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By G Reynolds, N A. Ware, L Lu

Queensland Pacific Metals (QPM) is progressing its Townsville Energy Chemicals Hub (TECH) project to produce nickel and cobalt sulfates for advanced battery materials. Apart from the nickel and cobalt sulfates, the process also generates a hematite by-product (~640 ktpa). The hematite byproduct precipitated from the process, hereafter ‘hematite precipitate’, is high in Fe and particularly low in impurities. However, it is a fine <20 μm crystalline, hydrometallurgical precipitate and is produced as a filter cake containing a high moisture content of about 15 per cent. This is considerably different from natural hematite ore and is expected to change its performance during sintering. In the present study, laboratory scale sintering tests were undertaken to evaluate the potential impacts of substitution of the hematite precipitate for traditional magnetite concentrates and further for Australian hematite-goethite ores in a simulated industry base blend. Substitution of hematite precipitate for magnetite concentrates was found to slightly increase the sintering temperature required to achieve the strength of laboratory sinters. However, further substitution of hematite precipitate for Australian hematite-goethite ores slightly reduced the sintering temperature required to achieve the laboratory sinter strength. These results reflect the reduction in Al2O3 contents of the blends and are consistent with the trend observed in industry and pilot scale facilities. The reduction in sintering temperature generally correlates to a reduction in fuel rate in the larger scale sintering process. The pore structure of selected laboratory sinters was further examined and discussed in conjunction with sinter strength. The pore structure images highlighted the relative difference between the blends with the most obvious difference being seen at 1290°C which correlates well with the laboratory tumble index (TI). The laboratory sinter samples showed an increase in porosity and irregularity of pore shape, as hematite substitution increased demonstrating the correlation between a more porous structure and a lower TI.

Sep 18, 2023

The Pacific Rim and its environment involves a vast array of natural phenomena, and a vast array of situations which show the impact of man. Almost half the world&apos;s population of over five billion live in nations" which border the Pacific, but the concentration is focussed in the North. Great experiments are occurring in this region, the industrialization and energy development in- Japan and China, the growth of Indonesia, (now 168 million - soon 368 million; Brown and Jacobson, 1986), the enormous developments of agriculture and the metals resource base in Australia and China. At the same time, the Pacific Rim does not project images of hopelessness, the mood is upbeat. Over the past decade, incomes have increased substantially in most of the major countries of Pacific Rim (e.g. over the period 1980-86, + 58% in China, + 21% in Japan, + 34% in South Korea; Brown and Jacobson, 1986). In September, 1986, at the general assembly of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) in Bern, Switzerland, representatives of over 50 nations approved a new initiative, "The International Geosphere Biosphere Programme: A Study of Global Change". The focus of this new program is "To describe and understand the interactive physical , chemical , and biological processes that regulate the total Earth system, the unique environment that it provides for life, the changes that are occurring in this system, and the manner in which they are influenced by man. The IGBP will be a tightly-defined programme of research, directed at providing fundamental knowledge that will serve as a basis for assessing likely future changes on the Earth in the next 100 years" (ICSU, 1986). For the earth scientist, and all resource scientists, there is an emerging agenda; new priorities are appearing, new questions are being asked. The recent report of the World Resources Institute (1986) focusses on this emerging agenda. Topics which are at centre stage in this report include the following: The environment and human health Tropical deforestation The atmosphere as a shared resource and climates Soil-degradation Rural-urban migrations Food and agriculture The diversity of species-ecosystems Freshwater as a finite resource Coastal areas and resources

Jan 1, 1987

By P Scholtz

Sustainability is one of those fuzzy words like innovation: everybody has an idea what it means, but if one starts asking for concise definitions then it becomes clear that everybody puts their own nuance on the meaning of these words. It’s not because these are difficult words per se, but rather because our understanding of them is highly dependent on the environment we work, live and play in. To remove any ambiguity and aligned with the risks that are faced by the human population today, the definition for sustainability that will apply for this paper is: generating value in the short term without destroying value in the long term.CITATION:Scholtz, P, 2018. Sustainable post-closure development – is it achievable?, in Proceedings Life-of-Mine 2018, pp 58–59 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 25, 2018

By T R. Gibbons, I Grayand

Geotechnically massive strata may lead to a host of problems during longwall mining. These include windblast on initial goaf fall, sudden loadings on powered supports, periodic weightings, fractures that may propagate to surface, and extreme subsidence problems. It is essential to identify these problems prior to mining and to appropriately deal with them. The problem is essentially that the rock mass does not breakup evenly and when it does so it tends to produce large blocks which may suddenly move. The rock types that produce these problems tend to be massive sandstones, massive siltstones and sometimes igneous sills. The fundamental problem with these is that they do not breakup readily. This is because the ratio of stress they are subject to compared to their strength is low. Thus, the shallower mines with lower stresses are more subject to this problem than deep highly stressed ones with similar strength rock.

Nov 29, 2022

By J H. Wood, I Gray

This paper examines the occurrence of outbursts, coal bursts and rock bursts in underground mining. It then examines them from the viewpoint of the failure mechanism and velocity of particles. The presence of gas is extremely important as it can both act as the fluid pressure component of effective stress leading to failure, and as a substantial energy source in projecting material during a burst. For gas to drive a dynamic event it must be present as free gas held in voids within the rock or coal mass. This can pre-exist the burst event or be released from desorbing gas during it. The latter is typically part of a multi-stage outburst event which can reach very large proportions. Rock and coal bursts are driven by strain energy release and can vary in form. These tend to be single events associated with failure and strain energy release. It is also possible to conceptually have hybrid events where the failure of the mass and the energy release are due to both stress and expanding gas.

Nov 29, 2022

German coal mining suffers from rock temperatures up to 600C which are the same as in South Africa at 3000 - 4000 m of depth. Therefore cooling plants have increased in the last decade and today a cooling power of nearly 200 MW is installed in the total Ruhr District. Cooling a mine is a little bit different from cooling a bottle of beer in a refrigerator in the kitchen because the heat taken from the bottle of beer is delivered to the kitchen some centimetres away; in mining the cooling-problem is more difficult: here the bottle of beer corresponds to the airflow at the coal face and the kitchen to the surface, So it is necessary to transport the heat or the "coldness" a long distance. In the address by Ieuan Morris some systems for transporting heat from the coalface to the evaporator of the cooling machine and further from the condenser of the machine to a return airflow were described. The following is a short idea of the way this problem is treated in Germany.

Jan 1, 1983

By H J. J Boshoff, A J. Karrasch

Mine planners frequently face the challenge of mitigating the impact of climatic events on mining operations, such as floods and droughts. Specific water management infrastructure can be implemented to meet operational requirements in response to these events. However, the effect of flood protection, for instance, may reduce the resilience of the site to drought. The probability and duration of unfavourable climate sequences significantly influences the net present value (NPV) of implementing specific water management infrastructure.Good life-of-mine planning will consider the incremental development of the project, and provide staged development plans. Water management infrastructure and the timing of implementation are facets of this process.CITATION:Boshoff, H J J and Karrasch, A J, 2016. A decision-making framework for water supply and flood protection options in net present value terms, in Proceedings Life-of-Mine 2016 Conference , pp 196–199 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jun 28, 2016

The report by Baker (1958, p. 27) of krennerite in contact with gold in a specimen from the 2500 ft level, Phantom South lode, Great Boulder mine, Kalgoorlie, led the writer to look into this further, since Cabri (1965) reported that the assemblage krennerite-gold was unstable between 238&#176; and 356&#176; C, and possibly down to room temperature.Dr. G. Baker very generously provided the writer with two chips from the same rock specimen (No. 14 as labelled from the mine) in which the krennerite gold assemblage was reported to occur. These were examined by polished section and x-ray diffraction techniques and returned to the classified collection of the Mineragraphic Investigations Section of CSIRO.One specimen, showing visible gold, was examined optically with a binocular microscope and telluride material was twice removed from contact with the gold for x-ray diffraction. This material proved to be petzite and so amends a statement by Baker (1958, p. 39) that no petzite was found in the Phantom lodes.The second chip was polished, and microscopic...

Jan 1, 1967

By I Lipton

The existence of metalliferous mineral deposits on the deep-sea floor has been known since manganese nodules were discovered in the Arctic Kara Sea in 1868. Modern exploration to define commercially viable base and precious metal deposits began in the 1970s and gained further momentum in the last decade. High grade deposits have been delineated but investors remain cautious, many considering deep sea mining projects to be riskier than terrestrial projects. This paper compares opportunities and risks presented by terrestrial mining projects with those presented by deep sea mineral deposits (Table 1). The Solwara 1 volcanic-hosted massive Cu-Au-Ag sulphide deposit, the Atlantis II Deeps sedimentary base metal sulphide deposit, and the Mn-Ni-Cu-Co nodule deposits of the north-eastern Pacific Ocean are used as examples. These are advanced deep-sea projects with published Mineral Resource estimates, on the cusp of development. Off-shore diamond mines in Namibia are also considered. These examples provide a basis for comparing exploration and geological uncertainty, the technical risks of proposed mining systems, and the potential environmental and social impacts. CITATION: Lipton, I, 2018. A comparison of opportunity and risk in deep-sea and terrestrial mining projects, in Proceedings Complex Orebodies Conference 2018, pp 102–105 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Nov 21, 2018

By T Baumgartl, B Noller, B Forsyth, J Park, M Edraki, P Pham

Understanding and quantifying residual risk is the key to the successful closure and rehabilitation of mines. An important aspect of residual risk is predicting the long-term chemistry of mine water and the long-term geochemical stability of mining wastes. This requires updating the characterisation data for mine wastes and monitoring mine drainage throughout the life-of-mine. The intrinsic properties of waste materials (ie the geology, mineralogy and the weathering processes, which in turn depend on the local climate and water balance in a waste storage facility) are the fundamental controlling factors of residual risk. In this paper, case studies of coal and metalliferous mines are used to discuss the definition of residual risk for a range of waste storage facilities and to highlight the benefits and limitations of current geochemical methods in predicting and quantifying residual risk. Consistent with the classification of mine drainage by the Global Acid Rock Drainage Guide, three case studies of acid, saline and neutral drainage are presented.CITATION:Edraki, M, Pham, P, Park, J, Baumgartl, T, Noller, B and Forsyth, B, 2016. Defining residual risk for successful mine closure – a geochemical perspective, in Proceedings Life-of-Mine 2016 Conference , pp 9–11 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jun 28, 2016

By M R. Lane, M L. Cramer, N P. Wines

Increasing attention is being focused by regulators and industry on the residual environmental liabilities associated with mining projects following site relinquishment (termed surrender in Queensland). Even sites that have been rehabilitated to a high standard and to the satisfaction of the regulator are not completely risk free and may require some degree of ongoing management. As well as ongoing monitoring and maintenance costs, considerations should include how costs associated with potential risk event occurrence can be quantified and, if considered material, how provisioning should be undertaken to minimise the risk to the state and to taxpayers. In Queensland for example, once a resource site is fully rehabilitated and meets its environmental authority conditions or rehabilitation completion criteria, the tenure and environmental authority can be surrendered. During the surrender process any ‘residual risks’ resulting from the use of the site for the resource activity must be considered, and, if requested, a payment given to the government to cover any ongoing management and risk costs. Accent Environmental, in conjunction with Lane Associates, was engaged by the Queensland Government as part of the government’s financial assurance framework reforms to develop an innovative, ‘one-size fits most’ Residual Risk Calculator for the Queensland resources industry. The calculator is an Excel-based tool that uses detailed user inputs to estimate post-surrender management requirements and liability at resource sites. If residual environmental risks associated with rehabilitated mine sites can be identified, quantified and managed through pragmatic regulatory tools and effective provisioning, site relinquishment/surrender can be achieved without compromising environmental and social outcomes or exposing the state to unreasonable financial risk. The effective management of residual risk can also help facilitate operations as well as relinquishment/surrender of sites where a ‘walkaway’ solution may not be otherwise technically feasible.

Aug 2, 2023

By J Durbin

To effectively plan for closure, we must have an end-point in mind. To undertake meaningful rehabilitation, a post-mine land use (or uses) must be known. However, it is becoming more apparent that the end-point or “goal-posts” are shifting - and may continue to do so throughout the life of a mine. As well as being safe, stable and not causing environmental harm, post-mine land uses should always be sustainable, achievable within the given land capability, and they should involve stakeholders in their design and development.The majority of mines in Australia, and around the World, were historically expected to return disturbed land to either native ecosystem or agriculture/forestry practices. However, examples of highly successful final land uses suggest that today’s focus on closure includes not only minimising future liability and impact but also – and importantly – a move towards the creation of economic opportunity (Murphy and Heyes, 2016).CITATION:Durbin, J, 2018. Planning for (not so) final land use, in Proceedings Life-of-Mine 2018, pp 110–112 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 25, 2018

By B Stewart

The SRS-1200 concept came about following the recommendations from the Board of Inquiry into the 1994 Moura No 2 mine disaster with the aim of having a system to remove personnel from an unsafe environment underground via a shaft where no other means of escape is possible. It is a mobile rescue unit that utilises a winding system to operate a man cage. It can descend the cage up to 1200 m into a vertical shaft. This operation is managed from the winder control compartment located on the non-driver side at the rear of the vehicle.

May 5, 2022

By J Joughin, D Kyan, L Rollin

In line with the 2015 Paris Agreement and corresponding climate disclosure requirements, many mining companies have publicly disclosed that they are developing and/or implementing ambitious decarbonisation strategies. Sometimes these strategies can be linked to the development of community programs and/or the creation of a positive legacy post-closure. Renewable power is key to most decarbonisation strategies – some mines will get this from external sources and others will establish on-site power generation and storage facilities. A range of options are available to develop renewable power generation (eg solar panel, wind farm, hydropower) and energy storage (eg battery, hydrogen, pumped hydroelectricity). Land access, impact assessments, planning and environmental approvals are required to establish new facilities. Host communities are more likely to be in favour of, or at least will accommodate, new power supply developments if these are planned with a benefit to the communities. Transitioning to renewables raises new challenges. Among these are high upfront costs and access to capital, energy demand variability, supply intermittency and variability, storage limitations, grid stability and reliability, transmission and distribution infrastructure constraints. Compounding these challenges are issues such as infrastructure resilience to extreme weather events (eg heat, wind), land use and access, lengthy permitting processes, community perceptions, skilled labour requirements, and meeting mine closure objectives. Renewable energy sources provide a more decentralised source of energy that reduces reliance on imported fuels, thereby increasing energy security and lowering production costs. On the contrary, implementing renewable energy could lead to potential negative impacts such as visual perception from the community, competitive land usage, electricity price raises due to upgrading infrastructure and the use of electricity storage capacities. As part of the definition of an environmental and social management plan, participative stakeholder engagement is required to identify benefits to the communities. For example, among the recognised benefits of developing solar panels (increase job opportunities, reduce soil erosion), various technologies have been experimented globally for the last ten years and are emerging due to their proven community benefits. Key findings to enhance those benefits can range from the development of innovative practices such as ‘agri-/aqua-voltaic’, ‘solar grazing’ to optimise land usage and stimulate the local economy (Table 1), to the implementation of technologies providing services to communities such as mobile water desalination plants or ‘smart grid’ systems to minimise energy clipping during peak-load of oversized renewable energy facilities (Table 2). While developing those synergies, careful management is required to avoid creating superfluous energy service needs from community programs. Energy sufficiency should remain a key principle according to the sufficiency, efficiency and renewable framework of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Darby and Fawcett (2018) define energy sufficiency has ‘a state in which people’s basic needs for energy services are met equitably and ecological limits are respected’. Sufficiency tackles the causes of the environmental impacts of human activities by avoiding the demand for energy and materials over the life cycle of buildings and goods. Efficiency tackles the symptoms of the environmental impacts of human activities by improving energy and material intensities. The third pillar, renewables, tackles the consequences of the environmental impacts of human activities by reducing the carbon intensity of energy supply (Cabeza et al, 2022). Life of Mine Conference 2023 | Brisbane, Australia | 2–4 August 2023 34 This paper provides project developers, decision-makers and regulatory authorities with ideas on synergies between renewable energy options and community development programs. These can be considered to enhance stakeholders’ support for implementation of decarbonisation strategies.

Aug 2, 2023

By R Peiffer, L van Wyk

The Port of Port Hedland is the largest bulk export terminal in the world and is one of Australia’s most important pieces of economic infrastructure. BHP is the largest Port user to support the export of iron ore products from mines located within the Pilbara region of Western Australia (WA). BHP’s priority is the safety and well-being of its workforce and the communities where it operates. In a recent regulatory application to increase export capacity, BHP committed to the deployment of wind fences to reduce wind erosion from stockpiled ore. Wind erosion from stockpiles was identified through inverse modelling as the most significant dust source compared to other sources such as stackers, reclaimers, shiploaders and transfer stations. The primary cause of dust emissions from stockpiles is dust lift-off during high wind conditions. BHP proposed the installation of wind fences across its Port Hedland operations, targeted at reducing emissions from wind dependent sources, primarily stockpiles, by reducing the wind speed downwind of the wind fence. Modelling predicts that installation of the wind fence will significantly reduce emissions from stockpiles, particularly at BHP’s western operations (Finucane Island). To be effective in shielding stockyards and reducing wind speeds, the wind fences are located upwind and as close as practical to the open stockyards. BHP’s wind fence design incorporates learnings from other existing installations and has been tailored for Port Hedland’s cyclonic conditions. The wind fence will be higher than the stockpile height, with a mesh porosity of approximately 50 per cent. The mesh porosity allows some of the wind to pass through the mesh. This reduces the wind turbulence downstream of the wind fence, as opposed to a solid wind fence, which increases downwind turbulence, resulting in increased dust.

Sep 18, 2023

By B Beale

Bow-tie analysis is a commonly used tool in the Major Hazard Facility sector to identify, display and control risks that have the potential to pose serious harm to personnel. It is a simple but powerful risk management tool that displays traditional risk assessment outputs as easily interpreted ‘bow-tie diagrams’. These are an effective and versatile communication format that can be applied to any type of risk (eg safety, environmental, assets etc) and as such show great benefit in managing operational hazards in mining.

May 5, 2022

By J Hadjigeorgiou, T R. Stacey

A ground support system is a combination of individual reinforcement and surface support elements that work together to retain and contain the rock mass. The various elements are subjected to external loads and to interactive loading between individual ground support system components. This paper focuses on the challenges in determining the capacity and behaviour of mesh, recognizing that installed mesh can be subjected to several loading mechanisms. Field observations from underground hard rock mines demonstrate that there are multiple types of damage and modes of failure of mesh. However, these are difficult to reproduce in a laboratory environment. A critical review has shown that existing mesh laboratory testing rigs reproduce very limited loading conditions that may not be representative of underground conditions. This has significant implications in quantifying and extrapolating the performance of mesh to ground conditions. CITATION:Hadjigeorgiou, J and Stacey, T R, 2018. Challenges in determining the capacity of mesh, in Proceedings The Fourth Australasian Ground Control in Mining Conference (AusRock), pp 280–290 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Nov 30, 2018

By H Kim, M J. Sun

In order to reduce carbon emissions from the steelmaking process and achieve carbon neutrality, global steel companies are establishing their own medium to long-term strategies and implementation plans using competitive technological advantages held by each steel company. At this point, Hyundai Steel has formulated a product-oriented carbon-neutral strategy based on innovative processing that makes use of Hyundai Steel’s own strength. Based on our experience in electric arc furnace product manufacturing and blast furnace operation in an integrated steel mill, Hyundai Steel is driving the Hy3 (Hy-cube) project, which involves a unique hybrid production system utilising hydrogen and hydrogen-based renewable energy sources. This initiative aims to achieve carbon-neutral production and eventually specialise in producing premium carbon-neutral automotive parts. The project has originality in that it involves not only designing processes using electric furnaces to produce premium steel products such as car body panels and electrical steel sheets, but also aims to reduce carbon emissions from the process, developing carbon-neutral products based on market demand. To assess the feasibility of the Hy3 project, Hyundai Steel conducted two pilot productions. The first pilot was producing a prototype of lower-arm part using electric arc furnace with three different kinds of raw materials: molten iron, HBI (hot briquetted iron), and scrap. Successful performance evaluation of auto parts with 1 GPa strength was achieved. The second pilot has been focused on tire cord steel, with the first-phase tests yielding a 33 per cent reduction in carbon footprint (CFP). Using the advantages of operating experience in electric arc furnace, Hyundai Steel is preparing for test operations producing various automotive parts using an electric arc furnace (EAF) to advance the Hy3 concept. From a medium to long-term technological development perspective, Hyundai Steel’s blueprint includes producing high-end carbon-neutral steel products using hydrogen-reduced iron as raw material.

Jun 19, 2024

By M T Roche

The Cannington deposit is one of the largest accumulations of silver-lead known. Located 135 km southeast of Cloncurry in North West Queensland (Figure 1), Australia, the deposit is currently in the feasibility stage of its development. The deposit is named after the nearby Cannington Pastoral Property which runs some 25 000 sheep on &apos;downs&apos; country. The investigations of the Cannington deposit are carried out under the authority of Mineral Development Licences 139 and 144 and Exploration Permit for Minerals 6788, Answer Downs. Exploration for Broken Hill Type (BHT) silver-lead-zinc deposits in the Mt Isa region has been undertaken by The Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited&apos;s Minerals Division (BHPM) since the early 1980s following in-house research which showed that the Eastern Succession of the Mt Isa Block exhibits characteristics which were favourable for hosting BHT

Jan 1, 1994

By P Card

Some project managers accept unsatisfactory economic evaluation modelling because they are unaware of what constitutes good practice. They tend to leave it to the evaluation specialist or others to decide. The AusIMM has published on its website a draft set of guidelines for technical economic evaluation which will allow these project managers to take control and demand worldÆs best practices.The style of the guidelines is described and the source of a worked spreadsheet example in Excel is given.Economic evaluation in project management is described. A simple test for the acceptance or rejection of evaluation work is offered. The nature of modelling and evaluation in each of the three study phases of concept, prefeasibility and final feasibility are described. Suggestions on the selection of specialists for each phase are given. The three levels of evaluation thinking are described, namely, modelling, valuation and evaluation. Finally the meaning of æfinancial analysisÆ is explained.The conclusion is that æthe role of an economic evaluation specialist is to create models and evaluations for the whole project team to readily understand and use: it is not to create models for his/her own useÆ.CITATION:Card, P, 2012. What project managers must demand from an economic evaluation!, in Proceedings Project Evaluation 2012 , pp 173-176 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

May 24, 2012