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By Verya Nasri, Agustin Rey

Once completed, the Montreal Réseau Express Métropolitain (REM) will be the fourth largest automated transportation system in the world. The REM represents construction costs of approximately 7.0 billion Canadian dollars. The project consists of 67 km of twin tracks over four branches connected to downtown Montreal. The project includes 26 stations with 3 underground stations in downtown Montreal. One of the underground stations was built using the NATM method with thin permanent shotcrete initial and final liners separated by a sprayed on waterproofing membrane. The 2 other underground stations were built with the cut and cover approach including one using permanent secant pile wall with permanent walers and struts as the support of excavation and the final perimeter wall of the station. The project also includes the rehabilitation and enlargement of the Mont Royal Tunnel. This 100-year-old double track tunnel is about 5 km long. The REM also consists of 3.6 km new TBM tunnel connecting downtown to the Montreal International Airport through saturated soft ground and karstic rock. By the time of RETC, the construction of REM underground structures will be completed. This paper presents the design and construction aspects of the underground structures of this mega project.

Jun 13, 2023

The Bureau of Mines is responsible for a broad spectrum of programs for meeting the diverse and changing mineral resource needs of the Nation. These programs are managed by the Director and two Deputy Directors, who formulate general policy and program direction from the Washington, D.C., headquarters. A senior advisory staff, consisting of the Chief Staff Officer, Chief Scientist, and Chief Mining Engineer, provides advice and consultation to the Director on a wide range of scientific and technical matters and acts on behalf of the Director to maintain liaisons with other government agencies, mineral industries, and professional societies. Bureau program activities are classified into two major functions: (1) Developing new and improved technology that will make the production and processing of minerals more efficient, safer and more healthful for mineral workers and the public, and more compatible with a quality environment.

Jan 1, 1980

By P. W. A. Mayer

"As the push toward the northern regions of Canada steadily increases to exploit the rich mineral reserves, interest is steadily rising in respect to accessibility and climatic conditions and the problems posed thereby. In twelve years of operation, the Iron Ore Company of Canada, and associated companies, have found, through advanced technology, ingenuity and, most of all. need, some of the answers to the running of a profitable year-round open-pit mining operation."

Jan 1, 1966

By Peter Werner

Technological advances in mine equipment and milling processes have enabled mining companies to exploit ever lower grades of ore. The result has been larger disturbances, greater volumes of waste, a complex web of infrastructure, and an overall trend towards mega-projects that can extend over several square kilometers. This explosive growth in a mining operation’s disturbance footprint provokes an obvious question: What’s it going to cost to reclaim all of this? At face value, this can be an enormous financial liability for a company, but since the timing of reclamation may be years in the future for many operations, these costs can be heavily discounted thereby limiting the burden on the corporate balance sheet. Nonetheless, mining companies are eager to remove these liabilities as quickly as possible, conversely, regulators want assurance reclamation will, in fact, occur. How might one bridge these competing interests? Navigating the practical and financial requirements of a post-closure landscape requires foresight, judgement and assumptions, however, companies who do not adequately plan for these future expenditures when there is no off-setting income stream will likely face some difficult decisions. Simple risk analysis tools and utilizing the time value of money can help bring some clarity to this end-of-mine life phase.

Feb 1, 2025

By P. Oyanader

"In 2001, the Catholic University of Chile undertook a maintenance benchmarking study of six open pit copper mines having mill capacities varying between 18,000 t/d and 156,000 t/d, and collectively responsible for 58% of Chilean copper production. This paper describes the methodology used to conduct the study, as well as the overall results. Key performance indices were selected to measure the effectiveness, efficiency, and development of the maintenance process. Using a balanced scorecard philosophy, these indicators were divided into client satisfaction, financial, internal process, and learning and growth indices.Maintenance was found, on average, to be responsible for 44% of mine production costs. Percentage planned maintenance of equipment fleets was found to be low by world standards, averaging 35%, 56%, and 44%, respectively, for blasthole drill, shovel, and haul truck fleets. Fleet availabilities were found to be significantly influenced by the percentage of planned maintenance achieved, while maintenance cost per equipment was found to decrease non-linearly with increases in percentage planned maintenance. Investment in technical training (including planned maintenance practice) was found to be low by global standards. The paper concludes that fleet availability and maintenance costs in Chilean open pit operations could be considerably improved by improving and/or developing maintenance planning standards, and investing in training personnel in planned maintenance techniques"

Jan 1, 2005

By S. G. Kumar

The performance of nickel based high temperature materials is directly related to their microstructure, which is controlled by the various processing steps. Nickel base alloys are melted and refined by a variety of processes that include Vacuum Induction Melting (VIM), Vacuum Arc Remelting (VAR) and Electroslag Remelting (ESR). The limitation of VIM is that the metallrefractory reactions lead to the disintegration of the crucible and hence contamination of the product due to macrosegregation. This macrosegregation is alleviated to some extent by controlling the solidification in VAR. The main attraction of ESR is its ability to produce a clean product by controlling the deleterious inclusions. In recent years Electron Beam Melting (EBM) is emerging as an alternative to the VIM, VAR and ESR. This paper reviews the current status of these processes and outlines the scope for further improvements in the processing technology.

Jan 1, 1993

By J. O. Lewis, Carl H. Beal

The material for this paper was collected for the most part by C. H. Beal during the years 1916, 1917, and 1918. Many of the conclusions reached in regard to the life of oil wells have already been published by the Bureau of Mines 1 but those presented in this paper deal particularly with the theoretical aspects of oil production. The report discusses some of the fundamental factors governing oil production, taking up first the conditions affecting the. amount of oil in the oil sand, then those factors that control the rate of production of oil wells, and then discusses several related problems, most of which deal particularly with the effect of the production of one well on that of another.

Jan 1, 1921

By B. C. Litzinger

Minerações Brasileiras Reunidas S.A. - MBR is a brazilian iron ore mining company geared for the export market. It is controlled by Companhia Auxiliar de Empresas de Minerações - CAEMI through its subsidiary Empreendimentos Brasi leiros de Minerações - EBM which holds 51% in MBR and is formed by CAEMI, the six major japanese steelmills and five japanese trading companies, Universe Tankships, Inc., and Indústria e Comércio de Minérios S.A. - ICOMI. The remaining 49% of MBR's capital are held by St. John del Rey Mining Company, a subsidiary of The Hanna Mining Company. MBR iron ore reserves exceed 1.5 billion tons of high grade ore distributed in 36 deposits located in the so-called IRON QUADRANGLE in the State of Minas Gerais. The Aguas Claras Mine is the largest presently known and highest grade deposit owned by MBR. Other mines such as Pico, Mutuca and Jangada are in operation at a combined rate of production of about 2 to 2. 5 million tons per year. The project consists of mine, railroad and marine terminal (slide). The Aguas Claras deposit, which is located about six kilometers southeast of Belo Horizonte the Capital of Minas Gerais, was selected for initial development. The Sistema Regional Centro of the Rede Ferroviária Federal, through its 6th Division known as the "Central " is responsible for the transportation of MBR ore, and provided the necessary railway construction to connect Mine and Terminal. The Terminal is located on Guaiba Island near the entrance to Sepetiba Bay, at about 120 kilometers west of Rio de Janeiro.

Jan 1, 1974

By John V. Beall

When a mine has ore averaging 5% lead, 7% zinc, 0.60% copper, 1/4 oz gold, and 6 oz of silver, adequate reserves, power and water, easy access to market, and is situated in beautiful natural surroundings with the advantages of a big city within a few hours drive, there is little left to be desired. Such a mine is the Mayflower mine of the New Park Mining Co. situated 30 miles from Salt Lake City in the Wasatch Mountains near Keetley, Utah.

Jan 1, 1949

By D. F. Malan

This paper provides an overview of the concepts of citations and journal impact factors, and the implications of these metrics for the Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (JSAIMM). Two key research literature databases publish journal impact factors; namely, Web of Science and Scopus. Different equations are used to calculate journal impact factors and care should be exercised when comparing different journals. The JSAIMM has a low impact factor compared with some of the more prestigious journals. It nevertheless compares well with journals serving other mining sectors, such as the Canadian CIM Journal. The problems associated with journal impact factors are discussed. These include questionable editorial practices, the negative impact of this concept on good research, and the problem of a few highly cited papers distorting the journal impact factor. As a consequence, there is growing resistance to the use of journal impact factors to measure research excellence. The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment is a global movement striving for an alternative assessment of research quality. As a recommendation, the Editorial Board of the JSAIMM should adopt a pragmatic approach and not alter good journal policies simply to increase the journal impact factor. The focus should remain on publishing excellent quality papers. Marketing of the Journal, the quality of the published papers, and its open access policy should be used to counter the perception that journals with high impact factors are better options in which to publish good research material.

Sep 1, 2022

By A. J. Kauffman

The alluvial deposits of the Pacific Northwest have been investigated and worked with varying degrees of intensity since about the middle of the 19th century. Earlier efforts, of course, were centered about the placer-gold content of the deposits; later, the Oregon beach sands were exploited for their chrome content, and, still more recently, deposits in Idaho were worked for their content of monazite, a rare-earth mineral which also contains significant quantities of thorium. The composition of alluvial deposits seems to depend mainly upon the nature of the source rock from which the detrital material was derived and upon the resistance of the individual mineral grains to the agencies of weathering and transportation. The processes of crushing and concentration used in ore dressing are applied in a leisurely but nonetheless effective manner when exposed rock masses are eroded by natural forces. Weathering effects a continuous disintegration and chemical decomposition, wherein resistant minerals are set free as individual grains and new minerals are formed. Erosion carries these detrital products down the slopes into natural waterways, where a mechanical separation of heavy particles from light is accomplished by the running water. The accumulation of such resistant, heavy particles through the ages has resulted in formation of the black-sand deposits. In addition to the associated gangue minerals, heavy sand deposits in the Pacific Northwest may contain the following constituents of possible economic value: Gold, platinum, chromite, ilmenite, magnetite, garnet, zircon, monazite, columbite-tantalite, and radioactive blacks.

Jan 1, 1956

By Donald Leroux, Asim Tuzun, Simon Gariépy, Luc Lachance, Hayley Halsall-Whitney

"The importance of coherent material balance results has long been recognized by mining and metallurgical companies. Although this is still true nowadays, various stakeholders are increasingly concerned about the origin and the accuracy of the reported numbers. The last decade has shown that most metallurgical accounting concerns can be addressed by making two important changes to plant performance monitoring practices. First, introducing data redundancy into the metal balance procedure allows the estimation of measurement errors. Second, the migration from spreadsheet-based to relational database based systems brings transparency, data integrity, traceability and auditability into metallurgical accounting. Relational databases also facilitate the production of reports that metallurgical accountants must issue routinely. Recognizing the caveats of the spreadsheet-based metal accounting method they had been applying for years, Strathcona decided to switch to a commercial relational database system in 2008. For the most part, the migration was seamless. Some challenges were raised but they could all be overcome and outweighed by benefits gained from day-to-day utilization of the system.INTRODUCTION Metal accounting (Morrison, 2008) has always been essential to high-quality corporate governance of mining and metallurgical companies. Although the importance of coherent material balance results has long been recognized, various stakeholders are increasingly inquisitive about how the reported numbers were obtained and how much accuracy can be attributed to them. This accrued scrutiny is obviously no stranger to the corporate governance tightening that happened through the years in response to outrageous accounting scandals. It is also in continuity with securities laws (such as NI-43-101 in Canada) that were passed to protect the public from other market fraud. Recognizing the importance of spotless metal accounting in their reports to the public, a group of global mining companies gave AMIRA International the mandate of developing a set of rigorous yet practical metal accounting guidelines for the mining and metallurgical industry. The AMIRA P754 project was launched in 2004 and the first version of the resulting Code of Practice was released the following year. Since then, the Code was reviewed twice and revised releases were issued (AMIRA, 2007). While some parts of these guidelines are in continuity with current commonplace practices, other parts recommend changes to inherited practices that may be significant. For example, they highlight the importance of data redundancy (Lachance & Flament, 2011) which in many operations is either already available but unexploited or achievable with reasonable efforts. These guidelines also stress the importance of state-of-the-art metal accounting systems, such as those based on relational databases, which are secure and entirely auditable by a Qualified Person. Because most spreadsheet software packages allow data and formulae to be modified at any time, without a trace and anonymously, they do not meet these requirements."

Jan 1, 2012

By W. H. C. SIMMONDS

The mining, metallurgical, and petroleum industries can be viewed as financial or as social institutions or both. The differences between these two conceptions of their businesses will influence their environmental 'and social actions. During the next 10-20 years western industry will be subject to a drop in the growth of a more highly educated labour force and to the emergence of holistic economics, new national goals, and a new ecological perspective. The profitability of the mining industry may therefore be influenced by the human side of its business to a greater degree. The increasing human, social, and environmental responsibilities can be discharged by improving the miner's equipment; by learning to look at situations through the eyes of all those involved; by developing common 'languages' which governments and the public can understand; and by mediating where feasible on the international scene.

Jan 1, 1978

By K. B. Nowels

"INTRODUCTION For the last several years the oil industry has been turning more and more toward conservation arid the study of related production problems. It is generally conceded that ultimate recovery is increased by holding the natural gas in thy sand which is net needed in lifting the oil. The retained gas lowers the viscosity and surface tension of the oil and helps flow the oil from the sand. Lewis states that ""while the operator can not control the original conditions of energy and resistance in the sand, he can partly control the efficiency of expulsion. As it is the energy contained in the compressed and absorbed gas rather than the oil that is exhausted, it is but logical to judge the efficiency of a producing method largely by the relative quantities of gas produced with each barrel of oil. If by a change in method the producer lessons the proportion of gas with each barrel of oil, he should increase the total recovery- of oil correspondingly, even if the rate of production is temporarily reduced somewhat.""The effect of ""pinching in"" or controlling the flow of oil wells in an effort to lessen the proportion of has never been definitely known. The general belief has been that ""pinching"" a flowing well causes the oil and gas volumes to be reduced proportionately, maintaining the same gas-oil ratio as before the reduction in flow was made. Studies of gas-oil ratios in many fields have shown that much gas has been wasted, insofar as its effectiveness in oil production is concerned. Swigart and Bopp carried."

Oct 1, 1927

By Louis E. Reber

Jan 1, 1922

By G. H. Robbins

"Originally presented at TORONTO 94, CIM-AGM, this paper has been updated to reflect the present status of business development for theSO2/AIR process. The paper reviews the back-ground leading to the invention, discusses the process chemistry and historically tracks the commercial development. Engineering and cost considerations are presented.IntroductionThe year 1994 was particularly significant in terms of the technical and business development of the INCO SO2/AIR cyanide destruction process. The year marked a decade of service to the world mining community since INCO acquired the Canadian patent in 1984. In that time period, the technology had become widely recognized as the state-of-the-art process in the field of cyanide detoxification and today we enjoy the distinction of having licensed the process at over 50 project sites worldwide. The application for the process has mostly been in the mining industry in precious metal recovery plants where it offers treatment for a wide range of waste streams such as: CIP/CIL slurries, Merrill-Crowe barren bleed solutions and/or re-pulped filter cakes, tailings pond water recycle or discharge, make-up water to flotation circuits and feed to underground backfill plants. The process also applies to the treatment of high cyanide rinsewaters from metal plating shops. More recently the process is being applied to the rinsing and abandonment of heap leach pads where it has proven to be a very cost-effective application of the INCO process. The distinct advantages that have led to the success of the process are the ability to work on slurries as well as solutions and the significantly low cost of sulphur dioxide products. The process is safe and easy to manage and uses all forms of SO2(liquid, gas or salts) which gives the process tremendous versatility with respect to geographic application. Having more than ten years of service"

Jan 1, 1996

By Paulo Couceiro, Juan Navarro

The impact of rock blasting fragmentation and heave on digging performance in open-pit mining operations is usually the first true indicator of blasting outcomes. Within the typical excavation cycle, the bucket loading time or instantaneous digging rate are the ones that present the strongest correlation with rock fragmentation size distribution, swelling, and shape of the muckpile, a part of rock mass hardness, equipment size, power, and others. As the efficiency of unit operations becomes increasingly important for long-term mining strategies, cost-effective approaches are needed to increase mine productivity. In this line, the performance of downstream operations, such as digging, hauling, and comminution, may be affected by the energy input in blasting. This requires a better understanding of the explosive’s energy role in such unit operations in order to drive consistent improvements. Therefore, this paper examines the impact of the explosive’s energy distribution on shovel diggability from production shots carried out with different explosives in an open pit gold mine, with the aim of modelling the interface between blasting and excavation.

Jan 21, 2025

By Raymond E. Connell

From a macro business process perspective, if what we do in the Mining Industry is find material, dig it out of the ground, convert it to a product and sell it, we are in what might be considered a "simple business". If it is so simple, where does information technology fit? How does it affect our industry? Is it a strategic tool for our industry? What approach should we be employing to ensure we are utilizing information technology effectively? How is information technology integrated or tied together with other areas in the organization such as process control? What kind of people and skill sets are required to support the whole area of information technology? What effect does information technology and automation have on streamlining and rethinking the way we do business in the 90's. This paper covers how these areas have been addressed within the Noranda Group of Companies. It reviews how information technology has evolved, the approach, and what effect it has had on a diversified natural resources company in the mining and metals, forest products, and oil and gas industries.

Jan 1, 1993

The rate of liquid copper deoxidation during top blowing of reducing flames has been investigated using a high capacity thermogravimetric unit at 1200 °C. For 1 kg copper samples, it was observed that the rate of deoxidation was proportional to the flow rate of the reducing reagent (H2 or CO). Under similar experimental conditions, it was found that H2 is more effective than CO even though both have similar thermodynamic potential to deoxidize liquid copper. The rate of deoxidation of liquid copper with reducing 0 2/CH4 flames was measured for 0 2/CH4 molar ratios of 1.5 to 2. The deoxidation rate depends on the 0 2/CH4 ratio and decreases as it approaches the stoichiometric ratio (02/CH4 = 2). Estimation of the rate of deoxidation of liquid copper with top blowing flames based on the thermodynamic composition ofH2 and CO in the product gases, agrees well with measured values.

Jan 1, 2007

In some parts of the world explosions in mines are more commonplace events. Even in the more developed nations explosions have occurred in recent times. In some cases these mines have significantly lowered their lost time injury frequency rates and as such considered themselves to be ?safe? operations. The consequence of these explosions has been devastating. It is not just the loss of those underground, but also to the families that have lost people in them and the broader community that has lost friends, income, business opportunities, and in many cases support and sponsorships. It begs so many questions, ?What went wrong??; ?Why were the circumstances not foreseen??; ?What could have been done to prevent it??; ?How is it that no one stopped it, reported it, fixed it etc.??. Being held accountable for negligence, should not be overlooked, however this may not aid the processes required to find all the answers. If the nature of explosions is understood, the circumstances and tools to prevent them are readily available then the occurrence and reoccurrence are due to weaknesses or inadequacies of the systems of work or in the implementation of them. This paper restates the fundamentals of gas explosions, examines the options to control the underground environment through ventilation, gas management and monitoring, education and training. Case studies have been used to examine systematic failures in ventilation management. In some of these cases it is not so much, the system that had been developed, but the interpretation and implementation of the system that resulted in the failure and subsequent loss.

Aug 1, 2013