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By Ronald Ticona, Marjorie Aubert, Frank Luján

Uno de los principales objetivos en la optimización de los procesos mina a planta es la obtención de una buena fragmentación en la voladura, el cual permitirá generar la cantidad de finos adecuados para la alimentación de la planta concentradora. Con la finalidad de evaluar los efectos de la fragmentación en mina en los procesos aguas abajo desde la voladura, una importante mina de cobre del Perú decidió evaluar el impacto en los procesos aguas abajo de dos tipos de explosivos, de emulsión 100% gasificable con RBS de 118 y de mezcla explosiva gasificada 80/20 con un RBS de 158, en zonas de roca altamente competente con un rango 150 a 160 de UCS y 0.8 de RQD.

Sep 29, 2023

By Eduardo Guanilo

El uso de la Analítica de Datos permitió una gestión adecuada en nuestros indicadores de seguridad - productividad y su implicancia directa en el logro de los objetivos de producción mina todo esto a través de la excelencia y la disciplina operacional. La información obtenida con la herramienta de Analítica de Datos, el proceso sistemático de revisión de variables claves para la operación minera, la identificación de desviaciones y la interacción constante entre nuestra supervisión durante la revisión de las recomendaciones en tiempo real, permitieron mejorar y optimizar las decisiones operativas logrando los objetivos establecidos.

Sep 29, 2023

By Alexandra Nieves, Artemio Pérez

Antapaccay, empresa minera ubicada en la provincia de Espinar; realizó un diagnóstico a profundidad sobre las causas de la conflictividad social. Ello conllevó inicialmente a la creación de herramientas para controlar el riesgo que posteriormente fueron analizadas a profundidad para entender la dinámica del territorio y establecer una estrategia de intervención social con enfoque estratégico. Es así como nace el “Sistema de Gestión de riesgos sociales y transformación de conflictos de Antapaccay, metodología que nos está permitiendo reducir los microconconflictos , conflictos socioambientales y socio políticos.

Sep 29, 2023

By Jairo Romero, Fernando Pajuelo

Los avances en tecnologías digitales han permitido nuevos métodos de trabajo para realizar pruebas, como el análisis granulométrico. Por esta razón, este estudio propone aprovechar la fotogrametría mediante drones para realizar un análisis granulométrico completo y preciso a partir de fotografías digitales aéreas, especialmente en áreas de almacenamiento de material (StockPiles). Esto permite optimizar los recursos de mano de obra y reducir los costos operativos hasta en un 71%. Además, se realizó un análisis económico comparativo entre el método digital propuesto y el método convencional de estudio de granulometría.

Sep 29, 2023

By Miguel Cochachi, Wilson Chavez, Germán Sovero

El presente trabajo está enfocado en recuperar los metales como plata y plomo de las escorias, mediante el proceso metalúrgico de lixiviación ácida/super ácida y flotación. Estas escorias son pasivos ambientales generados en los años 80’s, JS Consulting en el área de investigación metalúrgica desarrollo el proceso de lixiviación y flotación para lograr recuperar la Ag y Pb de las escorias y de esta manera darle valor en el mercado de dicho material que no tenía valor. Los resultados obtenidos fueron muy favorables, en la lixiviación de las escorias se logro separar hierro, silice, zinc, cobre de la plata y plomo, estos dos últimos elementos quedaron en el solido logrando una concentración comercialmente en el mercado.

Sep 29, 2023

By Ronald Ticona

Con el objetivo de mejorar la trazabilidad del mineral desde mina a planta en una operación de una mina de cobre del Perú, se evaluó el impacto en la planta de procesamiento en relación con las optimizaciones de voladura, un sistema de trazadores, relacionando el desempeño de los procesos de mina a planta con las propiedades geotécnicas y geometalúrgicas, detectando en tiempo real minerales en la planta de procesos alimentación estéril, alta, baja Ley, mineral con Arsénico, entre otros.

Sep 29, 2023

By Juan Mayta

Dada la situación actual y escenario post COVID-19, es fundamental adoptar estrategias de Gestión Colaborativa e Integrada de Proyectos, este artículo es el resultado de la aplicación de Virtual Design Construction (VDC) y Building Information Modelling (BIM) en la etapa de Diseño de un proyecto de reemplazo de Equipos Críticos en la Parada de una Planta concentradora de Cobre (Cu) para Sociedad Minera El Brocal, operación minera ubicada en Cerro de Pasco, Perú.

Sep 29, 2023

By Yealfred Matheus, Miguel Segur

El cliente se encuentra en un proceso de establecer las condiciones técnicas y de operación de los caminos locales para los accesos a las diferentes operaciones y/o proyectos a través del presente estudio, con el objetivo de definir la demanda y flujo vehicular en las diferentes actividades mineras durante los próximos 5 años. Este estudio tiene una relevancia crítica para la producción de la empresa debido a que la exploración, desarrollo y explotación de recursos mineros de cobre y subproductos, depende en gran parte en el impacto ambiental y de seguridad en los principales puntos viales donde se moviliza cada uno de los vehículos de la empresa y que fluya de manera eficaz.

Sep 29, 2023

By M. Z. Emad, M. U. Khan, A. ur Rehman

The use of stemming plugs in surface blasting is gaining popularity because of the environmental, technical, and economic advantages. Although previous studies have established the operational effectiveness of different types of stemming plugs, evaluations of the economic and ergonomic impacts are lacking, thereby hindering their application in many mining operations. Consequently, a significant proportion of mining operations end up performing less efficient blasts. We evaluated the effectiveness of three types of stemming plugs by conducting multiple full-scale production blasts. The results show that stemming plugs reduce the need for secondary blasting and increase blast performance. An economicanalysis showed that the incorporation of stemming plugs can reduce blasting costs significantly.

Jul 1, 2021

By Carlos Siccha, Luis Alvarez

Este trabajo técnico se embarca en una exploración profunda de la intersección entre la tecnología de vanguardia y la industria minera, con una mirada crítica a cómo una arquitectura de datos sólida puede servir como un potente catalizador para el uso efectivo de Machine Learning (ML) e Inteligencia Artificial (IA). A través de un enfoque focalizado en la operación minera Antamina, este informe articula una comprensión detallada de los desafíos y las oportunidades presentes en el panorama de la gestión de datos mineros.

Sep 29, 2023

By Alex Villanueva, Sheylla Sánchez

Huella Verde, es un proyecto de forestación implementado por Newmont Yanacocha y Foncreagro, organización que desde 1999 implementa proyectos de desarrollo agropecuario y forestal. Esta iniciativa da continuidad a la experiencia implementada entre los años 2000 y 2012, etapa en la que se realizó la plantación de más de 2 millones de árboles de pino y otras especies nativas en Cajamarca.

Sep 29, 2023

By Gabriella Vaschetti, Pascual Perazzo

A paper presented at Perumin 35 in 2022 described the concepts and a state-of-the-art system with extruded curbs and PVC anchor wings, adopted among others at the first four stages of Las Bambas tailings dam in Peru, discussing how upstream geomembrane water barriers can mitigate the numerous issues, including environmental aspects, of tailings dams’ design and operation. This paper, beside presenting a summary of what has been carried out so far at Las Bambas, amplifies the subject, presenting the results by means of the data of the leakage monitoring system, showing that the flow monitoring data at the downstream toe are seasonally consistent, and in alignment with design predictions.

Sep 29, 2023

By T. E. Oates, W. Spiteri

In 2015, after amendments to the explosives regulations, stemming became a mandatory activity for all South African mining operations. There are, however, circumstances in which it is thought stemming has an adverse impact on the blasting outcome. Some of these circumstances include blasting in hot holes, in reactive ground, or when blasting a pre-split. In order to determine when stemming is necessary, its role in the control of adverse blasting phenomena and impact on explosive performance were reviewed. Stemming was found to play a significant role in the fragmentation process and burden movement. Additionally, stemming significantly influences the control of flyrock, air-blast, and toxic fume generation. The review of the literature indicates some motivation for not using stemming for presplit, trim, hot hole, and reactive ground blasting, provided the benefits associated with not stemming the holes outweigh the risks of stemming them. Best practice for stemming from the literature indicates a stemming length of 0.7 × burden is best for larger hole diameters, and 20 to 30 × Ø for smaller hole diameters. Crushed aggregate appears to be the most effective stemming material. The South African explosives regulations pertaining to stemming were found to be consistent with those of Australia and the USA.

Aug 1, 2021

By D. F. Malan, J. A. L. Napier

This paper describes some important aspects associated with historical underground measurements in South African gold and coal mines. Deformation measurements were used to confirm the use of elastic theory to simulate the rock mass behaviour in the Witwatersrand gold mines in the 1960s. Although a prominent time-dependent component of stope closure was measured as early as the 1930s, it was ignored owing to the benefit of adopting elastic theory. Neglecting the time-dependent response of the rock for many decades resulted in important aspects such as the effect of mining rate, the effect of advance per blast, and the need for enhanced design criteria not being explored. Recent work is only now starting to address this gap in knowledge. In-situ measurements of large coal specimens in the 1960s and 1970s indicated that a linear formula may possibly be a better approximation of coal pillar strengths. This alternative formulation was never adopted, however, as the power law strength formula was already deeply entrenched in the industry at that stage. In spite of these apparent failures to continuously generate and adopt new knowledge, a key lesson learnt is that major advances in rock mechanics will not be possible without careful monitoring of the rock mass behaviour in experimental sites. Areas requiring further research, such as pillar strength formulae for the Bushveld Complex and enhanced design criteria for the gold mines, can only be developed using extensive undergroundmonitoring programmes.

May 1, 2021

By Iván Ibañez

An essential aspect of energy efficiency is determining the opportunities to improve a system or machine's performance from the energetic point of view. For the mining industry, it's a classic problem that mainly all the equipment manufacturers face today to produce the same results with the minimum energy requirements. Existing research focuses on light-duty vehicle energy losses. However, heavy-duty off-road machinery is understudied. This article presents an energy balance assessment of a mining vehicle utilized in an open-pit mine in Colombia.

Sep 29, 2023

By M. Kumral, Y. A. Sari

Underground mining operations tend to have higher operating costs than surface mines. When metal prices decrease, profitability is jeopardized due to the high costs. Therefore, mining management harnesses new practices that increase operational efficiency. One way to manage this challenge is to invest in new mine planning practices. Stope layout optimization as a part of underground mine planning aims to identify a portion of the orebody in the form of production volumes (stopes) to maximize profit under roadway and stope dimension constraints. In this paper we propose a novel approach based on identifying ore-rich areas of the deposit and prioritizing their extraction through an iterative heuristic clustering approach. The proposed approach is compared with and validated by an exact method through a small mining example. The heuristics produced nearly identical results in a very short time. Finally, a case study was carried out using a larger data-set. The cluster-based iterative approach generated nearoptimal stope layouts in a computationally effective manner.

Mar 1, 2021

By D. Marcotte, R. V. Dutaut

In most exploration or mining grade data-sets, the presence of outliers or extreme values represents a significant challenge to mineral resource estimators. The most common practice is to cap the extreme values at a predefined level. A new capping approach is presented that uses QA/QC coarse duplicate data correlation to predict the real data coefficient of variation (i.e., error-free CV). The cap grade is determined such that the capped data has a CV equal to the predicted CV. The robustness of the approach with regard to original core assay length decisions, departure from lognormality, and capping before or after compositing is assessed using simulated data-sets. Real case studies of gold and nickel deposits are used to compare the proposed approach to the methods most widely used in industry. The new approach is simple and objective. It provides a cap grade that is determined automatically, based on predicted CV, and takes into account the quality of the assay procedure as determined by coarse duplicates correlation.

May 1, 2021

By W. A. Smith, M. C. Bekker, C. Marnewick

Projects or project-orientated approaches have become a common form of work in nearly all sectors of economies. This has led to concepts such as ‘projectified’ and ‘project orientated’ organizations. By defining projectification of a company, industry, or economy as the share of project work in total work, one can reasonably determine the impact that project management, and by default projectification, has had on that company, industry, or economy in terms of staff optimization and allocation. This paper presents the results for such a projectification study of the South African mining industry. This sector has long been a significant contributor to the country’s economy from a gross value added (GVA) and employment point of view. Understanding the impact of projectification and the project management way of work on this industry may potentially add significant value to both the mining and project management knowledge areas. We show that although the mining industry is considered by some to operate in archaic ways, the level of projectification has increased over time, and now represents approximately one third of all work conducted.

May 1, 2021

By S. R. Grobler, S. Bilessuris, M. E. Greenway

Ensuring that all the head ropes on a multi-rope friction winder share the load equally has been a design and maintenance issue since they were first developed. Accurate machining of the rope grooves is necessary to meet this objective. Early analysis of the change of rope loads for ropes in grooves that are mismatched in depth treated the grooves as rigid. Groove depth tolerances deduced from this analysis are stringent and difficult to achieve in practice. Test work indicated that the inherent flexibility of groove lining materials alleviates the load-sharing problem. However, no analysis of rope load changes due to mismatched flexible grooves has been published. In this paper we develop new equations for the rope load variation for flexible grooves. By allowing flexibility to reduce to zero, the corresponding rigid rope groove equations are obtained. New criteria for tolerable groove depth variations are developed from this analysis, which depend on the flexibility of the groove lining material.

Sep 1, 2021

By Julio Tovar, Samuel Quisca

La lixiviación de metales pesados y la inestabilidad de taludes de los depósitos de relaves en la minería causan serios problemas ambientales de contaminación, que originan riesgos de salud y de seguridad de las poblaciones. Frente a esta problemática, es primordial eliminar o controlar los lixiviados tóxicos de los relaves y mejorar su estabilidad física, con el propósito de reducir el impacto ambiental de los contaminantes en los recursos de agua y suelos, así como asegurar la seguridad física de las relaveras, a fin de ganar la confianza de los stakeholder.

Sep 29, 2023