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Over the past several years, copper prices have surged from under a dollar to over three dollars a pound. However, the long-run trend in real copper prices since at least the early 1970s has been sharply downward. While many now contend that the long-run trend in real copper prices is now upward, the result of structural changes in this market, others are sceptical. Nor is copper unique; the prices for a number of other metals, including aluminium, iron ore, lead, nickel and zinc, have followed similar patterns. This paper examines the forces behind short-run and long-run trends in metal prices. It first focuses on the short run, where it argues that shifts in demand are largely behind changes in prices. It then turns to the long run, where it concludes that production costs and supply largely govern price trends. Finally, it explores several implications of these findings, including those for diversification and market risk, for forecasting mineral prices, for assessing the growth of metal demand in China and elsewhere on metal prices, and for changes in the long-run price trends.

Jan 1, 2006

I am honoured, deeply honoured, that so distinguished a group has assembled to acknowledge the signifi- cance of the work of my Melbourne flotation research laboratory, to review progress since Principles of Flotation (Wark, 1938) was published, to highlight the present state of knowledge, and to point the way for future research. The flotation research which began in 1929 was sponsored by a group of mining companies2 at the instigation of Harry Hey of the Electrolytic Zinc Company of Australasia Limited. There were never more than three of us work- ing in rather cramped conditions in a laboratory made available by the Department of Chemistry at the Uni- versity of Melbourne, but what we lacked in space was more than offset by a freedom unparalleled in indus- trial research in Australia at that time. I pay special tribute to my first colleague, Alwyn Cox; to my wife who worked with us for several years; and to Keith Sutherland who followed Cox in 1936. They were my sole colleagues up to 1938 when Principles of Flo- tation (Wark, 1938) was published.

Jan 1, 1984

Creating Value and Improving Environmental Performance by the Recovery of Valuable Products from Tailings from the Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta, Canada

Sep 13, 2010

Your Worship the Mayor, Ron McCullough; the Honourable Tony McGrady M.L.A., Minister for Minerals & Energy; distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.It's both a pleasure and a privilege to have been invited by the North West Queensland branch of the AusIMM to speak at a forum in Mount Isa to discuss the potential, and more importantly, the development of the great North West. I spent 25 years of my life proudly living and working in this part of the world, marvelling at its riches, exploring its potential, assisting in its development and responding to its challenges.As President of the North West Queensland branch of the AusIMM in the early 1970's I can clearly recall helping to organize a major symposium extolling the geological potential of the region, revealing the extensions of the Mount Isa copper orebody at depth and describing the potential of the then untapped Hilton Mine. Our optimism in the North West so obviously reflected two decades ago remains today.

Jan 1, 1993

The ER&S Company operates a copper sinter plant, blast furnace and converter smelting complex at Port Kembla. Eighty percent of the smelter feed is dirty copper concentrates that contain some lead and zinc. The remaining twenty percent of the smelter feed is copper bearing secondary materials, some of which contain lead, zinc and tin. A predominately lead/zinc fume is produced during the smelting and converting of this feed mix. The composition and tonnage of fume produced at Port Kembla has varied over the years as the smelter feed sources have changed. The economic processing of the fume has always been dependent on the value of the metals contained in the fume and on the fume composition. Both pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical methods have been used to treat the fume for the recovery of some or all of the following metals - lead, zinc, tin, copper, cadmium, silver and bismuth. A detailed description of the treatment methods that have been investigated and used to process ER&S fume is given.

Jan 1, 1984

By McGregor GW

The Utah International group of companies has a wide geographic spread of operations, including a significant interest inAustralia's largest coking coal operation in Queensland, steaming and coking coal mines in USA, a copper mine in Canada, a half interest in an iron ore operation in Brazil, a number of smaller operations, and a significant portfolio of undeveloped properties in South America, South Africa and South East Asia.The opportunity to acquire this group of companies presented an immediate problem to BHP in that it was regarded as too large for BHP to absorb by itself. In addition, there was a concern that such an acquisition would increase BHP's coking coal exposures to unacceptable levels. Despite these dilemmas, BHP was keen to acquire Utah.A plan was therefore developed and agreed to by General Electric (GE) (the then owner of Utah) which would give BHP nine months in which to put together a consortium to share in the ownership of the Queensland coal assets (plus coal assets owned by BHP), and to arrange a project financing for use by BHP and the consortium. BHP would own 100% of the rest of the assets.

Jan 1, 1985

By Manula C. B

The total systems model for underground oal mining planning and design is a set of omputer programs which encompasses a realis- ic reproduction of the interaction between he geological, environmental, equipment, meth- ds and the health and safety aspects of the ining plan. The total system includes nine ajor subsystems - Geology and Reserves, Meth- ne Generator, Roof Support, Subsidence, Pro- uction, Rail Haulage, Cost, Water Generator, nd Ventilation. The subsystems themselves re divided into two categories based on the requency with which they are executed. Event riented Subsystems are executed either inde- endently, or at discrete intervals when cer- tain specific events occur. Dynamic subsystems 'unction interactively during the production :ycle. They transfer data to or request data `rom event oriented subsystems only when spe- ific events occur. Three specific areas for iodel application are in the measurement of system performance, the development of the '_ nterrelationships of the components of deep Wining process and the evaluation of new and Lnnovative mining technology.

Jan 1, 1977

By Sandy W

This paper examines the effects of a significant number of plant alterations and modifications to the lead flotation circuit during the past five years. Metallurgical effort is directed largely at the flotation performance of middling streams and current strategies are discussed. The automatic control of cell destination and collector additions are outlined in the latter section of the paper, along with a description of control hardware in current use.

Jan 1, 1983

By M Miettinen

That microorganisms, both living and dead, and products derived from the organisms, can function as flotation agents and flocculation agents is abundantly clear. They can modify the surfaces of minerals. They can function as flotation collectors and as flotation depressants and activators. In many cases they or their products can function as specific flocculation agents. Problems that must be solved before such microorganisms or products from the organisms can be used in commercial operations include culturing the organisms at a cheap cost and reduction in dosages required for various separations. These tasks are formidable. However, the concept of using such natural materials in place of various chemical reagents that may be toxic is very attractive. An attempt is made to show some of the promise of microorganisms in mineral bioprocessing and to consider the problems that must be overcome before commercial application of the technology is realised.

Jan 1, 2005

By Baafi E. Y

A heuristic approach for the optimisation of the stope geometry is presented. The heuristic method uses economic model of a given deposit to search for the best combination of mining blocks that results in the maximum profit while imposing geo

Jan 1, 1998

A resource rent taxation scheme is based on the concept of taxing the rent or surplus profit generated from primary industry activity. Rent has been defined as profits that remain after deduction of company income which corresponds to the minimum return necessary to attract private investment to a new project.Rent taxation schemes on the mining industry within the Australasian region have been examined and widely discussed during the decades of the 1970s and 1980s. Forms of resource rent taxation schemes have been imposed on Papua New Guinea mining, some sectors of Australian petroleum, the Roxby Downs venture and are being discussed for the New South Wales coal industry. While no introduced applications have been pure rent taxation schemes, the concept has generally come to encompass arrangements which tax rent at a partial rate which may or may not vary with the level of profitability or return.An examination is made of a number of the more recent schemes. Aspects which should be considered in implementation of new forms of this taxation are discussed. It is concluded that there is an increased acceptance for this form of taxation on the Australian mining industry.

Jan 1, 1990

The non-metallic minerals, excluding the construc- tions and fuel materials have for long been the "poor relations" of the Mining Industry of New South Wales. The State is self-sufficient in only a few of the industrial minerals and is almost completely lacking in any of the essential fertilizers. The deficiencies must be met by imports from overseas and interstate and in fact New South Wales imports some quantity of every one of the non-metallics. For the year 1967 the value of non-metallic mineral production amounted to only $9,390,000 or less than 3.5% of the States total of $275,900,000 for all classes of mining and quarrying. In roughly the same period, the 1967-68 financial year, New South Wales imported non- metallic materials, valued at well in excess of $22,000,000 from overseas and over $2,000,000 from interstate sources.

Jan 1, 1969

By D Brennan, S Jahanshahi, F Jorgensen

The recycling of metals can be very efficient with careful selection of the material being recycled. The volume and value of recycled ferrous scrap has lead to the development of steel mini-mills which in turn has caused major changes to the steel industry. Although much smaller in volume, the recycling of lead is very significant, with battery recycling accounting for 60 per cent of annual world production. This high recycle rate can be attributed to the relatively uniform feed-stock from lead-acid batteries. The recycling rates of other metals are considerably lower due to longer use and non-uniform product usage that results in less efficient segregation and processing. It is clear that recycling of metals has advantages but its sustainability is uncertain. What are the key benefits of metal recycling? Metal recycling has technical, economic and social impacts. It is relatively easy to assess recycling on a technical basis, but the social impacts are harder to evaluate. This paper examines some of the issues in evaluating the sustainability of metal recycling.

Jan 1, 2002

The scope, pace and depth of mining is creating a need for improved ground control strategies to meet mine safety standards. Ground control and associated conservation problems relating to subsidence and the disposal of mining and metallurgical wastes can be resolved by mine filling with selected reject materials. The lack of suitable criteria to evaluate the applicability of such materials and especially cemented forms of fill is considered. Sulphide wastes, which are prone to oxidize, and cement are inexpensive mine fills, but their incorrect use can give rise to problems which are briefly described. Research work concerned with the utilization of sulphide wastes such as mill tailings, to produce fill with self-cementing properties has shown that the development of cohesion and strength is attributable to natural oxidation processes controlled by the physical and chemical composition of the fill mass. The cementing is caused by a number of oxidation products, and is most effective when the mineral pyrrhotite is present. The concepts of fill design are outlined and various criteria for assessing durability and deformational properties are proposed. Specimens prepared in the laboratory are capable of attaining unconfined compressive strengths up to 28 MN/m2.

Jan 1, 1973

By Gordon DM

SUMMARY Tyres account for 25-30% of the operating costs of large capacity haul units as used in open-cut mines. Tyre operating costs can be substanti- ally reduced and often contained in real terms by applying knowledge that is now available. This paper describes certain specific advances in tyre management, namely batching, bias adjustment, cumulative plotting and the so-called "pressure-temperature" system of tyre pressure control, originated on the Mt. Newman Mining Company's Newman minesite, and discusses the contribution that each has made to improving tyre management and reducing costs. INTRODUCTION Tyres are a significant cost in mining. Tyre costs make up between 25% and 30% of the operating costs of large (i.e. 100 tonne and larger capacity) open-cut mine haultrucks. On a large mine this tyre cost may amount to several millions of dollars each year. It is a fact that through careful

Jan 1, 1982

By R W. Wilson, F H. von Glehn

With ever-increasing energy costs and the modern focus on system efficiencies, the practice of æventilation-on-demandÆ is gaining momentum. Several examples, ranging from paper studies to practical examples have been recorded and another recent case study is presented here to encourage the practice. In comparison, æcooling-on-demandÆ has received far less attention. This paper explores the possible merits of this practice by investigating the theoretical response of cool intake airways and the thermal interaction between the air and the rock, in order to gain a better understanding of the system behaviour and to quantify the possible savings. A case study is presented that demonstrates the improvements that can be achieved. Recent developments that allow live interaction between ventilation network models and on-line monitoring systems, have the potential for intelligent active control and alarming of ventilation and cooling networks. This will facilitate and maximise the benefits to be derived from ventilation and cooling-on-demand.

Jan 1, 2005

Diesel-engine exhaust emissions represent a concern to the mining industry due to the poten- tially harmful health effects of the pollutants, as well as high costs associated with providing proper ventilation to assure a healthful working environment. The control of exhaust emissions is complex since the operating mode and condi- tion of the engine, the mine environment, and the operator's skills all influence the concen- tration and composition of the emissions. It is not practical to measure each exhaust pollutant in underground mines; therefore, a monitoring methodology is required to measure the pollut- ants and assess the air quality.

Jan 1, 1988

During conventional eddy current separation, a repulsive force is applied to metallic particles by placing them in a rapidly changing magnetic field generated by a spinning magnetic rotor carrying an arrangement of alternate magnetic poles. This method works effectively for larger non-ferrous metallic objects, such as aluminium cans, but as the metallic particles become smaller, the bulk repulsive force on the particles is increasingly replaced by a rotational torque. Therefore, for small metallic particles it makes sense to use particle rotation, rather than particle repulsion, to effect a separation. Eddy current separators using particle rotation are similar in construction to present separators, but are designed to produce a rotating field of essentially constant angular velocity and field strength. Practical and economic particle rotation eddy current separations are possible down to particle sizes of about 200 ¦m, but separations, at probably uneconomic rates, can be carried out on particles as small as 50 ¦m.

Jan 1, 2000

As modern techniques of Petroleum Exploration and Development are rela-tively new in Australia,2 the alien terms "Mud Logging" and "Core Analysis" will bear explanation. Mud Logging and Core Analysis are two of the Petroleum. Industryts most useful "tools" in the successful search for, and development of, commercial oil and gas deposits. Modern Mud Logging could be more accu-xately termed "Drill Cuttings and Mud Gas Analysis". Presently, mud-logging has its greatest application in exploratory wells where subsurface geologic control is at a-minimum.

Jan 1, 1962

Conditional simulation is a branch of geo- statistics which allows the simulation of a mineral deposit so that predictions can be made about the variability of some particular parameter of the deposit. A summary of the general principles, advantages and limitations of conditional simulation is presented together with an example based on coal seam thickness.

Jan 1, 1981