee Zhi Yi has coined the term ‘mine life extension technologies’ (MLETs) to describe a class of technological solutions that optimise extraction of resources after a mine reaches the end of its economic life. Examples of MLETs include agromining (van der Ent et al, 2015), in situ recovery (Robinson and Kuhar, 2018), and reprocessing or reuse of tailings (Gou, Zhou and Then, 2019). MLET extraction offers several benefits compared with conventional mining processes, such as waste remediation, value recovery of minerals, a smaller footprint and less environmental impacts (Sellers, Picorelli and Salmi, 2022). What requires further investigation is the consequences of MLET implementation to host communities or community perspectives towards the proposed technology and subsequent delays in transition.

Aug 2, 2023

By G B. Smith, D Hillier, T Gibbons, D B. Donato, M D. Adams, S Davies, R S. Schulz

Responsible management of cyanide solutions and tailings on gold processing plants worldwide is an important aspect to these operations and is regulated via guidelines provided by the International Cyanide Management Code, an industry initiative designed to minimise cyanide risk to operators and the environment. Here we demonstrate the unprecedented causal relationships surrounding the saline (>14 000 mg/L total dissolved solids - TDS) and hypersaline (>50 000 mg/L TDS) cyanide solutions in gold plant tailings in the Central Goldfields of Western Australia, resulting in zero wildlife mortalities on three sites over the study period of almost one year. Wildlife interaction and ingestion is significantly lower than that experienced at other gold mine sites, with more rapid degradation of weak-acid dissociable (WAD) cyanide within the tailings storage facility (TSF). A rigorous chemical sampling using a novel æminimal accessÆ robotic sampler device and wildlife observation exercise was carried out at two hypersaline mine sites: Barrick Kanowna Belle (BKB) and Gold Fields St Ives (GSI) and one saline site, Barrick Granny Smith (BGS). The data was compared with available reported chemical sampling and wildlife observation data from a previously operational fresh water site (<2000 mg/L TDS) that had experienced wildlife mortalities, Case Study D (CSD). The comprehensive body of work, along with cyanide degradation test work carried out in the laboratory, was analysed via hypothesis development and testing, causation analysis and dynamic chemical modelling. The non-mortality effect on these sites appears to hold over a further four years of routine wildlife and cyanide monitoring by site personnel. This study has helped these three mine sites achieve and maintain full Compliance Cyanide Code status over a significant period while removing the need for operating the detoxification plants they would otherwise have required.CITATION:Adams, M D, Donato, D B, Schulz, R S, Smith, G B, Gibbons, T, Davies, S and Hillier, D, 2013. Hypersaline-induced reduction in cyanide ecotoxicity at gold operations, thereby obviating detoxification plants, in Proceedings World Gold 2013, pp 489-502 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Sep 26, 2013

By L Semenyna, W Douglas

Gold is often present in solid solution with pyrite in the Carlin Trend. The presence of organic carbon along with gold hosted in sulfide, referred to as double refractory ore, requires that ore with high carbon-in-leach (CIL) preg-robbing potential and poor leach recovery is routed to a roaster. During roasting, the pyrite is oxidised to (ideally) form hematite (Fe2O3), and the gold that was present as solid solution in the pyrite forms colloids within the hematite. The ideal texture of the produced hematite is porous to allow for the penetration of cyanide for gold dissolution. Temperature and other conditions of roasting, as well as ore characteristics (pyrite mineral associations, arsenic) can affect the texture and the type of iron oxide formed. Many of these alternate iron oxide minerals result in incomplete leaching. Comprehensive gold deportment studies have proven that the majority of the gold losses in Barrick GoldstrikeÆs roaster leach tailings occur within the iron oxides created through the roasting process.The iron oxide phase that hosts the majority of the gold in tailings is in the form of by-product maghemite (?Fe2O3), which is highly magnetic. Barrick Goldstrike has designed a magnetic recovery circuit to capture these iron oxides, and with subsequent reprocessing, recover the lost gold. Pilot plant results and analysis using scanning electron microscope mineral liberation analyser (SEM MLA) shows that up to 30 per cent of the gold in tailings can be recovered with a three per cent overall mass pull to magnetic concentrate. This magnetic concentrate can be economically reprocessed, resulting in a three per cent improvement in roaster recovery.CITATION:Douglas, W and Semenyna, L, 2013. Magnetic recovery of gold-bearing iron oxides at Barrick GoldstrikeÆs roaster, in Proceedings World Gold 2013 , pp 79-86 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Sep 26, 2013

By Hellsten KJ, Butt CRM

Major Francis Hamilton Buchanan coined the term `laterite' (Latin; brick-rock) in 1807 for the red earths used for building blocks in southern India. Although these earths were actually weathered basalts, the term is now applied to weathering profiles developed upon a wide range of bedrocks. The Ni-laterites are a special class within the broad laterite family.

Jan 1, 1996

Major Francis Hamilton Buchanan coined the term `laterite' (Latin; brick-rock) in 1807 for the red earths used for building blocks in southern India. Although these earths were actually weathered basalts, the term is now applied to weathering profiles developed upon a wide range of bedrocks. The Ni-laterites are a special class within the broad laterite family.

Jan 1, 1996

By M Pyle, R Ch, G Lane, ramhan

Data is the most valuable commodity in the information age. The use of data enables productivity, opportunity, and safety in various sectors and industries. In the late 1950s, Alan Turing coined the term artificial intelligence (AI) to describe the ability of computing machines to think and behave like humans through simplified reasoning and logic (Turing, 1950). This concept of mimicking human behaviour is the building block of machine learning algorithms used in most AI software. The ‘learning’ aspect in machine learning requires data, that is, information on the environment or the objective, to be modelled or predicted using AI. An AI-enabled system aims to predict the unknown faster and intuitively. Intuition in software algorithms can be described as probabilistic, learned through the data that the AI system is trained on; indeed, the AI software cannot predict the future, but it can provide the likelihood of an event/action occurring, thereby enabling decisions or responses to prevent it or take action. Just as various industries have adopted AI as the tool of choice to seek new opportunities (examples: medical research, self-driving cars, financial modelling), the mining industry, too, has been receptive to embracing AI for problem-solving and maximising the value of its business.

Sep 1, 2024

Diversity; what a wonderful topic. Diversity; the condition or quality of being diverse, different, varied to the point that the very word diversity means different things to different people. As one example of diversity the American Science Magazine (April, 1994) contained a light-hearted interview with Dr Noitall who was pushing his case for diversity.

Jan 1, 1996

By P A. Tilyard

There have been enormous changes in mineral processing in the past four decades. For example grinding mill power has increased by an order of magnitude, regrinding is done to -10 microns and flotation machines are 100 times bigger. Operating staff have unprecedented opportunities for online monitoring and performance control of mineral processing plants. Sophisticated instruments can provide a plethora of data characterising the mineralogy and surfaces of particles. Digital computers allow complex calculations on huge amounts of data including modelling and simulation of machine and plant performance. However, all these changes have not necessarily lead to better metallurgical results. An analogy can be drawn with the thoroughbred racing industry in Australia. Significant advances in scientific knowledge in animal genetics, physiology, biomechanics and nutrition applied to the business have resulted in only a two per cent reduction in winning times for the Melbourne Cup and Caulfield Cup since the 1920s. A critical look at some mineral processing metrics suggests similar failures to improve performance despite putting in more resources. In fact certain parameters such as operating times and plant start-up performance are considered to have remained static or even deteriorated. There has been an emphasis on 'process' at the expense of 'outcomes'. The industry's strength has been in finding technical (or 'hardware') solutions while its weakness has been at the people end of the business in maximising and consolidating the gains from the technologies. Some trends in plant design over these years have exacerbated the apparent deskilling of operating and technical staff. Despite unparalleled options for communications, some staff are embarrassingly uninformed about technical developments in their fields. The 'boom and bust' cycles of the industry, together with trends in tertiary education and the effects of fly-in, fly-out (FIFO) operations, raise serious questions about the sustainability of human capital in the mineral processing sector. This paper by two experienced mineral processing engineers, with contributions from other senior practitioners, reviews these trends. While there may be an element of 'the older we are, the better we were', it is an attempt to identify the issues and propose solutions.

Jan 1, 2009

By Eggleton R. A

X-ray diffraction techniques are commonly used in the identification and quantification of fine-grained materials. A relationship exists between the size of crystals in a sample and the degree to which they diffract X-rays. The Scherrer equation relates the broadness of diffraction peaks to the size of crystals responsible for diffraction (Klug and Alexander, 1974). Relatively large crystals of the order of I - 10 ¦m strongly diffract X-rays; the diffractogram of such crystals exhibit narrow intense peaks. As the size of the crystals in a sample is reduced, diffraction peaks become broader and less intense. Crystals less than 10 nm generally exhibit broad, diffuse and low intensity peaks. Some material is so fine-grained and poorly-diffracting that X-ray patterns show very little information in a normal one-hour scan thereby necessitating very long acquisition times of up to 12 hours. The term poorly-diffracting material (PDM) was coined for such material found within the bauxite deposit of Weipa, northern Queensland (Tilley and Eggleton, 1994; 1996). Common regolith minerals such as hematite, goethite and layer silicate clays are quite commonly fine enough to possess a poorly-diffracting character. Noncrystalline and poorly crystalline Fe-Si-Al-oxyhydroxides such as allophane, opal, ferrihydrite and hisingerite, have either a nondiffracting (amorphous) or poorly-diffracting nature (Eggleton, 1987).

Jan 1, 1997

By A Scott, A C. Torrance

Explosive properties are typically summarised on manufacturers’ technical data sheets. The values most commonly referred to are the density of the explosive, the energy it is expected to release and its velocity of detonation (VOD). This information is provided so that blasting engineers can make a considered selection of the most appropriate product for a particular blasting application. As an example, a lower VOD and energy product is better suited to blasting in soft, weathered material. In contrast, blasting hard, competent material generally requires a higher energy product which is usually characterised by higher VOD and energy.A review of the technical information supplied by manufacturers shows a wide range of methods of reporting both VOD and energy. A meaningful comparison between products from different suppliers is almost impossible to achieve based on these data. For a similar product, one supplier may have a VOD range of 2800–5800 m/s and a relative bulk strength of 1.34 while a corresponding product from another supplier is quoted with a VOD range of 3100–6300 m/s and a relative bulk strength of 192. In the end, the user has to rely on the level of confidence available from their experience using a certain type of explosive in the type of rock to be blasted at that mine.This paper reviews some of the technical and supporting information that is freely available in the literature and attempts to provide some clarity as to what the numbers that are reported actually mean for the end user. An alternative approach to the evaluation of the suitability of a given explosive to blast a given rock mass is proposed.CITATION:Torrance, A C and Scott, A, 2015. What is relative about energy?, in Proceedings 11th International Symposium on Rock Fragmentation by Blasting, pp 447–454 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Aug 24, 2015

The placer gold industry has experienced a roller-coaster history incorporating four major boom eras. The first, 'hand-methods' boom arose in the mid-19th Century from application of an old idea in new places around the globe. The subsequent hydraulic mining, bucket dredging, and 'hydraulic excavator-portable plant' booms each arose from application of new ideas in old places around the globe, ie in places where gold had been found during earlier booms. The new ideas that heralded the second, third and fourth booms were all significant advances in excavation technology. These enabled the industry to target the known deposits that were too deep, too wet, too small, or too low-grade for recovery by earlier boom methods. Relatively few new deposits or new deposit styles arose from the 'history book' exploration approach, so the number of known deposits to which each of the boom methods were applicable was limited. Consequently, the first three booms were each followed by significant periods of industry decline, and the fourth boom is currently waning inNew Zealand. Further decline is not inevitable and can be avoided by changing to a knowledge-based exploration approach similar to that adopted by the hard rock gold industry in the 1970s. Such an approach could easily herald the next placer gold boom.   Most of the relatively coarse, easily won alluvial gold in proximal and medial reaches of the active placer systems is gone. However, a substantial alluvial gold resource remains in the distal reaches of active systems, and in ancient placers formed onshore and on the continental shelf during previous sedimentary cycles. The resource in these deposits probably exceeds the total New Zealand placer production to date. Successful development of these placers requires application of robust geologic models for the formation and distribution of the placers through time, and advanced exploration technology that has not been used before in New Zealand. Nevertheless, the knowledge and technology required to explore and mine these deposits is available now. Many of these deposits contain a large proportion of problematic gold types that are difficult to recover with the commonly used gravity technology without sustaining significant losses. Despite advances in recovery technology in last few years, too much emphasis is placed on the incorrect assumption that gold size is the primary control on recovery efficiency. Other gold particle parameters, especially particle shape, exert a much greater control on whether gold will be saved or lost to the tails, and must be considered in the design of recovery technology and configuration of recovery circuits.

Jan 1, 2003

By K Ringwood, J Cummings, C J. Moran

The development of a water accounting framework that enables consistent and contextual reporting of minerals operationsÆ water use, represents a key sustainable development objective that many Australian minerals companies have committed to. A future water accounting framework will require: key terms and definitions for water metrics for use in the Australian minerals industry that are consistent with the wider water sector, a suite of metrics representing key components of an operationÆs water balance, a calculation method for some of the metrics, and a reporting protocol. This paper presents the methodology that was used to derive these four components. Existing accounting frameworks were reviewed and key terms and definitions that were consistent with current regulatory requirements and voluntary approaches were proposed. A calculation methodology was developed to obtain some of the key indicators and variables that cannot be easily measured directly (eg water loss through evaporation). The adopted terms and definitions typically require a combination of empirical and estimated data. To test the proposed definitions and calculation methodology, values for water metrics were derived for eight sites, selected to test a variety of commodity and biophysical situations. The proposed framework and definitions could deal with the specific situations selected as case studies. The associated calculation methodology produced complete accounts at various levels. Some elements of the accounts could be directly checked against available data and simulations. The framework captured well variations in the reuse efficiencies; reuse efficiency could even vary for similar processes. It is concluded that this preliminary accounting framework provides a consistent language and metrics for quantifying and communicating water management, both at the intersection of the site with the surrounding landscape (through detailed reporting of site inputs and outputs) and within operational activities. Using this consistent framework for quantifying and documenting water use within an operation will provide a platform for compiling and comparing minerals industry water use with other sectors. This may support benchmarking activities within regions or companies and help demonstrate leadership amongst water users in water resource stewardship. The approach presented here is applicable to a wide variety of mining and processing activities, and biophysical environments, and following a period of stakeholder engagement and third party review, is being refined as a first step towards developing nationally consistent water use reporting for the Australian minerals industry.

Jan 1, 2009