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By Bowra N

Working capital is best described as money that must be supplied from a company's treasury to buy inventories for raw materials and finished products and to provide credit to customers who have not yet paid for delivered products. Working Capital requirements for resource projects are to a large extent, dependent on specific characteristics of the projects concerned. Important variables are the nature of the project and speed with which sales can be realised. The project's location is also important as this will influence inventory levels. Working capital requirements have a time profile, the present value of which can represent a significant portion of a projects overall capital needs. A significant component of a project's working capital is not readily recoverable or able to be reassigned should the project fail or be deferred.

Jan 1, 1986

By Williams J. D

Magnetite has been used in coal processing for many years and it is likely that its use will continue well into the twenty first Century. While magnetite is only a minor cost component in coal processing, the use of processed magnetite in dense medium separation is essential to provide the split of quality coal products which the markets of today demand. The occurrence of magnetite in Australia is relatively abundant, but a combination of its iron content, magnetic properties, quality and proximity to the coal processing plants is essential to provide a low cost product for use in the Coal Industry. The demand for more splitting of coal in coal processing may require more grades of magnetite, particularly as a finer grade lower specific gravity medium to separate the finer quality low ash coals.

Jan 1, 1991

AustraliaÆs current interest in renewable energy is based on a desire to reduce the countryÆs greenhouse gas emissions. Wood from sustainable sources offers a unique opportunity to combine greenhouse gas benefits with other significant environmental and social benefits, including salinity mitigation, carbon sequestration, soil replenishment and rural industry. The challenge is to make renewable energy from wood in a cost competitive manner, so that this broad range of benefits may be best realised. Bioenergy and carbon products are of great interest as new, commercial forestry products that can drive large-scale environmental tree planting:In Western Australia, Enecon has worked with Western Power Corporation to build the first full-scale plant for integrated processing of mallee eucalypts, to produce activated carbon, renewable power and eucalyptus oil. It is intended that this plant is the first of a number of such plants to help catalyse environmental tree planting in Western Australia. New technologies being developed overseas may provide competitive bioenergy in areas where traditional markets for wood do not exist. For example, pyrolysis converts wood into a bio-oil that may be transported to remote sites for power generation in gas turbines. Pyrolysis also produces wood char. Pyrolysis and wood-to-ethanol technologies, coupled with short rotation coppicing trees, offer the long-term prospect of large-scale production of renewable fuels around the country.

Jan 1, 2006

By King MN, Travis IC

PISCES - the Planning and Information System for Coal Export Services has been developed by Port Waratah Coal Services (PWCS) to ensure the efficient and economic operation of the Hunter Valley Coal Chain. PISCES is a computer based integrated information and management system to coordinate operations commencing at minesites through the coal chain to shiploading at the Port. The PISCES system comprises a central database around which a number of planning modules interact. These include interactive programs for train planning and timetabling, stockpile management, berthing analysis and a coal shippers enquiry system. PWCS has previously developed - number of computer based systems for planning, controlling and monitoring complex coal handling operations and the extension of the PISCES system to the Hunter Valley Coal Chain is another initiative to assist the Hunter Valley Coal Export Industry in looking confidently towards the Future.

Jan 1, 1987

ON milling plants, where a large number of slime samples are collected each day, considerable work is involved preparing them for the assayer. The usual practice (as the material usually passes a 150-mesh screen) is to place the sample on a 30-mesh screen an 1 brush it through on to a cloth below. The sample on the cloth is mixed and a portion taken out for the assayer. A simple apparatus that would rapidly disintegrate and prepare these slime samples for the assayer was needed. The manufacturers of assayers' supplies appear to have overlooked apparatus for this class of work. To overcome the tedious preparation of slime samples by the above method, the writer devised the apparatus shown in the accompanying drawing (Fig. 1). It will be seen that the apparatus is a combination of a modified household flour sifter and a riffle sampler.The apparatus is made up in two parts, the top half consisting of a screen box carrying the disintegrator, and the bottom half a, riffle divider, the joints between the two being a slip-in fit. A lid is provided for the screen box. The disintegrator consists of an open drum, to which are soldered three rows of spring steel fingers. Each row has a number of steel fingers which, on rotation, press against the semi-circular screen in the screen box, forcing the slime particles through.To operate the apparatus an 8-in. sample tin is placed under each spout of the divider. The sample of slime, which is about 2 lb. in weight and usually in lumps, is placed in the screen box, the cover replaced, and the drum rotated about half-a-dozen times by means of the handle.The disintegrated sample is divided by the rifle divider into two portions, which are found in the tins under the spouts of the apparatus. One of these samples is taken, mixed on a sheet, and sent to the assayer.

Jan 1, 1922

Diversity is a key strength for Western Mining Corporation. An international corporation with assets of about $A10 billion, WMC is engaged in both mining and downstream processing of minerals including nickel, gold, alumina, copper and talc, as well as having interests in oil and gas production and agricultural fertiliser. The company is focusing on several core commodities that will maintain its strength in the years ahead. Although most current mineral assets are within Australia, it plans to have 25 per cent of its operations off-shore by the turn of the century, and be a major producer in at least six core commodities. WMC's strategic and management focus has shifted from a regional approach to a commodity focus so that it can more readily cater for different markets with differing sensitivities. This document is an ABSTRACT ONLY - no paper was published for this presentation

Jan 1, 1996

This paper will examine the prospects for Queensland's non-fuel mineral industries as we approach the 21st century. The opportunity for growth is unprecedented. Exploitation of recent discoveries, proposals and developments in downstream processing are predicted to contribute to a doubling of the State's mineral exports to around $10 billion by the year 2000. In 1995 - 96 the value of Queensland's mineral production was $6 billion, comprising $1892 million metallic minerals, $127 million non-metallic minerals and $4 025 million total fuel minerals. For many years Queensland has been among the world's major producers of copper, silver, lead, zinc, bauxite and mineral sands. Recently Queensland has become an important producer of magnesia. Queensland's ability to compete results from its location close to rapidly developing Asian markets, the diversity of its major minerals and an increasing ability to add value to the resources base using competitively priced energy. Northwest Queensland is one of the richest base metal provinces on earth following the recent discovery of five world-class orebodies. Of these deposits, Osborne (copper-gold) has commenced production and Cannington (silver-lead-zinc) and Ernest Henry (copper-gold) are scheduled to be developed by 1997. Century Zinc Limited and the Queensland Government are negotiating with native title claimants on the development of Century (zinc-lead-silver). Expansion is in progress at the Mount Isa copper mine (renamed the Enterprise) and copper smelter and a high analysis fertiliser project may be developed based on Phosphate Hill. Korea Zinc Company Limited has reached agreement to construct and operate a 350 000 Mtpa zinc smelter/refinery near Townsville. There are future expansion prospects for the vertically integrated major industrial mineral operations based on Weipa bauxite and Kunwarara magnesite. Upgrading of the Boyne Island aluminium smelter will require a doubling of alumina consumption. Downstream processing options for Kunwarara magnesite are being investigated and are expected to lead to increases in production and the manufacture of a range of value-added products. At the Yabulu refinery near Townsville, nickel and cobalt production using imported ore is to be increased and a commercial cobalt plant is to be built. Additional opportunities for further processing and manufacturing are associated with proposed new mines at Ely (bauxite), Skardon River (kaolin) and Goondicum (ilmenite). Recently discovered resources of zeolite and perlite also offer exciting development possibilities. Other manufacturing opportunities such as glass and ceramics based on local and plentiful clay and silica sand could replace imports. Silica sand at Cape Flattery is currently exported and production is expected to double.

Jan 1, 1997

How do you initiate closure planning for a mine site that is on the doorstep of a major community without generating the extremes of panic or complacency? That is the question that is faced by Australia's largest gold mine, the Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM) Super Pit in Kalgoorlie-Boulder. KCGM's Community Relations Manager, Danielle van Kampen, will reveal the lengthy closure planning process that is in train to alert yet not alarm the community about the future of the Super Pit and to generate discussion on issues of importance. What will happen to the 'big hole' that generates both mining and tourism dollars for the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder as its anticipated closure date of 2021 comes closer? How do you communicate a constantly evolving closure date? Although the process may generate more questions than answers, the project will be discussed at length and with the added benefit of independent community recent research in the form of the public 2009 Closure Consultation and the KCGM 2010 Social Impact Assessment. This is an ABSTRACT ONLY no paper was prepared for this presentation.

Jun 1, 2010

By S Shipard

Filters are used in water treatment and hydrometallurgical process plants for objectives such as generating a dry spadable solid, pumpable high density slurry or high purity filtrate. The priority objective of every polishing filter, sometimes also termed clarifying filters is high purity filtrate and these are found in many diverse industries and even different applications within the same industry.To generate a high purity filtrate, process designers have the choice of many different polishing filter products, but in reality very few polishing filters are based on fundamentally different filtering concepts.This paper reviews the technology merits of well-known and the more recently developed polishing filter products and aims to assist metallurgists and engineers with the selection of an appropriate polishing filtration technology for pregnant liquor filtration and other process applications, plus a guide to best practice.CITATION:Shipard, S, 2013. Polishing filters for mineral processing plants, in Proceedings MetPlant 2013 , pp 118-125 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Jul 15, 2013

By D Chalmers

Drill and blast mining techniques are used to mine coal outburst prone and high gas content coals in Australia. As the risk of an outburst is increased in high gas content coal, it is considered that drill and blast is the safest way to mine coals that refuse to yield gas even after considerable gas drainage efforts. The availability of suitable explosives for drill and blast in Australia is dependent on the æBuxtonÆ tests. With the diminished coal operations in England, the type and supply of such explosives is tenuous, causing significant disruption to the production of coal in some mines. In an attempt to free up the availability of explosives a review of the methods used for the testing of coal mine explosives was undertaken to ascertain the scientific basis for these tests. It was hoped that this comparison would allow regulators to have the confidence in explosives that had been tested elsewhere. Although this was not achieved, it has spawned a major research project that aims to better understand the mechanisms involved so that either confirmation of the current testing regime can be achieved or more suitable and scientifically based tests can be adopted. This paper looks at the ongoing research program investigating the parameters that are involved with methane ignitions from explosives. By utilising high-speed data capture and processing the research project is trying to view an ignition as it happens to identify the mechanisms involved so that better explosives can be designed for the coal mining industry.

Jan 1, 2007

By Ryan CG, Cousens DR, Griffin WL

The proton microprobe is developing into a vital tool in the geosciences, through its high sensitivity for in-situ detection of trace elements in the ppm regime. This paper will describe the instrument at the CSIRO Heavy Ion Analytical Facility at North Ryde, including features crucial to its successful application in the geoscience. Examples of applications in the basic geoscience and mineral industry related research are described briefly. Conditions required for widescale applications in the minerals industry are Discussed.

Jan 1, 1989

Oxygen is required for the leaching of gold ores in cyanide solutions. The source of this oxygen demand and the effect of dissolved oxygen concentration on the rate of the process are briefly reviewed.A method of measuring the oxygen consumption rate is described and some experimental results reported.Fundamental aeration theory and rating of aerators is summarised to show how this type of experimental work provides the basis for full-scale design of aeration equipment.

Jan 1, 1984

Petroleum exploration and development is vitally important for the future well being of Australia. The Australian petroleum exploration/development industry is alive but not so well. A combination of.:factors point to the industry requiring a much more mature effort in both short and longer-term planning to ensure greater success and effectiveness for petroleum discoveries and development. While many petroleum exploration companies are competently run, there are far too many which will be lucky to survive, even though their exploration areas are highly Prospective.

Jan 1, 1983

By W T. Pate, A V. Potapov, J K. Lichter

Even though flotation is one of the most important unit operations of mineral processing, accurate modelling of this process for plant performance prediction has remained elusive. In the last four to five years dramatic changes have occurred in our ability to make credible model based predictions. This paper briefly traces the history of flotation modelling from simple (lumped pulp-froth) æchemical kinetic analogueÆ models for single cells to more detailed multi-phase, multi-component population balance models for banks of cells. It then focuses on recent developments in physics-based modelling tools. This includes current efforts to model the forces of attachment and detachment at the individual event level as well as multi-event levels in individual cells and circuits. Two examples of these tools are presented. The first is DEM modelling of the mechanics of motion of bubbles in froths. The second is population balance modelling of the dynamics of flotation circuits describing how they are influenced by upstream processes (such as crushing and grinding) as well as internal process variables (such as aeration, agitation and reagent addition). Applications of each of these tools are discussed.

Jan 1, 2005

By K G. van den Boogaart, S Konsulke, R Tolosana Delgado

Adaptive mineral processing has to rely on spatially predicted information on primary geometallurgical parameters, like phase composition, size and shape distributions of grains from various phases, portions of value elements in different grain types. Naively, one would predict these parameters geostatistically and select an optimal processing for the predicted structure. This is suboptimal, due to various kinds of non-linearities in the problem. First, some primary geometallurgical quantities themselves are measured in non-real scales, like compositional or stereologically distorted geometric information. Standard geostatistics has to be replaced by compositional and geometric geostatistics, involving complex transforms and restrictions. Further, only partial and uncertain information is available, introducing a stochastic character to the optimisation problem. Moreover, many response variables leading to costs, outcomes and eventual effects of later processing depend non-linearly on the primary geometallurgical parameters, which implies that the final monetary value is not estimated unbiasedly by kriging. Finally unbiased linear prediction (such as kriging) is not the best method of prediction for decision making. The conditional expectation of the monetary values is needed instead. The impact of these problems is explained in this paper, with simplified examples, and a first approach to a general solution is proposed. CITATION:van den Boogaart, K G, Konsulke, S and Tolosana Delgado, R, 2013. Non-linear geostatistics for geometallurgical optimisation, in Proceedings The Second AusIMM International Geometallurgy Conference (GeoMet) 2013 , pp 253-258 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Sep 29, 2013

The optimisation and validation of shearer cutting methods is a time consuming engineering task. Many different parameters, of which not all can be controlled, can vary. The easiest solution, to increase the installed power and the longwall length, is not always the best. A different cutting method can increase the capacity without the need of new machines. The Department for Mining and Metallurgy Machinery at RWTH Aachen University therefore developed ProSL, the simulation tool for shearer and longwall operations. ProSL enables the engineer to create his own cutting methods and compare it with other methods. Machine-data can easily be varied to see the impact on the method. The research shows that sophisticated longwall methods increase the productivity of the system. The paper presents the results of the calculation with ProSL and shows how higher efficiency and lower costs can be achieved.

Dec 6, 2010

Proposals for engineering works in the River Dement in recent years have been made in the context of very little geological informat- ion. Breakage of the Tasman Bridge, forced a complete re-appraisal and collection of inform- ation in order to select a new site and predict problems. Seismic, magnetic and gravity methods foll- owed by drilling have allowed an assessment of the nature, thickness and distribution of mater- ials underlying the river bed. Key discoveries included recognition of low seismic velocity silts (1100 m/s) and a separate channel for the river since the Late Tertiary.

Jan 1, 1977

By S L. Nicol, B J. Hogg, O J. Mendoza, S Nikolic, A Burrows

The top submerged lance (TSL) technology, developed in the 1970s, is now widely used for the processing of a range of materials. The key advantage the ISASMELT™ TSL technology provided was the ability to process feed materials in a highly turbulent bath, reaching close to equilibrium conditions, uniquely allowing for operation below the liquidus of the molten slag phase. The details on what happened below the liquidus line in the phase diagram became critical for the successful operation of the technology. During the development of the ISASMELT™ technology this led to a collaboration between the Process Technology group of Mount Isa Mines, now part of Glencore Technology, and the Pyrometallurgy Research Centre (PYROSEARCH) at The University of Queensland. The fusion of the phase equilibria research into the technology development allowed for understanding of the behaviour of molten splash, reliable tapping of the furnace, and the ability to operate the furnace with a refractory lining and achieve a year campaign life in excess of four years. The outcome has allowed for the highly successful adaption of the ISASMELT™ technology to recycling of complex feed streams necessary to drive circularity in our modern global economy.

Aug 21, 2024

The increasing global demand for rough materials forces almost every mine to look at the mechanisation in their processes. This will not onlyimprove performance but with safety issues becoming more and more prevalent, the need for the introduction of mechanisation technologies to mining applications is essential. Ongoing developments are occurring in almost every field, ranging from basic developments to specialised mining. Mechanical tunnelling and shaft sinking have set the standards regarding safety, profitability and environmental protection. Different machine types and working principles have been developed to suit the geological and hydrological requirements of tunnelling projects worldwide. Continuous activity in research and development leads to constant optimisation of tunnelling performance.

Jan 1, 2008

By J A. M Luz, A T. Bernardes

HukkiÆs law is an empirical law, which does not take into account several events of energy loss during the fragmentation processes. Since experimental results are very difficult to obtain, for a large range of fragment sizes, the verification of the law is very difficult. The relation between fractures and fragmentation processes with fractal geometry was proposed some decades ago. Empirical laws known in this context show basic features of fractal geometry, mainly self-affinity and power law behaviour. Thus, in this work a model was developed to simulate the fragmentation process and to check the relation between energy consumption and fragment sizes. The model is represented on a regular lattice. Links can represent pathways for fracture processes. The events of fragmentation have energy given by a probability distribution function. In the model there is no mass loss. Propagation of fractures occurs as self-avoiding random walks on the regular lattice.

Sep 26, 2011