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By T. Faulkner, S. A. Richards

"Classic engineering economics provides the mining engineer with a fundamental approach to choosing between capital spending alternatives. This approach has been heavily used over the years and is an accepted technique for most investment decisions. There is a shortcoming that I have run into over the 15 year period when I worked in business planning roles. The classic time value of money approaches such as Net Present Value, Return on Investment, and Internal Rate of Return provide good estimates, but the input assumptions may fall short of describing the real material differences required by these analysis techniques. If the cost benefit analysis is defined solely on the improvement of the item being replaced or improved, the true profitability of the decision may be overestimated. Productivity improvement based capital projects can yield more accurate forecasts when conducted in concert with a “bottleneck analysis”. INTRODUCTION A review of the Theory of Constraints, (Goldratt, Cox, 1984) Lean, (Womack, 2003) (Rattner, 2006) and Six Sigma (Cryger, DeFeo 2015) lead us to recognize that these process improvement methodologies are oriented to the manufacturing process. These systems generally involve a factory that the material moves through on the way to becoming a final product. The mining challenge has many similarities to manufacturing once the ore has been won and made ready for processing. Before that point, however, the process is somewhat inverted while the ore is being won. Instead of the material moving through the factory, the factory is moving through the material. The Theory of Constraints (TOC) was used in an underground context by Baafi, Cai and Porter at 2015 APCOM, but even this groups’ analysis did not carry the concept from mining to shipping of the final product. There can be spatially distributed data that can affect the mining throughput constraints, some of which can be determined from exploration results. Identifying constraints can lead us to mapping productivity bottlenecks on future mining. Knowing this may improve decision making by eliminating one of Jim Fishbein’s three deadly sins of strategic planning: incomplete planning. When evaluating capital investment alternatives you should evaluate the impact of any proposed improvements on the entire operation. At the core of any mining system is the materials handling system. This can be typically expressed as the system that handles the raw material from the “face” through processing and then handling the finished product as well as the waste material. A “Bottleneck Analysis” is an investigation into the factors limiting a material handling system’s productivity (Goldratt, Cox, 1984). Mining material handling systems are usually composed of several linked components such as draglines, shovels, loaders, hydraulic excavators, continuous miners, longwalls, highwall miners, bucket wheel excavators, LHDs, feeders, conveyor belts, stockpiles, crushers, processing plants with various circuits, and waste handling systems. Each of the aforementioned components has a slightly different throughput capacity. When these are linked in series, the one with the lowest throughput capacity limits all of the others, creating the bottleneck for the system. Every material handling system has a bottleneck. In the mining environment, a subtle, but very significant phenomenon may also occur. The bottleneck may change as a result of a change in the raw feed qualities, face recession, overburden depth, digability, learning curve, and many others factors which may be derived from the drillhole data. These parameters often change as a function of the location in the reserve base, and may also vary with time."

Jan 1, 2016

By Harry M. Conger

Kaiser Steel Corporation's Eagle Mountain Mine is located in the Colorado Desert, 60 miles east of Indio, California. Concentrates from the mine are shipped by rail 164 miles to the company's steel mill at Fontana, and also to Longbeach, California for export. Temperatures are typical of the lower desert ranging from a high of 120 degrees in the summer to a low of 25 degrees in the winter. The average annual rainfall of about two inches comes mainly as cloud bursts during the summer months. From its inception, the Eagle Mountain Mine has had the problem of breaking its mine rock. Practices followed from 1949 until 1962 were very costly, did not produce uniformly good fragmentation, and were incapable of sustaining high production. During this period, every conventional type of explosive then in use was tried and found to be unsatisfactory for one reason or another. The first slurry test work at Eagle Mountain was started in 195E and finally by 1962, after having tried all the slurry mixtures then available including some "home made" formulas, a metallized slurry was perfected at the mine which overcame all of the disadvantages of former blasting methods.

Jan 1, 1965

By Rameshwar Sah, Basavaraja Maribasappanavar, Sangamesh Desai, G. Balachandran, Ravi Kant Sagar

The present research work deals with the effective utilization of hematite ore containing goethite, kaolinite and gibbsite losson- ignition (LOI) phases in pellet making without deteriorating product pellet properties by optimizing the induration cycle especially drying and preheating of pellets. Adequate drying and preheating of pellets before sintering is of prime importance to sustain the desired properties of pellets. Green pellets of + 8 to − 16 mm size were prepared in a laboratory disc pelletizer and indurated by varying drying and preheating temperatures in a laboratory Raising Hearth Furnace (RHF). Produced pellets were assessed for physical and metallurgical properties. Improvement in drying and preheating temperature simultaneously helped in mitigating fired pellets’ property deterioration. Drying at 300 °C and preheating at 750 °C helped in the maximum removal of matrix LOI from the pellets before firing and enabled the production of pellets of desired properties. Laboratory scale findings successfully implemented at existing 4.2 MTPA capacity pellet plant of JSW Steel Ltd. Vijayanagar and high LOI iron ores (IOs) utilised which resulted in reduction of average monthly pellet fines generation by ~2 wt. %.

Jun 4, 2022

By Sidney M. Cohen

This paper describes an economical method of upgrading a clay deposit using conventional separation processes into a suitable cement plant feed. The natural size difference of clay and silica in the clay deposit is utilized in the dry air classification device. A case study in which the raw material from a clay deposit is converted into a portland cement plant feed is presented.

Jan 1, 1983

By Robert W. Miller

There are many problems faced by ventilation engineers in deep underground mining operations, not the least of which is controlling miner exposure to radon gas and its daughter products. Radon gas is commonly found in uranium mining operations, but may also be present in other deep metal mines. For example, tin mines in England, iron ore mines in Sweden, gold mines in South Africa, and molybdenum mines in the U. S. have potential radon exposures. This is because uranium and accompanying radium ore are ubiquitous to the earth's crust albeit at low levels. The fact that the activity represented by one WL can be caused by a relatively low concentration of radon gas increases the difficulty of control. Since the source of the radon gas is usually widespread throughout a mine, local exhaust ventilation is not a viable control schema. The technique used to control exposure is then dilution ventilation and, in fact, huge amounts of air must be moved in order to reduce potential exposures to an acceptable level. An interesting comparison can be made of ventilation rates in different types of mines. It is estimated in modern coal mines, which are generally acknowledged to have high rates of ventilation, that about eleven tons of air are moved for each ton of ore mined. A typical operating uranium mine may have ventilation flows of 14-15 tons per ton of ore mined. This provides an idea of the scope and importance of ventilation in modern mining operations where radon is a hazard. Further pressure is put on ventilation engineers by the steady downward trend in exposure limits set by national and international standard setting agencies. Much of this tendency toward lowered standards is based upon longitudinal mortality studies of miner populations. Another important factor is the limited number of experienced miners available in the labor pool. For optimum production, it is important to have as many experienced miners underground in each shift as possible. However, the average daily exposure in a U. S. mine must be less than .3 WL to permit the miner to work underground for a full year. The ventilation system then must provide enough uncontaminated air to maintain the WL below the .3 TTL level to maximize production efficiency and minimize personnel turnover and the problems associated with it. Ultimately, the goal of the ventilation engineer and health physicist is to protect the working miner from harmful exposures based upon currently acceptable standards. U. S. Federal regulations require that in uranium mines all active work sites must be monitored every two weeks if they measure above .1 WL. Areas that have .3 WL ratios or higher must be monitored on a weekly basis until five consecutive weekly samples show the level has dropped below .3 WL. Also, exposure records must be kept for all individuals exposed to levels exceeding .3 WL. These requirements provide a strong economic incentive to have a ventilation system that minimizes exposure of any personnel. A good ventilation system requires careful planning, operation and backup in order to fulfill its mission of providing adequate clean air. Its proper operation also requires coordination with production personnel so it can be adapted as new areas in the mine open up and old areas are sealed off. The ultimate indicator of ventilation efficiency to control radon daughter exposure is, of course, monitoring working levels. Historically, this has been done using the Kusnetz, Tsivoglou, and Rolle's methods, among others. These methods all require cumbersome equipment and tedious calculations to obtain the measurements that results in WL. More important, however, they require a significant time lag between sampling and counting, typically 40-90 minutes. This time lag is, in fact, what can cause significant economic losses due to unnecessary downtime as well as high WL exposures. In a typical mining situation, a sampling technician using the Kusnetz method takes a sample, moves to the next location and takes another sample and so on. Forty to ninety minutes after the first sample, the technician will stop, run the activity count on the filter and calculate the WL. The technician may be one-half mile away or several levels removed from where the first sample was taken when it is counted. If the WL ratio is high the technician must then backtrack to the sample position. There are then two options. If the sample area is a working stage, it can be shut down or a second sample can be taken. If the first alternative is chosen; i.e., shutdown and correction of the ventilation, then another sample must be taken, followed by a forty minute wait for results. If the ventilation adjustment didn't correct the problem, then the whole process must be repeated with a minimum of forty-five minutes per sample cycle when using the Kusnetz method. It has been estimated from operating uranium mines that the cost per hour for downtime on a production slope is about $1,50O/hour. The time lag between sampling and resultant data can be very costly. If the second alternative is chosen to verify the first reading, the miners may be unnecessarily exposed to high levels while waiting for the result. Clearly, such a sampling system can be markedly improved by eliminating the excessive time lag between sampling and analysis.

Jan 1, 1981

By D. M. Avant, S. M. Pickering

A variety of grades of very white muscovite mica are now being produced from sedimentary sands and clays in Central Georgia. The mica is naturally concentrated near the base of the lens-shaped kaolin deposits and also disseminated in associated quartz sands. The same weathering and bacterial alteration processes which have transformed the kaolins from dark organic muds to white pigment-grade industrial clays have also removed discoloring iron from the micas and developed unusually white muscovite. Further, chemical alteration has removed some potassium from the muscovite atomic structure, resulting in an easily delaminated mica which can be cleaved to unusually fine, high bulking, high aspect ratio products. The peculiar alteration history of these sedimentary micas enables production of some of the whitest, finest particle size, and thinnest aspect ratio muscovite mica products on the world market today. Raw mica feed is obtained from kaolin and sand processing by-products, and also from beneath the useful base of abandoned kaolin mines. The processed ultrafine and filler grade muscovite mica products are used for paint, plastics, cosmetics, mold release, thermal and electrical insulation, epoxy, and dry wall joint cement markets.

Jan 1, 2002

By Ahmet Unal

Inexpensive and effective means of delivering courses to mining engineers who live at remote and scattered locations remains to be a challenging issue. Computer-based instructorless but interactive multimedia delivery is a good substitute to traditional short courses and one-way broadcasts. Such a system, enhanced with a wide area network, is an inexpensive alternative to two-way broadcasts and even to a traditional university. Course material can either be delivered on compact disks (CDs) or on-line from the host servers over the phone lines using a personal computer and a modem. Although technically not feasible using ordinary telephone service lines at the present time without further modification, advances in this field indicate that this up and coming medium may dominate the competition in the future. This paper investigates the present and the future of this technology and discusses the experiences gained in creating and disseminating a prototype multimedia CD which was created at the Rock Mechanics and Explosives Research Institute of the University of Missouri-Rolla to teach a portion of a course in Ground Control. The hardware and software used in creating the audio, 3-0 graphics, animation dips, video clips, and movies are listed. The structure of the program and the way how interactivity was achieved is explained in detail.

Jan 1, 1996

After several years of laboratory and field evaluations, it has been established that each frother has its own unique relationship among bubble size reduction, gas hold-up increase, froth stabilization and frother concentration. It has been shown that a frother?s hydrodynamic properties can be characterized using the relationship between the froth zone property froth height and the pulp zone property gas hold-up. The relationship is established in a bubble column run at a given air rate over a range of frother concentration. The use of relationships in frother selection and plant diagnostics is illustrated in a series of plant case studies.

Jan 1, 2009

Those involved in the mining and minerals industry really are an optimistic bunch. Faced with an economic downturn that has spread across the globe ? one, some say, that crept up on everyone ? mining professionals remain hopeful that the industry will return. An example of that optimism is the attendance at two of the industry?s key conferences and exhibitions. In February, more than 4,200 people attended the SME Annual Meeting and Exhibit in Denver, CO. And a week later, in Toronto, Ontario, more than 18,000 were on hand for the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada?s (PDAC) meeting. Both are respectable numbers and run contrary to meeting attendance figures during previous downturns when attendance and the numbers of exhibitors fell off significantly. Like other downturns, this most recent one has resulted in massive layoffs, curtailments of production and outright closures. Exploration has been hard hit and many junior mining and exploration companies will either disappear or be swallowed up by others. Gold is its usual self The PDAC generally attracts the gold mining and exploration sectors. So that might explain some of the optimism at the meeting. Unlike base metals and construction materials, gold, not surprisingly, is doing well. And most of the companies in the Investors Exchange at PDAC were involved with gold. While the balance sheets for most base metals companies look bad, gold companies appear to be not as hard hit. Gold is doing what it usually does during a downturn ? act as a safe haven while the value of other assets collapse worldwide. Governments around the world are preparing to pour trillions of dollars in an attempt to resuscitate their economies. This will likely lead to inflation, some experts at the PDAC convention said, which will be good for gold. And gold mining companies are also benefiting from lower production costs. The result is that some gold watchers believe gold could reach $64/g ($2,000/oz) at some point.

Jan 1, 2009

By L. R. Stoiser

The mineral resource potential of the Los Bronces deposit was successfully evaluated by an intense, coordinated program over a 37-month period (April 1978-May 1981) as part of an economic feasibility study. The program included more than 120 km of core drilling, 63 km of access road construction under adverse topographic and climatic conditions, detailed geological mapping, plus other related activities. This Tertiary-age copper-molybdenum deposit is composed of an earlier mineralized porphyry-type body intruded in part by a large complex of mineralized hydrothermal breccia pipes. Both intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks are present. Erosion, oxidation, leaching, and supergene enrichment of copper have resulted in a deposit now exposed at the surface that contains more than 368 Mt grading about 1% copper equivalent as sulfides.

Jan 1, 1982

By S. J. Jung

The stability of underground openings for deep mines is critical, since incorrect orientation or geometry of shaft, stope, and accessways often results in the failure of openings due to high stress concentrations. Current state-of-the-art procedures for the design of underground openings are largely based on rules of thumb, experience, and trial and error. Rules of thumb are invariably based on the past experience of the designer and may not remain optimal as the depth and complexity of mine workings increase. Often, as conditions change, and as the interaction between geology, in-situ stress conditions, and mine openings grows more complex, the cost of maintaining structural integrity becomes prohibitive. Existing design procedures for deep mines are rapidly becoming inadequate as mines are worked at greater depths. For example, in the Coeur d' Alene Mining District, several million dollars are spent for inspection, repair, and maintenance on a regular schedule, largely as a result of inadequate design. In these types of situations, it is of critical importance that a new design methodology be developed for the layout and design of underground openings.

Jan 1, 1994

By Franz Deix, Bernd Braun

A sensitive portion of Section U 6/3 of the Vienna, Austria subway system required construction of two single-track tunnels under a telecommunications facility, where strict ground settlement limitations had been set. Local geology, hydrology, and site constraints led to the decision to use the New Austrian Tunneling Method (NATM) supplemented by compressed air and partial dewatering. In addition, ground freezing was used, as the tunnel would pass through alluvial layers beneath the facility, with a cover of as little as 1.5 m. Laboratory testing and two in situ test fields were used to collect frozen soil data so that the freezing scheme ensured minimal heaving magnitude.

Jan 1, 1987

By Frank Matter

The production of ultrafine slurries and powders is possible with small media made out of Si02, A1203, Fe203, Zr03 or other raw materials due to the fact that since approximately 12 years from now, entirely new machines have been developed which allow to use this small media for the production of ultrafine pigments. Basically we distinguish between two grinding methods which are: A.) Dry Grinding with Air Classification: This method is used for more than fifty years but only since four years this technology is realized with small grinding media. Many problems like cooling, abrasion, control of the media flow, separation media from product, grinding media recycling etc. had to be resolved before it was possible to get in full production with this new system. Hereafter a flow-sheet of such a TRZK mill with an air classifier especially designed to produce end products with a top size between 2,5 and 3,0 micron and with an average particle size between 0,3 and 0,5 micron.

Jan 1, 1983

By Adam H. Zimmerman

Introduction Noranda, like similar businesses, is suffering the pain of previously unheard of currency relationships, a cost structure built in better days, and conditions of gross oversupply possible in almost any commodity. Indeed, it does seem like the worst of all possible worlds is out there before us. To understand a Canadian natural resource company, you must know how the country is organized. So far as natural resources are concerned, Canada is not Canada. Canada is 10 provinces and each own the resources situated therein. Thus, the conditions of extraction, exploitation, and operation are all set by the province, while the conditions of trade and currency are set by the Federal government. This means that what may be the rule in Newfoundland may not be the rule in Manitoba or British Columbia. The second thing is that the Canadian currency has been a satellite of the US dollar for a long time. This means that we hold the unenviable and unjustified position of being the country with the second strongest currency in the world. What this has meant to us is what it has meant to an American operator. Since 1980, a pound of copper fetches 214% more for a Chilean than it does for us and a pound of zinc 115% more for a Belgian. From an American point of view, Canada is favored because its dollar is valued at 25% to 30% less than the U.S. However, because of industrial indiscretions in years past, Canada has a locked in labor cost disadvantage that is very hard to cope with. Canada has a unique situation with its labor unions. Many of the unions are, or have been, internationals and therefore gained undue strength in early days. Canada has a third political party of socialist persuasion. It is entirely funded by dues from laor union members. Thus, we have a politicized workforce. And finally, we have a public service that has the right to strike. This had made the public service unions by far the strongest now in Canada. What this means to the mining industry is that there is somebody out there blazing the trail. The unrelenting power of these public service unions probably creates a climate more conducive to excessive wage settlements in industry than would otherwise be the case. Study, Work, and Pray So what do we do when times get tough? In simple terms, we study a lot, we work harder, and we pray a great deal. We study a lot in terms of learning hitherto unknown strengths and weaknesses of our products, processes, and operations. We work hard in the sense that we do everything possible to improve our productivity. And we pray a lot because, so far, anything else we have done has not been enough. Some years ago, Noranda recognized that its principal base and precious metal operations were diminishing. To provide for the future, we should branch out into other resource type operations. These might be countercyclical and also perhaps a little more permanent. For this reason, Noranda entered the potash, aluminum, and forest products businesses. This, of course, was a 'brilliant' strategy that was much applauded in its early days. We built an excellent potash mine, the smallest inte-

Jan 6, 1985

By D. Duvris

The main objective of this work was to quantitatively investigate exhaust emission levels relative to maintenance (service) intervals during the operation of diesel-powered equipment at an underground bauxite mine in Greece. Such emissions depend on a great number of parameters, including the type of engine (technology) and its tuning, the type of work performed (as related to the engine workload), the suggested maintenance intervals, the altitude, the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere in the underground mine, the properties of the fuel and the operator's training and experience levels. The necessary ventilation quantities were calculated based on exhaust gas-concentration measurements and site-specific relationships between pollutants and adjusted air-quality indices. Diagrams comparing the necessary and recommended airflow for several equipment groups, featuring two engine types and different maintenance intervals, are presented.

Jan 1, 2000

By Charles V. Riley

While the late 1960's are known as the years of the public recognition of impending environmental crises, the 1970's will be known as the decade of public concern for improving the quality of that environment. One of the present major environmental concerns is the temporary disturbance resulting from coal surface or open cast mining. To realize that this concern will continue in the future, one need only observe the daily news media. Increasing energy demands in the U.S., a doubling of electrical power consumption each decade during the present century, and the projected needs for the remainder of the century are indica¬tions that coal surface mining as a major extractive industry will continue. Coal and lignite, prime energy resources and extremely abundant in these United States, in the face of seemingly limited gas, oil and uranium reserves, are both destined for expanded future use. Presently some extremely serious techno-logical and environmental problems are associated with the develop¬ment and use of nuclear power. It is true that the extraction and use of coal as an energy fuel poses disruptive problems for the environment, but the solutions to many of the problems are known or can be solved within a reasonable time framework. Certainly our national well-being and continued survival, as a free nation within the world community, automatically dictate the continued use of the coal resource for energy. Concurrently, those engaged in coal surface mining, with the temporary disturbance of the land and water resources, must also realistically conclude that public concern for maintaining and improving the quality of the environment will not diminish. Although as ecological, economic, social and aesthetic elements

Jan 1, 1972

By C. Arthur Lefler

The hydrometallurgical processes for recovery of gold and silver in use at Round Mountain, Nevada and the practical aspects of the operation are discussed. Included are heap leaching by cyanidation, upgrading of solutions by adsorption of values on activated carbon and desorption (stripping) for electrowinning and subsequent refining steps to produce dore metal.

Jan 1, 1981

By Donald R. Simon

Money... not many subjects are as personal or as emotional. Hessiod said it well in 700 B.C. "Money is life to us wretched mortals". Are you getting paid enough? Does your company reward its top people? Does coal or copper pay more? Production or engineering? How is the synfuels industry going to influence mining salaries? Do high salaries attract and retain the best people? Do modern compensation systems ensure fairness or destroy entrepreneurial spirit? With our tax system and high standard of living why are we so salary conscious? Salary is not only important for what it can purchase but it is also a yardstick, measuring how well we are doing. We all need money to pay the bills and maintain our standard-of-living, but once we reach a certain point the psychological ramifications become more important than the purely practical side. Even necessary payments like the mortgage and the car are a function of our egos. Are our choices of cars and homes based on simple transportation and shelter?

Jan 1, 1980

By J. Wagner, P. Eger

Although lifetime estimates for sulfate reduction based on total substrate carbon typically range from 20 to 30 years, field and laboratory experiments showed that rates of sulfate reduction decreased over time as readily available organic material was consumed. When the rate of acid input exceeded the rate of sulfate reduction, alkalinity was removed from the substrate, pH decreased and metals increased. Output pH increased from 4 to over 6 after the system was shut down for several weeks and the rate of acid input was reduced. Successful long term treatment requires a design based on the input pH and the long-term organic decomposition rate.

Jan 1, 2001

By Jürg Schlumpf

Concrete is one of the decisive construction materials, also for the AlpTransit Gotthard Tunnel. The client has many requirements, and many are the solution possibilities that concrete systems can offer. Cement producers and concrete admixture manufacturers have been challenged to design and test jointly concrete systems for cast and sprayed concrete. The testing operation followed the scenario laid out by the Gotthard AlpTransit Project management?s instructions ?Testing system for concrete mixes.? Various supplier teams have applied for the concrete systems for sections Amsteg/Erstfeld, section Sedrun and/or sections Bodio/Faido and have also followed through with the tests. As was to be expected, the rate of failed mixes matched the level of the requirements. Thanks to this system, it was nevertheless possible to test complete concrete systems for all sections and to get them approved. The joint ventures tendering for the contracts were allowed to include only approved mix designs in their bids. Workability and durability are of paramount importance for cast and sprayed concrete mixes. Durability is influenced by the chosen mix design where binder concept and well-defined water content, i.e., impermeability, are determinant. Aggregates for AlpTransit are to be considered as given. The concrete mix design also determines workability. Because ambient conditions and also requirements with respect to workability are subjected to change, it is necessary that the mix designs include control measures. The choice and number of components for the concrete systems (cement, additives and admixtures) allow adaptation to changing conditions. For AlpTransit such adaptive measures must meet very strict requirements.

Jan 1, 2008