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By Filmer AO

In contrast to the '50s and '60s, the period of the '80s and '90s seems likely to have low growth in demand but much greater levels of technological change. In such a climate there will be pressure on costs, productivity will continue to rise and competitiveness will be closely associated with maintenance of the most effective technology. The penalties for inappropriate investments, whether short sighted or mistakenly based on a particular view of the future, will be greatly enhanced. Accordingly, there will be a need for significantly improved anticipation of technical change and thus for better planning. Study of the funding and direction of the world's R&D effort can provide a useful input to the planning processes within industries and individual firms. Such a study also suggests some insights into the characteristics of those countries which have achieved substantial growth and high standards of living over the past two decades. These characteristics may offer significant reminders for our own development. The particular implications for the Australian minerals industry include the need for direction that is sensitive to changing market requirements and customer practice. This is not simply "more of the same." In particular it appears essential for both basic and applied R&D to provide a sound basis for the purchase and ongoing development of the new technology required to achieve international Competitiveness.

Jan 1, 1986

By J Pan, T Chun, D Zhu, Z Guo, J M. Young, T C. Ooi

With the rapid development of the Chinese steel industry, the strong demand for iron ores has led to huge imports of various iron ores from all over the world. As a relatively new force in the iron ore world and an important raw material supplier, Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) has achieved an annualised production rate of 100 Mt of iron ore fines. Typical blends were designed to simulate sinter blends employed in Chinese steel mills, and to determine sintering properties and metallurgical performance of blends comprising FMG Rocket fines in pilot sinter pot. It is shown that the sinter of typical blends comprising 15 - 20 per cent rocket fines possesses excellent sintering properties and metallurgical performance. With Rocket fines substitution for competitor ores in a typical customer mill blend comprising fully imported fines, the sinter productivity and tumble index increased from 1.45 t/m2h and 62.0 per cent to 1.54 t/m2h and 64.0 per cent, respectively, while attaining similar reducibility index and reduction degradation index at lower solid fuel consumption.CITATION:Zhu, D, Guo, Z, Ooi, T C, Chun, T, Pan, J and Young, J M, 2013. Sintering and metallurgical performance of blends comprising Fortescue Metals Group rocket fines, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2013 , pp 519-524 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Aug 12, 2013

By Ralph C. Flow

In Cleveland County, North Carolina, 1 ½ miles south of Kings Mountain, Foote Mineral Co. operates an open pit for the production of spodumene, feldspar, mica and commercial stone. Spodumene concentrate is sent to Foote Mineral's Sunbright, Va., plant and to other customers. Exton, Pa. and New Johnsonville, Tenn., plants produce lithium com- pounds sold to the oil industry for multipurpose lithium-base greases, to the metal industry as welding flux, to the air conditioning market and to the glass industry. Ceramic-grade spodumene, feldspar, and mica concentrates go to other processing companies from the Kings Mountain plant. Waste amphibolite is delivered to a neighboring quarry operation. Geology and exploration of the deposit have been described by T. L. Kesler, Chief Geologist of Foote Mineral Co., in the September 1961 MINING ENGINEERING. Measured ore reserves as published at that time were 20.7 million tons. The ore deposit consists of a series of lithium-bearing pegmatites enclosed in amphibolite and mica schist wall rocks. The general strike of the pegmatites is northerly, and in the southern part of the pit, they dip slightly towards the west. The largest body being mined has a fairly uniform thickness of about 200 ft. Other pegmatites in the pit area range from 20 to 100 ft in thickness. Minerals in the pegmatites are 20% spodumene, 32% quartz, 6% muscovite, 41 % feldspar and 1 % trace minerals.

Jan 10, 1962

By H. G. Denkhaus

Comment on ?The evaluation of rock brittleness concept on rotary blast hole drills? in the Journal of SAIMM, vol 102. no. 1. pp. 61?66 Comment on ?Correlation of specific energy with rock brittleness concepts on rock cutting? in the Journal of SAIMM, vol 103. no. 3. pp. 163?171by R. Altindag Foreword Some thirty years ago it was almost customary that articles in South African technical and scientific journals were followed up by discussions in which the reader(s) expressed criticism and/or added to the information contained in the article. This custom has obviously died out, be it that the articles are nowadays of such a high standard that nothing can be added or be it that the receivers of the Journal suffer from an information inflation and do not read the articles anymore. I now have the temerity to offer a discussion to an article that recently appeared in the journal, namely ?The evaluation of rock brittleness concept on rotary blast hole drills? by R. Altindag (J.S. Afr. Inst. Min. Metall., vol, 102(2002), pp. 61?66.

Jan 1, 2003

By A. K. Dikshit, H. R. Murty, S. K. Gupta

This paper deals with the development of environment performance indicators (EPIs) for the steel industry. Environmental performance has become one of the key measures of business success. Emergence of continuing pressure from customers, employees, government and NGOs for environmental performance evaluation (EPE) of industries has led to evolve a framework for the development of sector specific environmental performance indicators. EPIs can be used by steel industry for assessing the continual improvement in environmental perfromance, selecting various eco-friendly options, benchmarking, environmental reporting, technology assessment and dissemination, evaluating environmental impacts and building EPIs based environmental management systems. The objective of this paper is to develop EPIs for steel industry and provide framework for development of environmental performance indicators based environmental management system and its integration with the overall management system. An indepth discussion has been presented concerning identification of EPIs, eavaluation of significance of EPIs, their prioritization and its integration with Environmental Management Systems. A new methodology has been proposed for implementing EPIs based environmental management systems . The material presented is derived in part from PhD studies of Rajesh Kumar Singh.

Jan 1, 2005

By K. V. Konigsmann

"Mattagami Lake Mines Ltd operate a zinc-copper mine with an annual output of about 200,000 tons of zinc and 30,000 tons of copper concentrates. Zinc concentrates arc shipped to a company owned smelter in Valleyfield (a distance of 690 miles), for Export to Quebec City and also to Josephtown, Pennsylvania (1,060 miles, Figure 1.)The protection of concentrates in open gondola rail shipments has been a matter of concern since operations commenced. Considerable financial losses did occur at times because of wind erosion. Operating difficulties were also encountered by customers because of excessive moisture accummulation in the concentrates. Test shipments made in 1969 established the magnitude of losses in open cars. The results and subsequent investigations at our mines and elsewhere confirmed that load protection is an economic necessity.Many types of covers were experimented with, more or less successfully. In 1972 we agreed on a joint program with Dupont of Canada Limited. A new type of cover was developed by early 1973. It has been in use since, undergoing several improvements as experience accumulates."

Jan 1, 1975

By Timothy J. Haddon

For the mining industry in general and gold mining in particular, the past few years have been difficult. Economic conditions, coupled with growing regulatory restrictions, have led to increasingly important reasons for managing assets wisely. From a public company perspective, such asset management makes sense because it ultimately provides for an increase in shareholder wealth, and that is why we are in business. Regardless of whether a company is public or not, assets must be managed effectively to remain a player in today's competitive environment. So, as the chief executive officer of a gold mining company, how do we manage our assets to ensure that we are satisfying our obligations to our customer-the Amax Gold shareholder? The gold industry has been under siege. We have just completed the third year with average prices below $12.85/ g ($400/oz). When finding, and/or acquisition costs and development costs to operating costs are added, there isn't much of a profit margin left. What this environment provides, however, is opportunities for growth. In the gold business, you either grow or you die. Today, most North American gold producers have, at most, a 10-year mine life. We are all scrambling to add reserves so we do not become extinct. As prices remain low, opportunities abound for increasing diminishing reserves. This is the time for the opportunistic company to take advantage of market conditions and that is precisely what Amax Gold has done. There are six components to running a successful gold business: • finding reserves through exploration, acquisition or joint venture, • financing the project, • permitting and constructing the project, • operating the project, • cash management and • communication.

Jan 1, 1992

By Ronald I. Fuller

Core Laboratories, a division of Western Atlas International, maintains laboratories in all energy-producing areas of the United States, as well as in many foreign countries. Central to laboratory operations has been the incorporation of computers and computer software. Core has developed a mu1tiuser Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) , which is currently installed in numerous company sites in the U.S., and is now undergoing installation in Canada. In addition, Core has provided custom soft ware to contract laboratories which Core operates on behalf of mining firms. The software development was done under the direction of the author in Denver, Colorado, and Casper, Wyoming. The intent of this paper is to pass some of the practical experience gained by our efforts on to those who wish to utilize computers more fully in the laboratory setting. The product of analytical laboratories is numbers. Nothing else comes from our work. We deal in information about samples. It is then reasonable to assume that the computer would be central to a laboratory operation. The hard part is to initially define what kind of computer the lab operation needs. The choices today can be very complex, and almost every hardware salesman is full of bad advice. Even the people in your own information services department may hold divided opinions. Since the advent of the personal computer, we have lived with a polarized data processing community. The PC boys consider their machines equal to any challenge, while the "save the mainframe" crowd view the PCs as limited toys that are only good for the things that clutter up a real computer. Management tends to lean toward whatever costs the least.

Jan 1, 1989

By R. B. Gilmore

It has been the custom of the Railroad Commission of Texas to hold hearings each month with respect to existence and imminence of waste of oil and gas in Texas and its prevention, and to issue orders restricting the production of oil to the reasonable market demands and allocating production to the various fields in Texas. The practice of designating the actual days during the month on which wells are to be shut down was discontinued in the order for November 1942, and orders issued thereafter contain only the number of shut-in and producing days for the month. Orders issued by the Railroad Commission are divided into two main subdivisions, the first a general shutdown order of all oil wells in the various fields in Texas, and second, the exception of certain fields to this general order. Table I shows the producing days for all of the fields in Texas for 1944 under the first of these classifications : The fields that have producing schedules varying from the general order may be divided roughly into three subdivisions, as follows: Table 2 shows the producing days for certain fields that were prorated as a group throughout 1944. Other fields which were occasionally included with this group were also prorated under the general order and by special orders. The producing days for these irregular fields are shown in Table 4. In Table 3 are listed fields that were exempted from any shutdown days during December 1944, the majority retaining this exception throughout 1944. Certain fields included in the general order were added to this group on the first day of the month shown.

Jan 1, 1945

By D. L. Schenk

The Navajo Mine is exclusively a multiple-seam surface coal mine located in the northwest comer of New Mexico. The property is situated entirely on the Navajo Indian Reservation. It is owned and operated by the Broken Hill Propriety Co. Ltd., of Melbourne, Australia. The mine began production in January 1963 with a long-term fuel supply agreement with the Four Corners power plant. The 2175 MW nominal generating capacity of the Four Corners powerplant consumes 7.2 Mt to 7.7 Mt/a (8 million to 8.5 million stpy) of coal. The Navajo Mine has estimated reserves totaling 1 Gt (1. I billion st) of strip minable coal. Only about one-third of that total is presently committed to the generating station. As development continued over the years, mining operations advanced into more complex geologic areas to satisfy the utility's demand for coal. To optimize the committed reserve and provide competitively priced coal to the customer, the Navajo Mine began developing a new pit in June 1986. The Dixon Pit boxcut development was completed in April 1987. About 6 hm3 (7.9 million cu yd) were stripped, uncovering 929 kt (1 million st) of coal. Strip ratio was 7.74:1 including 36.8% rehandle of prime yardage. This case study of the fourth production cut highlights a variety of dragline stripping techniques including highwall bench (overburden) side cast, intermediate highwall bench (parting-interburden) side cast and spoilside bench (partings-interburden) stripping methods. The Dixon Pit offers considerable challenges in the surface recovery of up to seven seams of coal within the 1432 m (4700 ft) of total pit length.

Jan 1, 1990

By R. C. Canby

The American water-jacket furnace is the outgrowth of lead-smelting at Eureka, Nev., subsequently developed in Utah and Colorado. Early smelting in Virginia, New England, or the Missouri-Kansas-Illinois district seems to have had no direct influence in the development of this furnace. First Decade, 1870 to 1880. In 1870, the draft-furnace was used in Nevada, coincidentally with the first crude sandstone blast furnaces, which were 2 or 3 ft. sq., with Sturtevant fans or small Roots blowers, and sheet-iron or water-cooled tuyeres. Stetefeldt, Liebenau, Albert Arents, and 0. H. Hahn mere the early metallurgical leaders. Arents's siphon-tap and the re-establishment of the furnace-bosh mere the most important improvements of the decade. Second Decade, 1880 to 1890. At first there were ,many small local plants; but by the time Eureka had reached its maximum production of lead-ore, two custom works (the Eureka and the Richmond) were treating all the ore, the miners having learned the economy of smelting at larger and well-constructed plants. In the early eighties, most of the features of modern practice were already discernible at Salt Lake, Leadville, Denver, and Pueblo. The small square sandstone furnaces had been replaced by rectangular water-jacket furnaces, mostly 36 in. wide, and from 60 to 80 in. long at the tuyeres, which entered between cast-iron water-jackets. Subsequently, Franz Casin, at the Holden works, Denver, put the tuyeres in the middle of the jackets, and many other improvements were made by him and others, so that the cast-iron jacket became the favorite, until the possibility of

Jan 1, 1913

By E. Gybbon Spilsbury

It is not my purpose in this paper to describe all the different contrivances which have been devised, during the last quarter of a century, for the purpose of Iessening the expense of mining and tunnelling operations; I wish merely to call your attention to the crying want of the Western miners for some cheap and effective machine, capable of economizing on the heavy item of hand-drilling, and to enumerate a few of the latest improvements which have been made in machines of this class. This necessity for the introduction of some kind of labor-saving machinery in mining, especially in the West, begins to make itself felt more imperatively every day. No branch of industry has remained so conservative to the old customs and systems of working, as has mining; and yet no branch is so entirely dependent on economical working for a successful issue; and in very few is the proportion of cost of hand-labor to profits obtained so preponderantly heavy. Perhaps the chief reason for this seeming apathy towards progress in this direction arises from the fact that nearly all mining operations, especially in this country, are carried on in regions more or less remote from the great centres of civilization, thereby rendering the carriage and erection of machinery extremely difficult and expensive. Another reason, however, exists in the fact that a large number of men in charge of mining operations are greatly prejudiced against the introduction of machinery underground, from the idea that it cannot be made to adapt itself to the various positions and

By Huayang Luo, Hui Li, Wei Zhou, Gang Chen, Scott Huang

The beach and offshore gold resources demonstrated at Nome, Alaska are some of the richest found in Alaska. They contain potentially significant resources that may be exploited in the future. Several companies have contributed to the exploration and reserve estimation in Nome offshore gold deposits. More than 3,000 holes were drilled and over 10,000 offshore samples were analyzed in the Nome offshore areas of approximately 40 km2. Those 3,000 plus drill hole logs were converted into digital formats comparable with ArcGIS software. Considerable amounts of mineral resources data were processed and visualized using ArcGIS 8.3 and its geostatistic, 3D analysis, and spatial analysis components. In this study, based on the data processing and visualization results of ArcGIS, a user-friendly website for mineral resource management and utilization is developed using ArcIMS 4.0.1. ArcIMS is a GIS solution to build and deliver maps, data, and tools over the Internet. The Nome offshore mineral resources website presents the geostatistic and GIS analysis information. This site allows clients to access the information and perform ArcGIS analysis, such as interactive data query, and map layers display of the gold resource distribution, average grade, gold reserve, and relative mineral resource estimation via remote computers. With linkage to other related mining web sites, this web site allows users to search for related publications and more flexibly manage the information. A few other appropriate customized tools are also being developed to assist interactions between the server and clients for data analysis and management.

Jan 1, 2005

By C. A. Lemke

THE ores now milled at the Midvale concentrator of the United States Smelting, Refining & Mining Co. come mostly from ;the company's mine in the Bingham district, about 18 miles west of Midvale. Custom ores from this same district and from other western mining districts are also milled at times. The Bingham ores consist of galena, pyrite, chalcopyrite, and sphalerite in a gangue of quartz, quartzite, limestone, and porphyry. The percentage of chalcopyrite is small, usually about 0.5 per cent., while the galena, pyrite, and sphalerite combined constitute about 60 per cent. of the total ore. These three minerals vary considerably' in amount and, at times, all three are somewhat oxidized. The ores also contain gold and silver, the former being mostly in the pyrite while the latter is generally with the galena. The crystallization of the economic minerals varies from fairly coarse to extremely fine. The ores are carried to Midvale by the Bingham & Garfield and the Los Angeles & Salt Lake railroads or by the Denver h Rio Grande Western railroad, in 50-ton, steel, full dump cars. The milling problem is to recover the silver-bearing galena, the gold-bearing pyrite, and the chalcopyrite in a product suitable for the lead smelter and containing the least possible amount of gangue and sphalerite and then recover the sphalerite in a product suitable for a zinc smelter. The minerals are recovered partly by water concentration and partly by water concentration combined with electrostatic treatment.

Jan 9, 1925

By George A. Lamb

AMONG the main interesting developments in the coal market have been the changes that have taken place between the consumer groups. Important signs of these changes began to appear many years ago, but in a modest way, and were apparent only to the few fuel experts making broad statistical determinations. It is doubtful, however, that any of these experts appreciated the significance of their early findings, and perhaps none had the imagination to consider how extensive these changes might be eventually with respect to solid fuels sales and distribution. (Reference here will be principally to bituminous coal.) Railroad Fuel Major changes in coal use did become pronounced after World War II, and it did not take an expert to see what was taking place and how serious the impact was likely to be. First, was the case of the steam and diesel locomotives. The railroads had been considered the best coal customers; they were steady and large purchasers and usually paid a better price than most others. Railroad fuel provided the basic mine realization and it often was the source for operating cash during general market slumps. It was the outlet for 20 pct of the bituminous coal production, as much as 110 million tons in 1946.

Jan 2, 1957

The concept of optical basicity is now being widely applied to rationalize and predict the chemical properties of slags. It employs signals from a probe ion to indicate the "state" or relative "freeness" of the oxygen ions in the slag, and hence provides a fundamental measure of slag basicity. Values of the bulk optical basicity of a slag can either be measured spectroscopically in samples of transparent solid glassy slag, or calculated very simply and accurately from the chemical composition of the slag. The way in which these values vary in different systems are illustrated as isoptical basicity lines on ternary diagrams, and the patterns obtained are discussed. The difficulties associated with assigning optical basicities to the oxides of transition elements are also reviewed briefly. It has been demonstrated that these bulk values can be used as the basis of a flux control model for steelmaking to achieve end-point chemistries much more reliably. Furthermore, several correlations have been established which allow the prediction of the slag-metal distribution of various solute elements. This approach has been used to predict the phosphorus distribution at the end of steelmaking, and also to custom design fluxes for the ladle and tundish to aid in the control of residual elements in the steel such as suphur, hydrogen and nitrogen.

Jan 1, 1990

By Timo Niitti, Sami Grönstrand

n today's marketplace with high metals prices, many operations are faced with the challenge of improving recovery and at the same time maximizing availability. New operations under feasibility studies have the same requirements, with the additional need for ever higher capacities. Economies of scale have proved a vital competitive advantage in the game of ore dressing. Flotation is the most widely used method for extracting valuable minerals from ore - despite its mature age of 100 years. Customer demand has driven the development to increasing cell sizes, and in most cases, this has brought the advantages of both lower capital expenditure and lower operational and maintenance cost. The challenge of scale up, however, is to meet the metallurgical performance requirements in the larger volumes. The paper outlines recent trends and developments in flotation technology, and presents new solutions designed to address the needs for increased capacities as well as improved performance. Whether the goal is to improve existing operations or to scale up new equipment, computer aided tools are playing a key role in shortening the development cycle and reducing costly trial-and-error tests in full scale. Using the new tools and validation thereof will be outlined, as well as the development principles behind the new solutions. Plant results and experiences with the new developments are presented and discussed in several cases around the world.

Jan 1, 2007

By C R. Sundberg

Despite nearly a half-century of continuous production, the low-grade iron ore (taconite) deposits of North America remain economically competitive sources of raw materials for the domestic steel industry. The continued viability of these mature integrated mining-concentrationagglomeration complexes requires highly efficient utilisation of assets, especially the mineral resource. At Cleveland-CliffsÆ five North American managed operations, enhanced ore characterisation techniques are playing a critical role in their continued success. Due to the low-grade nature and complex mineralogical composition of these deposits, ore characterisation cannot solely rely on assay grades. Historically, taconite ore characterisation has augmented assay grades with bench-scale concentration tests to quantify recoverable mineral. The economic necessity for improvements in mill efficiencies and final product quality has mandated significantly greater knowledge of ore-related impacts. Cliffs Technology Center has met this challenge by developing a variety of novel iron ore characterisation techniques. The applications developed include both in situ and laboratory procedures, plus unconventional data integration methods uniquely suited for these deposits. This paper details the evolution of these novel ore characterisation techniques and their application to each phase of the operation: mining-concentrating-and pelletising. The improved ore characterisation techniques have contributed to successes at individual Cleveland-Cliffs managed operations including mineral recoveries exceeding 95 per cent and productivity increases exceeding ten per cent while consistently achieving customer product quality objectives.

Jan 1, 2002

By Peter Fischer

Between 45,000 and 50,000 claims for subsidence are submitted each year to the German hard coal industry. In order to improve the service to claimants a quality management was established in 2005. This paper describes the process now used for handling these claims. A quality check has also been carried out by way of a customer survey, which was performed by an independent research agency. The results of the survey are presented in this paper. In Germany, research into mining subsidence mainly involves the prediction of ground movements caused by deep mining operations. Special areas of research are subsidence reducing aspects of the extraction panel planning, especially from the point of view of mining dynamics, as well as securing and restoration measures. This work seeks to prevent or minimize mining-induced damages close to the surface, for instance, buildings or infrastructure installations (such as pipelines), or underground mine openings (e.g. shafts). Roof collapses and surface fractures caused by shallow mine workings of an earlier era currently constitute a special area of investigation.

Jan 1, 2006

By D. Kennis

"Union Miniere Precious Metal's (UMPM's) Hoboken Business Unit has a long tradition in complex Pb-Cu metallurgy, focussing on the recovery of precious metals from various types of secondary and recyclable materials. Although the old flow sheet, based on a traditional sinter plant, blast furnace, and lead refinery process was a very complete flow-sheet with the capability of dealing with almost every impurity, the weaknesses became clear:1. old and costly technology,2. too many unit operations,3. too much internal recycling, and4. dependency on concentrates for the sintering process.To maintain the competitiveness of the Hoboken Business Unit, the project ""Smelter 2000"" was born. This project represents a breakthrough in metallurgical processes and technology. A modem smelting technology was chosen together with the development of a new process. A lead-copper process combining lead slag and blister copper production, carried out in an ISASMEL T vessel, was the key to simplifying the Hoboken flowsheet. ISASMEL T smelting technology was chosen for its flexibility towards feed characteristics and process parameters.The new smelter was commissioned at the end of 1997. Although there were a lot of problems due to the high degree of technical innovations in the process, the new smelter came to design capacity within 1 year after start-up. During this period, however, UMPM had, a very difficult time because of the extreme clear-cut nature of going from the old to the new flowsheet.After two and a half years of operation, the new flowsheet has proven to fit with the strategy of UMPM, focussing on treating secondary Pb-Cu materials and a broad range of recyclable feeds such as electronic scrap (E-scrap) and catalysts. Together with the new Precious Metals Plant, efficient logistics, recognised world class sampling practices and a customer-focussed commercial organisation, UMPM Hoboken can definitely be considered reborn."

Jan 1, 2000