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By Andrew Scogings

The current edition of The Australasian Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC) Code was published in 2012 and, after a transition period, the 2012 edition came into mandatory operation on Dec. 1, 2013. There is a significant change between JORC 2004 (Clause 44) and JORC 2012 (Clause 49) for the reporting of industrial mineral resources and reserves, which should be addressed by ASX-listed players in the industrial minerals space.

By M I. Roberts

As Australia’s mining industry painfully retrenches, mining executives and managers strive to remain viable by seeking significant productivity increases directly through process improvement and indirectly by improving leadership and workplace culture, the most powerful determinant of productivity. Culture is the combination of people’s attitudes and behaviour, together with leadership values and focus.Comprehensive new and automated data collection and management systems promise much for improving productivity, yet despite rapid advances in measurement and sharing of data, the use of data can reduce productivity unless behavioural aspects are considered and designed as part of implementation. This is because systems drive behaviour that in turn shapes attitudes to determine culture.Experience from many mine sites and other industries in three countries confirm that the most powerful drivers of people’s behaviour are the Measurement-Analysis-Reporting system and business leadership.This paper discusses fundamentals of practical, statistically valid process measurement, analysis and reporting systems before discussing associated leadership considerations for sustained improvement in safety, productivity, employee retention, leadership, accountability and commercial returns.The key to productivity improvement is improving core processes and important support processes. In turn, the key to process improvement is identifying the major process components and their interaction by measuring and then analysing their variation and level of performance. Understanding variation is often neglected yet is usually highly significant. It is essential that the fundamentals of statistically valid yet practical process and data analysis are understood and incorporated into system design to ensure productive, informed behaviour.The design and use of Measurement-Analysis-Reporting systems influences behaviour most profoundly and determines people’s effectiveness. Behavioural aspects are detailed by focusing on six primary drivers of human behaviour and five basic systems for managing businesses. These are integrated in a seven-step process and productivity improvement methodology that combines statistical, analytical, systems and behavioural factors.The paper includes development, implementation and tracking of a project plan for improving management and leadership systems to drive aligned behaviours. This key leadership responsibility is essential for improving performance to get the most from capital while providing people with the opportunity to develop greater autonomy, which is essential for self-discipline, responsibility, initiative and accountability.CITATION:Roberts, M I, 2015. Integrating measurement, systems and leadership to build safe, productive cultures, in Proceedings Third International Future Mining Conference, pp 73–82 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Nov 4, 2015

By Patrick Hansert

Safety was always in the focus of Badische Stahlwerke, however at the same time productivity has to increase as well in order to compete in a tough world market. In 2015 BSW produced over 2.2 Mio tons with two EAFs, leading to tap-to-tap times in average of under 40 minutes. Our philosophy has always been, that our most important success factor are the people: therefore we have to improve the working conditions as much as we can. Starting in 2012 Badische developed a robot that can support this goal. The first step was to use it for temp/sample taking, but the unit had to become a multi-tasker. Only 2 years later the first automated cartridge changer was installed at a customer site in Scandinavia, in late 2015 then the next tool was implement: tool changer allows now to use also a camera to check the condition inside of the heat after tapping. More tools are designed currently and will be implemented shortly. This paper describes the current installations and experiences as future applications.

Aug 17, 2017

By A Llewellyn, M Varvari

The ventilation circuit at the FrogÆs Leg Mine was originally designed to permit mining to progress down to 440 m below surface at a maximum production rate of 500 kt/a, as per the feasibility study. The FrogÆs Leg resource has now been defined down to 640 m below surface at a maximum production rate of 750 kt/a. In order to allow for this increase in production depth and tonnage, it was necessary to upgrade the ventilation circuit.This paper outlines the upgrades to the ventilation circuit that were undertaken and the underlying rationale behind them.CITATION:Llewellyn, A and Varvari, M, 2013. Ventilation upgrade at the FrogÆs Leg Mine - Case study, in Proceedings The Australian Mine Ventilation Conference , pp 95-102 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 1, 2013

By George P. Demopoulos

In this paper the production and stability of crystalline scorodite (FeAsO4·2H2O) is discussed both on the basis of previously published work as well as recent work performed in our laboratory. The production of scorodite, especially from arsenic-rich and iron-deficient sulphate solutions offers a number of operational advantages such as high arsenic content, stoichiometriciron demand, and excellent dewatering characteristics. In addition to hydrothermal production of scorodite the work done over the last 10 years in our laboratory has determined that it is feasible to produce scorodite by step-wise lime neutralization at 90°C. The atmospheric scorodite possesses the same structural and solubility characteristics with the hydrothermally produced scorodite. Long term equilibration tests (up to 66 weeks) in the pH range 5 to 9 and temperatures from 22 °C to 75 °C revealed scorodite to undergo slow incongruent dissolutionyielding a highly metastable nano-sized 2-line ferrihydrite phase. The equilibrium arsenic concentration with this phase was 0.35, 0.96 and 5.87 mg/L at pH 5, 6, and 7 respectively at 22°C. In the presence of gypsum slightly lower concentrations were measured, this being more pronounced at pH>7. It was tentatively deduced that a Fe-Ca-AsO4 association (in the form of a phase resembling the mineral yukonite) contributes to the lowering of As concentration. Finally thermodynamic calculations determined that scorodite is stable in the presence of ferrihydriteunder oxic conditions up to pH 6.75 at 22 °C or higher pH at lower temperature and gypsum-saturated solutions. Keywords: Scorodite, Crystallization, Arsenic, Solubility, Stability, Precipitation, Disposal, Extraction, Processing, Metals, and Environment.

Jan 1, 2005

By B. A. Hillman

Silicon is the second most abundant element on earth, exceeded only by oxygen. Silicon dioxide forms a crystalline structure of repeating SiO2 molecules which form characteristically hard, durable crystals. As a result, crystalline silica is Ubiquitous in the crustal rocks, sediments and the mineral products derived from mining. An examination of the history of studies that identify silica as a human and animal carcinogen is presented in the context of the development of a public health policy in California. The implications for the cost of conducting aggregate and other mining operations in the state are discussed.

Jan 1, 1992

By William W. Adams

The quarrying and related industries of the United States improved their safety record in 1938 by reducing their accident-frequency rate to a lower acid more favorable position than it has occupied at any time except 1935 since comparable accident statistics became available in 1916. The rates for 1935 and 1938 were identical. The number of men employed in 1938, although smaller than in 1936 and 1937, was larger than in any other year since 1930. Volume of employment, as measured by the number of man-hours worked in the industry as a; whole, likewise was larger than in any year since 1930 except 1936 and 1937. Reports from operating companies to the Bureau of Mines, United States Department of the Interior, showed that 77,497 men were employed in 1938, a decrease of 6,597 compared with 1937. This figure represents the average number of employees for the period during which the quarries and plants were active during the year, which in 1938 averaged 223 workdays per employee compared with 241 in 1937. A total of 17.3 million man-days or 133.8 million man-hours of work was shown for the industry as a whole, which indicated a weighted average of 7.75 hours per man-shift. Reports for 1937 showed a total of 158.3 million man-hours for the entire industry and an average workday of 7.81 hours. Accidents resulted in the death of 82 employees, 5 more than in 1937, and in 5,027 nonfatal injuries involving disability for more than the remainder of the day on which the injuries were received. The number of nonfatal injuries was 1,321 less than in 1937. As the number of deaths and injuries was reduced more, proportionately, than man-hours of employment, the accident-frequency rate per million man-hours of work declined, the rate for 1938 being 38.19 compared with 40.59 for 1937. In other words, accident occurrence to the average employee was 6 percent more favorable in 1938 than in 1937 on the basis of actual number of accidents and actual number of man-hours worked during the 2 years.

Jan 1, 1940

In the minerals industry allocating capital for setting up a new project or for upgrading an existing facility usually requires that a compromise be found between the initial cost of equipment, its operating performance and on-going operating costs. To maximise the return on the investment usually requires that various possible combinations and layouts of equipment be assessed. This task is both difficult and time consuming. Computer simulation can be used as a means of determining the expected operating performance of a range of alternate equipment configurations. Simulation is a particularly important technique for analysis as it is one of the few approaches that allows the analyst to take into account the variability inherent in a mining process. While computer simulation is a well established technique its use, until recent years, has been limited to large organisations with access to substantial computing facilities. However, with the current availability of low cost computing platforms combined with easily understood animated displays, simulation is now becoming more widely used across the industry.

Jan 1, 1990

By J. Lobel, M. Bourassa, J. A. Kozinski, B. Peng

Non-isothermal kinetics studies of the reduction phenomenon of electric arc furnace (EAF) dust generated in stainless steelmaking have been carried out. The dust was mixed with carbon as a reducing agent and dolomite as a binder to form pellets. A Thermo-Gravimetric Analyzer (TGA) was used to determine the weight loss of pellets heated at an average rate of 40 K/min. up to a temperature of 1500°C. The degree of metal reduction was calculated by considering the pellet weight loss, and evaporation of moisture, dust, zinc and lead at high temperature. The reduction process was divided into three different steps. The first covers the 300°C to 760°C temperature range (from 7 to 18 min.), the second step ranges between 760°C and 980°C (18 to 24 min.), and the third covers temperatures above 980°C. Each step is characterized by different chemical reactions. Non-isothermal reduction kinetics equations were set up to describe each step. The kinetics parameters such as apparent activation energies and frequency factors were established. It was found that the first step was chemically controlled, while the second step was diffusion-controlled. Reduction behaviour in the third step was strongly dependent on the initial carbon content in the pellet. Chromium oxide (CrO) could only be reduced in this last step. High temperatures and higher initial carbon content favoured the reduction of CrO.

Jan 1, 2001

By Michael W. Lewis

The latest downturn in the world’s metal prices has forced many mining companies to focus on cost reduction and productivity improvements to remain competitive. Maintenance represents a significant part of the overall operating costs in the mining industry. A structured, proactive maintenance approach, such as reliability-centered maintenance, can achieve cost reductions and productivity improvements. Remote condition-monitoring systems are becoming commonplace because they have the potential to identify problems before failure. Detection of equipment degradation before failure will enable repairs to be scheduled, thereby reducing costs and interruptions to production. The mining industry is in the midst of uncertain times. Decreasing commodity prices, demand, head grade and capital availability along with increasing environmental requirements have put pressure on mining companies to significantly reduce costs to maintain short- and long-term viability. Corporations are looking at expansion, merger/consolidation and financial/hedging programs to achieve these cost reductions. Mines are reducing costs by eliminating all but essential expenditures, increasing production levels, reducing overtime and investing in new technologies.

Jan 1, 2000

By L. J. Froisland

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation requested U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) assistance in developing design data for moving lead-zinc-gold tailings from their current location without disrupting the existing chemically stable conditions. This report presents results of USBM work in determining (1) the minimum required time to air dry the tailings to approximately 20 pet moisture under various drying conditions both in the laboratory and in the field, (2) the degree of oxidation or reduction that occurs during drying, (3) the effect of lime or cement addition before drying, and (4) the likely equilibrium conditions of the dried tailings after deposition at the new location. The limited number of tests performed by the USBM in the available time frame established trends in oxidation levels but did not provide absolute statistical validity of data values. All data from drying and oxidation testing are included in appendices to this report.

Jan 1, 2010

By J. H. Crary

This report summarizes the results of a one-year agreement for research on the electromagnetic environment in coal mines, which was conceived as the beginning of a long term cooperative program between ITS and the Bureau of Mines. The concepts on which it was originally based are a result of the report on mine rescue and survival by the Committee on Mine Rescue and Survival Techniques of the National Academy of Engineering, dated March 1970. This report drew particular attention to the need for improved communications during and following mine disasters. In particular, the outstanding problems identified were the location of, and communication with, trapped miners. Some tentative solutions, generally involving long-wave electromagnetic signals, were offered. Consideration of the problems of disaster location and communication soon leads to consideration of the communications techniques (or lack of them) for use under normal mining conditions. In particular, if a disaster communication and/or location system is to be readily available and operable under disaster conditions, it should also be usable during mining operations. In this way operators can become familiar enough with the system to operate it during disaster conditions, as well as provide a mechanism for regular testing.

Jan 1, 1972

By George H. Holmes

Beryllium deposits in the northern Virgin Mountains , Clark County , Nev . , and Mohave County , Ariz . , about 70 miles northeast of Las Vegas , were investigated by the Bureau of Mines . The investigation indicated a widespread occurrence of beryllium- bearing pegmatites within an extensive belt of mica - schist . Several deposits with significant beryllium mineral concentrations were encountered . Only a few of the samples analyzed contained more than 1 percent beryllium oxide ( BeO ) ; in many of the samples , no beryllium was reported . The average tenor of samples from the more important occurrences was 0.25 percent BeO . Chrysoberyl is the predominant beryllium mineral in the pegmatite sills ; beryl predominates in the more massive bodies . Minute quantities of cesium and lithium minerals also occur , but no columbium , tantalum , or other rare minerals were found . Ore dressing tests on a composite sample containing 0.28 percent BeO which was representative of the pegmatite sills , indicated an 85 percent recovery of the chrysoberyl ( 70 percent recovery of total BeO ) by gravity concentration in a concentrate containing 17.6 percent BeO .

Jan 1, 1964

By E. V. Manlapig, M. C. Harris

"The complexity of the flotation process has made the identification of an appropriate model structure, for use in the prediction of flotation circuit performance, far from obvious. Work performed under the auspices of the AMIRA P9 flotation program has indicated that the metallurgical performance achieved from a flotation cell arises from the interaction of two essentially independent property classes, namely the cell operating conditions and the properties of the cell feed stream. These observations have led to the development of a model structure that associates a constant set of flotation parameters to the streams of the circuit, which are transformed into a flotation response depending on the operating conditions within the flotation cell.A variety of alternative model structures exist within the literature which do not make this distinction between cell and stream flotation properties, and many of these models are in widespread use for flotation optimisation and design studies, both in industry and academia.In this paper, data collected from an industrial flotation circuit is used to derive the parameters associated with two different types of flotation models. Simulations performed using these models demonstrate the need to differentiate between cell and feed properties. A model that does not differentiate between these two properties fails to successfully predict the metallurgical performance of a flotation circuit after a disturbance."

Jan 1, 2003

By G. H. Blackwell, N. I. Norrish

"At most operating mines, geostatistical are reserve estimation methods have been implemented by head office or consulting groups . With recent advances in small computer technology it is now possible for a remotely-located mine department to independently implement a geostatistical package.This paper describes the evolution of geostatistical routines to calculate the mineral inventory for porphyry type copper/ molybdenum or similar are bodies. The problems encountered in down sizing the geostatistical routines to run using limited minesite computing facilities are discussed. The high quality of the results, in spite of some compromises to geostatistical theory, is emphasized.The first stage entailed the development of a mineral inventory based on diamond drill data. The difficulties in fitting variogram models to two metals, copper and molybdenum, and the shortcomings of the mineral inventory due to the mixing of lesser quality exploration data with data from more recent diamond drilling are discussed.To improve the ore reserve estimates for short-term planning, a mineral inventory was produced using both the diamond drill and production blast hole drilling data. This inventory, when compared to actual grades, was found to be quite satisfactory for short-term planning. The inventory also provided a reliable data base for long range pit design and financial planning. By regularly updating the mineral inventory, many of the uncertainties of mining a low-grade orebody were minimizedIntroductionThe comparatively low grades of many Canadian mineral deposit s, the escalation of mine operating costs, and the volatility of metal prices in recent years, has required improvements to both short- and long-term mine planning.One of the prerequisites to improved planning systems is the need for accurate grade prediction. This paper describes the on-site implementation of geostatistical techniques for grade estimation of a porphyry I vein type copper/molybdenum ore body ."

Jan 1, 1987

By Rajesh Kumar Mishra

About 500,000 troy ounces of Platinum Group Metals (PGM) will be available for recycling each year from spent automobile catalytic converters in North America alone. Platinum Group Metals? from spent catalyst can be extracted by Hydrometallurgical, Pyrometallurgical or Gas Phase volatilization processes. This paper is a review and comparative study of various processes investigated for PGM extraction. A number of processes described in this paper have already been commercialized. The technical and environmental aspects of the important processes are discussed.

Jan 1, 1989

By B. I. Matshediso, J. Kaavera, E. Shemang, T. K. Dintwe, L. S. Teseletso, K. Fichani

The minerals sector continues to draw attention from policy makers who would want to see both old and new mineral projects add value to the minerals in the host country. The current technological development in the leaching of manganese oxide ores to produce a high-purity manganese sulphate monohydrate, a compound that is used in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles or long-life storage cells for the renewable energy market, has led to junior mining companies spearheading this technology in new projects across the globe. In this paper, we researched the high-purity manganese sulphate monohydrate project pipeline and used projected production volumes and C1 cash costs to construct the industry supply curve for six projects, including the K.Hill project owned by Giyani Metals Corporation near Kanye, in the southern part of Botswana. The aim was to determine the ideal conditions that would provide a comparative advantage for further local value addition to high-purity manganese sulphate monohydrate and to the end user product. The results showed that while the estimated C1 cash costs would place the K.Hill project as the second highest cost producer from among five projects, it would nonetheless have healthy profit margins due to the high projected price of high-purity manganese sulphate monohydrate. The study recommended policy options, which, if implemented, could further encourage the exploitation and value addition of battery metals in Botswana.

May 27, 2025

By C. C. Jobes

Operating large face equipment, such as continuous mining machines, is one of the most basic and most dangerous elements of an underground coal mining operation. The operator usually performs cutting and tramming tasks in a restricted workspace with reduced visibility. During the execution of these tasks, operators often cannot see all of the locations needed to safely operate the continuous mining machine (CM ), which has sometimes resulted in accidents. In an effort to prevent these accidents, researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Pittsburgh Research Laboratory, examined the continuous mining machine operator?s current information cues, or visual attention locations, so that risk of injury relative to the task, equipment and workplace environment can be evaluated in the future. The eventual goal is to develop interventions to enhance the information cues, and thereby increase the safety and health of machine operators. This paper details the operator interview process, determination of visual attention locations (VALs) and simulation of various mining scenarios.

Jan 1, 2011

By R. Lawrence

Mineral property valuations to be used for Canadian securities regulatory purposes must comply with CIMVal1. The technical basis for a CIMVal report is the same as that required for a technical report that complies with NI 43-1012. NI 43-101 describes the content to be covered in a technical report, while also covering other requirements, one of which is that the report should be based on a property visit. CIMVal is based on five tenets that the valuator must follow: ? Materiality. ? Independence. ? Transparency. ? Competence. ? Reasonableness. Upon its adoption by CIM Council in 2003, it was hoped that the new CIMVal code would be adopted without change by the several Canadian regulators.

Jan 1, 2011

Failure of rock materials is a process of crack propagation. Crack initiation takes place when the crack tip stress intensity K reaches a critical value called fracture toughness, K1C. The rock fracture toughness is known to be affected by the surrounding environment such as temperature, confining pressure and humidity. In order to examine the effect of humidity, a series of semi-circular bend tests were performed under various water vapour pressures in a rock material that is known to be anisotropic. Water vapour promotes stress corrosion of rock and therefore the fracture toughness was found to have a decreasing trend with increasing water vapour pressure. The rate of decreasing the fracture toughness depends on the microcrack density that promotes the migration of water vapour into the rock. Also in an anisotropic rock, the fracture toughness depends on the direction of crack in relation to the anisotropy of the rock material.

Dec 6, 2010