CIM Magazine August 2017

FOR MORE THAN 25 YEARS, MINOVA HAS BEEN PROUDLY SERVING THE CANADIAN MINING INDUSTRY. Minova is known, globally, as an innovator of ground support solutions for the underground mining, construction, tunneling and civil engineering industries.

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AUGUST | AOÛT | 2017

cover story

40

The automation revolution There is no doubt the future of mining is automation. But what does that look like, and how will we get there?

By Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

44 The gilded South

50 The broadband backbone

OceanaGold, with the commissioning of its Haile mine in South Carolina, brings a modern operation to a historic mining district

The data demands of mining technology are pushing developments in underground communications infrastructure

By Ryan Bergen

By Eavan Moore

54 MEMO 2017 Maintenance, Engineering, and Mine Operators Conference

August/AoĂťt 2017 | 5

CIM MAGAZINE AUGUST | AOÛT 2017

in each issue

8 10 12

Editor’s letter President’s notes Chatter

tools of the trade

14

The best in new technology Compiled by Elle Crosby

developments

16

Cobalt staking rush in Ontario spurred by booming battery market and ethical concerns over sourcing

By Cecilia Keating

21

16

UDMN and its partners test their innovative take on a 100-year-old compressor system

mining lore

74

By Elle Crosby

26

Two B.C. companies team up to develop an environmentally sound processing plant for e-waste

In its nearly 200-year life, Haile supplied the Confederate war effort and was home to a pioneering gold-recovery method

By Joel Barde

By Cecilia Keating

column

31

contenu francophone

A tool for these times

By Philippe Lebleu

heavy equipment

34

Loader monitoring system employs deep learning to keep operations running smoothly

26

63

Australian co-op successfully trials coiled-tubing drill rig in all rock formations

By Tom DiNardo

38

Nautilus Minerals’ CEO Mike Johnston on deep sea mining equipment

By Elle Crosby

technical abstracts

71 72

CIM Journal Canadian Metallugical Quarterly

Table des matières Lettre de l’éditeur | Mot du président

article de fond

By Cecilia Keating

36

61 62

La révolution de l’automatisation Cela ne fait aucun doute, l’avenir de l’industrie minière passe par l’automatisation. Cependant, à quoi ressemble cet avenir et par quel chemin allonsnous y arriver?

Par Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

46

67

Le Sud doré OceanaGold rédige le dernier chapitre de la longue histoire de la mine Haile en Caroline du Sud Par Ryan Bergen

La version française intégrale du CIM Magazine est disponible en ligne : magazine.CIM.org/fr-CA

6 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

INTRODUCING THE NEW GENERATION ® HARDOX WEAR PLATE Hardox® 500 Tuf wear plate will be launched at the Oil Sands Trade Show on September 12-13. Hardox® 500 Tuf combines the best properties from the Hardox® 450 and Hardox® 500 grades. Its extreme hardness and guaranteed toughness, also in freezing conditions, make Hardox® 500 Tuf a wear plate with no real competition on the market.

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Join us at the Oil Sands Trade Show Booth 3610, Hall C September 12-13, 2017 Fort McMurray, AB www.oilsandstradeshow.com

editor’s letter

History lessons ceanaGold’s Haile project in South Carolina, the subject of this issue’s project profile (pg. 44) first caught my attention while Romarco Minerals was still guiding it toward production. Not only was two grams per tonne an impressively high reserve grade for an open pit operation, the setting – close to towns, roads and utilities – also distinguished it from so many of the other projects I was following, which tended to be increasingly remote. Here was a project that did not have to contend with many of the logistical challenges that are so much a part of the origin stories of greenfield mines.

The story of the mine follows a different trajectory and is an excellent illustration of how technology and new ideas can breathe fresh life into existing deposits. Over nearly 200 years, the Haile mine has periodically boomed and busted. In the late 19th century it was the application of the barrel chlorination process that brought the operation success. Nearly a century later, heap leaching rejuvenated the mine. Today, cutting edge process control systems and comprehensive environmental controls have again made the deposit viable both economically and socially.

O

L

This issue’s cover A view of the processing plant at OceanaGold’s Haile mine

eth R. Wilson enn Aw 5K

s ard

20 1

Courtesy of OceanaGold

Be st

ia ed

Finalist

The story of Haile – detailed both in the project profile and mining lore (pg. 74) – is one of innovation told over a span of time from the perspective of a single mine and slots in nicely beside our innovation-oriented feature focused on the current moment in mining, “The automation revolution” (pg. 40), which explores how different operations and suppliers are evaluating and applying automation technology. As an engineered solution, automation is an inspiring challenge.

Consequently, it also runs the risk of having its value overinflated. A fully- autonomous mine would be a remarkable accomplishment, but automation is only a means to the end – a safe and profitable mine. Those who succeed with it will do so not by automating most completely, but by implementing it most thoughtfully.

It should be noted that back in the late 19th century, Haile became a productive marvel thanks to the tools of the Industrial Revolution, but it was those same tools that contributed to its spectacular failure.

Editor-in-chief Ryan Bergen, rbergen@cim.org Executive editor Angela Hamlyn, ahamlyn@cim.org Managing editor Andrea Nichiporuk, anichiporuk@cim.org Section editors Tom DiNardo, tdinardo@cim.org; Kelsey Rolfe, krolfe@cim.org Copy editor Marilena Lucci, mlucci@cim.org Web content editor Maria Olaguera, molaguera@cim.org Contributing editor Eavan Moore, emoore@cim.org Editorial intern Elle Crosby, ecrosby@cim.org Digitization technician Marie-Ève Lapierre, melapierre@cim.org Contributors Joel Barde, Sahar Fatima, Cecilia Keating, Philippe Lebleu, Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco, Eavan Moore, Kylie Williams Editorial advisory board Alicia Ferdinand, Mohammad Babaei Khorzhoughi, Vic Pakalnis, Steve Rusk, Nathan Stubina Translations Karen Rolland, CNW Published 8 times a year by: Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum 1250 – 3500 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West Westmount, QC H3Z 3C1 Tel.: 514.939.2710; Fax: 514.939.2714 www.cim.org; magazine@cim.org

Ryan Bergen, Editor-in-chief editor@cim.org @Ryan_CIM_Mag

Advertising sales Dovetail Communications Inc. Tel.: 905.886.6640; Fax: 905.886.6615; www.dvtail.com Senior Account Executives Janet Jeffery, jjeffery@dvtail.com, 905.707.3529 Neal Young, nyoung@dvtail.com, 905.707.3525 Subscriptions Online version included in CIM Membership ($187/yr). Print version for institutions or agencies – Canada: $275/yr (AB, BC, MB, NT, NU, SK, YT add 5% GST; ON add 13% HST; QC add 5% GST + 9.975% PST; NB, NL, NS, PE add 15% HST). Print version for institutions or agencies – USA/International: US$325/yr. Online access to single copy: $50.

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The Institute, as a body, is not responsible for statements made or opinions advanced either in articles or in any discussion appearing in its publications.

adian Busines sM Can in

Printed in Canada 8 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

FROM EXTENDING OIL DRAIN INTERVALS TO INCREASING PRODUCTIVITY

TOGETHER IT’S POSSIBLE

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SHELL LUBRICANTS TOGETHER ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE

To learn more, visit us at the

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or lube-education.com/mining.

Get industry insights and contact the team at www.lube-education.com/mining

president’s notes

Innovation in the mining industry

“For the future, the biggest impacts will likely come from the development of the Internet of Things�

The mining industry follows cycles, and its fascination with innovation is no different. It gains momentum when demand for commodities falls during financial downturns or resets.

Innovation can be classified into two categories. First, that from new ideas or discoveries such as the application of cyanide leaching for gold recovery by McArthur and the Forrest brothers in the late 1880s. Almost a century later, the cyanide heap leaching of low-grade gold ores and the acid heap leaching of low-grade copper oxide ores were developed, allowing the recovery of metals from what had been waste. Other major achievements have been: flash smelters for copper extraction developed by Outokumpu in Finland, cost-saving carbon-in-pulp and carbon-inleach for gold recovery and autogenous and SAG grinding replacing multiple stages of crushing. Today, with the emergence of lithium battery technology, we have the ability to design an all-electric underground mine as Goldcorp is doing at its Borden Lake mine in Ontario, lowering costs and improving health and safety.

Second are the instances where continuous improvement has moved the industry forward. One example is the evolution of drilling. It began with the introduction of the jackleg during the industrial revolution and was followed by further development to the jumbo drill, improving productivity and reducing health issues. The advent of the wrap-around motors was significant in mechanical/electric design, and opened the door to much larger SAG mills. Another was the development of two compartment double rotator grinding mills followed by 99 per cent pure oxygenated roasting in two stage roasters, in the late 1990s, to release gold contained within fine sulfide grains.

For the future, the biggest impacts will likely come from the development of the Internet of Things, where the combination of information technology and operating technology will open up more ways to improve efficiency, limit capital and operating costs, and most importantly improve worker health and safety.

Whatever opportunities these technologies offer, however, it will always be the planning and leadership bringing these tools into production that will determine whether they do, in fact, recreate the industry. That is one idea that is and has been constant no matter where we are in the mining cycle.

Kenneth (Ken) G. Thomas CIM President

10 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

LIFTS WHAT OTHERS CAN’T.

EXPECTATIONS.

Our people, technology, solutions and equipment are Hitachi To The Core.

This full integration delivers unmatched efficiency, reliability and durability. The result?

Optimized productivity. Reduced overall costs. And a better bottom line.

HitachiConstruction.com

chatter

RYAN BERGEN @Ryan_CIM_Mag

RE: THE CURE FOR “GO FEVER” (JUNE/JULY ‘17)

RE: THE CARBON CONUNDRUM (MAY ‘17)

An excellent article by Roy Slack.

– Warren Holmes

Great article thanks for sharing. Bring on the BEV haul trucks!

–Stuart Lister

ANGELA HAMLYN @AngelaH_CIM

ANDREA NICHIPORUK @Andrea_CIM_Mag

RE: TROUBLES BEGET TROUBLES FOR NORTHERN IRELAND MINE DEVELOPMENT (ONLINE EXCLUSIVE)

TOM DiNARDO @Tom_CIM_Mag

Good news for Galantas they can continue! Also very nice to see a good old robust German engineered GHH LHD is still making the hours.

– Harald Bornebroek

KELSEY ROLFE @kelseyarolfe

RE: HARD ROCK REVOLUTION ON THE HORIZON (MAY ‘17)

This has been a long time coming. Another nail in the coffin of diesel emissions. I look forward to the end of drill and blast mining... even though I had a lot of fun doing it.

– Ernest V. Schaffernicht Interesting to see how it handles very hard basalt!

MARIA OLAGUERA @Maria_CIM_Mag

– Paul Fyfe

In Peru, the only attempt to use this technology failed in the mid 80s (San Vicente mine). They tried with an Voest-Alpine with no success. More than 30 years after, the big jump in technology should make this eventually happen...

– Pablo Venturo

FOLLOW US TWITTER twitter.com/CIMorg/

RE: ZERO HARM - IT CAN BE DONE (MAY ‘17)

“Zero Harm is achievable.” Newmont Ghana Ahafo Process Plant achieved 1096 days without an injury. This milestone was arrived at by insisting all non routine tasks be done with a JHA – Alesobo Ziem Deri

FACEBOOK facebook.com/CIMMag/ facebook.com/CIM.ICM/

LINKEDIN linkedin.com/groups/40506/

RE: PROPOSED ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT PROCESS “SIDELINES” MINERS, INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION SAYS (JUNE/JULY ‘17)

Messy business by Panel: Environmental assessment panel’s suggestions “essentially unworkable,” MAC says.

– Kim Bittman, @KimBittman

INSTAGRAM instagram.com/cim_mag

YOUTUBE youtube.com/canadianinstituteofmining

MORE CONTENT, LESS SIFTING

LET’S TALK

We’re regularly updating our new website with breaking mining news, stories from the magazine and online exclusives. Check us out online at magazine.cim.org.

Thanks to our first online advertiser, SEW, for sponsoring the site when it launched in May!

Want to sing our praises or read us the riot act? Email your comments to editor@cim.org and you could be featured on these pages.

12 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

Making the complex seem simple.

We combine technical expertise with the courage to challenge conventional thinking. We’re inspired to build positive change, always thinking about how to make the world a better place.

Hatch. Building smarter solutions to ignite your vision.

Contact us at hatch.com

tools of the trade

Blasting help at hand There are a lot of factors to consider before blasting, and it is important to be precise. “You’re trying to figure out things like powder factor, making sure you’re getting a good blast and not producing flyrock,” said Cal Bode, Dyno Nobel’s product manager. That is why Dyno Nobel launched a new version of its Explosives Engineers’ Guide Mobile App, which has multiple blasting calculators and unit conversions that can be accessed in remote locations without needing wireless data or WiFi. The app’s calculators can determine the number of explosives needed per blasthole and predict ground vibration and airblast.

Older iterations of the app had the same calculators, but this newest version allows users to save their calculations for later use. Users are now also able to save their GPS locations so that they can compare distances between sites at a later time. The app also provides details on Dyno Nobel equipment and tools.

14 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

Panel handling Shutting down SAG mills for maintenance is costly and can be dangerous for those doing the repairs. Mining and Heavy Industry Robotics (MIRS) created its new Robotic Trommel Panel Handler to cut down the time needed to replace trommel panels and get workers out of harm’s way. “Whenever you’ve got men around heavy equipment, there’s the possibility of danger, and that’s all mitigated by using robots because the operator is outside the mill,” said Tom Gabardi, vice-president of MIRS’s North America division. Trommel panels typically require frequent repairs because they sustain heavy impact from the large pieces of ore churning in the SAG mill. If the mill continues operating while panels are damaged, oversized rocks can make their way into the sump and cyclones, further damaging the processing circuit. Manually replacing a panel in a SAG mill takes around 20 to 25 minutes and requires workers to go into a confined space near heavy machinery and use tools like sledge hammers to swap out the old panels for the new. The Robotic Trommel Panel Handler does the same amount of work in two minutes. An extendable arm mounted on a base structure relies on sensors to locate the handles to remove the panels for cleaning, replacement or repair.

Compiled by Elle Crosby

Courtesy of iRing

It would take most blast engineers about a week to design and report on 15 ring patterns and then compare them to alternatives. iRing has attempted to solve that problem with its new underground mine design software Aegis, which it says can complete such a ring pattern design in under an hour.

This not only speeds up mine planning but allows blast engineers more time for tests and comparisons. “If it’s taking the blast engineer a week to lay it out, they probably won’t do a lot of experimentation,” said Troy Williams, iRing’s lead software developer. Unlike most other blasthole design software, Aegis is independent from Computer Automated Design (CAD) packages, which means that its quality is not affected by the quality of a CAD model. The software has two product levels, the first of which – called Designer – offers 2D and 3D views of stopes, drifts, holes and rock fragmentation and predicts how much of the blasted rock will be valuable ore. The second, Analyzer, includes all the features of Designer and also allows the user to make changes to designs and compare different versions to determine the best blasting method with its analysis engine.

Courtesy of MIRS

Courtesy of Dyno Nobel

Faster blast design

British Columbia mines reduce or suspend operations due to wildfires

UDMN and its Northern Ontario collaborators test their innovative take on a 100-year-old system

Bert Wasmund, Ross Beaty appointed to Order of Canada

EnviroLeach and Mineworx team up to develop e-waste processing plant with an environmentally sound extraction process

18

21

23

26

Developments “Feeding frenzy” Cobalt staking rush in Ontario spurred by booming battery market and ethical concerns over sourcing First Cobalt finalized agreements to merge with Cobalt One and CobaltTech in late June, the latest of a flurry of mergers and acquisitions in and around the town of Cobalt in northeastern Ontario.

The new company, to be named MergeCo for the time being, would be the dominant landowner in the historic Cobalt mining camp and the largest listed pure-play cobalt exploration company with an estimated market capitalization of $110 million.

Cobalt One shareholders would maintain a majority stake in the new company, which has numerous exploration claims in the camp, amounting to nearly 7,800 hectares. These will be absorbed into First Cobalt’s portfolio of cobalt properties in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and 3,000 hectares of assets in Cobalt.

CobaltTech owns a 100-tonne-perday mill in Cobalt, 11 past-producing mines in the area and properties in Quebec and one in northwestern Ontario.

The merger quelled a dispute between CobaltTech and Cobalt One over the sale of the camp’s only cobalt extraction refinery. It is the only North American refinery that does not set limits on arsenic content and would be fully owned by MergeCo. The area’s geology is laden with arsenic.

Gino Chitaroni, president of the Northern Prospectors Association, said 16 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

Courtesy of First Cobalt

By Cecilia Keating

First Cobalt, which recently merged with Cobalt One and CobaltTech, is one of many exploration companies taking part in a cobalt staking rush near Cobalt, Ontario. Its Keely-Frontier site is located 40 kilometres south of the town.

the merger is part of “a cobalt rush, harking back to the times of the Cobalt camp.” While named for the cobalt discovered on the shores of a local lake, the area was historically mined for silver, with a silver rush in 1903.

Chitaroni first started fielding enquiries about the area two years ago and saw a sharp spike of interest in early 2016. “There’s been a feeding frenzy,” he said. “To my knowledge, just about any major or minor cobalt occurrence located in northeastern Ontario is now gone. It’s been staked up in the last ten to 12 months.”

Cobalt is almost exclusively produced as a by-product of nickel and copper; there is only one primary-cobalt mine in the world, Bou Azzer in Morocco. In the Cobalt camp the metal occurs with silver and was historically seen by silver miners as a nuisance as it complicated smelting and refining.

Cobalt has been mined sporadically in the town, in particular after World War Two, when the material garnered recognition for its heat-resistant properties and was used in airplane engines.

Demand for cobalt is booming given that it is a key component of lithium-ion

developments batteries used in electric vehicles, laptops, tablets and mobile phones. As of July it was trading at US$28 to US$30 a pound according to CRU Group, soaring from a 15-year low of US$12.1 last year.

Edward Spencer, a senior consultant at CRU, said that the current price level “is a stable place for cobalt right now,” but added that “there’s also risk of it going a lot higher, if electric vehicle demand exceeds our initial expectations or if there’s political disruption in the DRC.” Spencer predicted the cobalt supply will not meet the huge demand in batteries and the emerging energy storage device market and that the current boom “will grow very strongly over the next ten years.”

Ontario provides a good option for cobalt exploration and mining for several reasons. More than half of the world’s cobalt is mined in the DRC, a country plagued by political instability and child labour in its cobalt trade. It is in battery companies’ interest to turn to producers with less tarnished ethical reputations. Projects are being devel-

oped in Idaho, Ontario, British Columbia, and the Northwest Territories.

Lithium-ion consumption is currently heavily concentrated in the Asian market, and the majority of battery cathodes are produced in China, Japan, and Korea, but both are growing elsewhere.

“One of the new places it could take off is North America. This could present a wave of mines [like MergeCo’s] that could offload their material very easily to domestic producers,” said Spencer.

The fact that cobalt occurs with silver in Cobalt is significant. Cobalt normally occurs with nickel and copper and, given the current slump in both those metals, miners will not undermine their core business in their quest for secondary cobalt. The silver-cobalt deposits in Ontario are an attractive alternative, as silver has been in short supply for years.

Trent Mell, president and CEO of First Cobalt, is hopeful that modern geoscience and technology will allow MergeCo to get cobalt-silver ratios of 50:50, up from the 20:80 of silver-mining days. These include transitioning mines to open pit in order to arrive at

the solid base-metal halo around the silver shoots previously mined using narrow-vein mining.

Mell said he and Jason Bontempo, Cobalt One’s executive director, were united by a shared vision when planning the merger. “If you are going to give investors real leverage to cobalt, you need scale,” he explained. Historically the camp has been a string of small claims. “By bringing the three of us together we are going to control close to half of the prospective claims.”

Chitaroni echoed Mell’s hopes for more investment in the Cobalt camp.

“We’re only at the beginning. All the companies right now are junior. At some point, there is the possibility of some much bigger money and senior companies’ influence. We aren’t there yet, but if it does happen, it’s going to change the whole fabric of the camp.”

Subject to regulatory approvals, Mell is hopeful the company will be formed by early November. The company board will include investor Robert Cross and members of Cobalt One and First Cobalt. CIM

We are better together

MWH is now part of Stantec. Together we offer expanded mining, tailings, water, and environmental services to the mining community.

Visit stantec.com/mining to learn more.

August/Août 2017 | 17

Courtesy of Imperial Metals

FROM THE WIRE Ken MacKenzie will take over as BHP’s new chairman of the board on September 1, the company announced in midJune. McKenzie, former CEO of Amcor, joined the BHP board as a non-executive director in September 2016.

Strateco Resources said in late June it will appeal a Quebec Superior Court judge to dismiss the company’s lawsuit against the Quebec Attorney General.

Strateco sued the Attorney General in 2013 for $200 million for loss of investment and punitive damages in the Matoush uranium project following the provincial government’s decision to impose a moratorium on uranium exploration due to a lack of social acceptability of the project. Following the moratorium, Quebec’s provincial environmental public consultation agency conducted a review of uranium mining and in 2015 recommended that until the potential consequences of uranium mining are better understood, it would be inappropriate for Quebec to authorize such exploration and extraction.

Teck Resources will buy Goldcorp’s 21per-cent interest in the San Nicolás copper-zinc project in Zacatecas, Mexico to become the sole owner of the project, the companies announced on June 29. Teck will pay Goldcorp US$50 million for its shares. The deal is scheduled to be completed within the next three months.

Caterpillar announced several changes in responsibilities for vice-presidents in its mining division on June 28 that will become effective August 1. Karl Weiss, the current VP for the Earthmoving Division, will replace Doug Hoerr, who is retiring after 24 years with the company, as VP of the Material Handling & Underground Division. Tom Bluth, the current VP of the Surface Mining and Technology Division (SM&T), will become Caterpillar’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) as well as the VP of the Innovation and Technology Development Division (ITDD). Jean Savage, currently Caterpillar’s CTO and VP of ITDD, will become the VP of SM&T.

18 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

Many of the employees of Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley mine, pictured, live in the wildfire-affected Williams Lake area and were evacuated.

Wildfires take toll on B.C. operations The wildfires that ravaged more than 400 square kilometres of British Columbia took an economic toll on the province’s mining sector, with multiple miners announcing reduced or suspended operations in July.

Taseko Mines temporarily idled operations at its Gibraltar mine due to road closures in the area on July 15, when the closure of Highway 97 made it impossible for employees to access the site. Four days later, and while the evacuation order for the wildfireaffected Williams Lake area in southcentral B.C. was still in place, the company announced that operations were restarting.

In a press release, Taseko’s president and CEO Russell Hallbauer said limiting employment interruption and keeping the payroll going was the best way the company could help its employees affected by the wildfires.

“Countless people and families in the region have suffered devastating fire loss, and that includes some who work for the company,” Hallbauer said. “The best thing Taseko-Gibraltar can do…is help people return to work as quickly as they are able.”

Imperial Metals also temporarily suspended operations at the Mount Polley copper-gold mine on July 17, after first reducing them a week earlier. The com-

pany announced that following the downgrading of the Williams Lake evacuation order operations would resume on July 31, with the mine aiming to be “fully operational” by August 2.

“Some of our employees have been evacuated and they have to make sure that their families are safe,” Steve Robertson, Imperial Metals’ vice-president of corporate affairs, told CIM Magazine on July 11. “We’re working with that reality and supporting them in whatever way we can.”

Imperial Metals’ nearby Red Chris project also has employees living in the Williams Lake area. The Williams Lake Airport that sends chartered flights for Red Chris employees was shut down, so crews at that mine were also reduced and reorganized.

EnGold Mines, another Vancouverbased exploration company, said on July 10 it had to suspend exploration at its sites, all of which are located in south-central B.C. The company said heavy smoke, closed roads and intermittent power outages made continued operations unsafe and unworkable.

Some fires edged close to Kinder Morgan’s Canada Trans-Mountain Pipeline that carries 300,000 barrels of crude oil and refined fuel from Alberta to B.C. every day. “At a number of locations we are taking preventive measures, which include removing vegetation to create a fire break and adding sprinklers to keep the area

developments

Pretium reaches commercial production at B.C.’s newest mine Turning a discovery into an operating mine typically takes more than a decade, but Pretium Resources bucked that trend when it announced commercial production had commenced at the Brucejack mine in northwestern British Columbia on July 3, converting the high-grade Valley of the Kings gold deposit into a producing mine in just eight years.

For Pretium president and CEO Joseph Ovsenek, the time passed “incredibly fast.” From the moment he heard about the high-grade, visible gold in the discovery drill hole in 2009, he knew they would have a mine. It was the spectacular grade, he said, that allowed Pretium to “continually raise money and finance construction, even though the markets were down and have been a lot of the time.”

Pretium spent US$811 million to construct B.C.’s latest gold mine. In June, the new plant at Brucejack processed 70,805 tonnes of ore for an average of 2,360 tonnes per day, just under 90 per cent of the maximum permitted production.

“We are ramping up,” said Ovsenek, “We’re focused on attaining that 988,000 tonnes per year, or just over 2,700 tonnes per day, nameplate capacity as quickly as possible.” The company announced its first gold pour on June 20.

Brucejack is the third greenfield mine to go into production in B.C. in four years, after Mount Milligan in February 2014 and Red Chris in July 2015.

Following the downturn, exploration activity in B.C. has shifted to less capital-intensive early-stage exploration; the 2016 British Columbia Mineral and Coal Exploration Survey reported that 73 per cent of respondents stated that their exploration projects were focused on grassroots exploration.

“Commercial production at Brucejack is a signal that mines are being developed and opened in B.C.,” said Jonathan Buchanan, director of information and public affairs at the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia. “We’re seeing grassroots exploration near advanced projects, like around Brucejack, IDM Mining’s Red Mountain and AuRico Metals’ Kemess project.”

“Although we were heading out of a downturn in 2016, this combination Courtesy of Pretium Resources

wet,” said Hugh Harden, the company’s COO, in an emailed statement on July 11.

Additionally, about 30 to 40 logging companies and their mills shut down and BC Hydro, the province’s main electricity distributor, reported 219 power poles and 35 transformers had been damaged as of July 18. It predicted there would be more damage as the fires continued to blaze.

The wildfires led the province to declare its first state of emergency since 2003, deploying some 1,600 personnel from July 7-9. Former premier Christy Clark announced on July 9 that the government would provide $100 million in emergency funds. According to Robert Turner, the deputy minister for emergency management B.C., 45,806 people had been evacuated from their – Elle Crosby homes as of July 18.

FROM THE WIRE Shandong Gold Mining Co. completed its purchase of a 50-per-cent interest in the Veladero mine in Argentina from Barrick Gold for US$960 million on June 30. This is the first of a three-step agreement between the two companies; the final two steps involve exploring joint developments elsewhere in the El Indio Gold Belt along the border of Argentina and Chile.

The Canadian government issued an amendment to its law prohibiting companies from impacting natural fish habitats, which will allow Seabridge Gold’s KSM project to use certain natural water bodies frequented by fish for use in a tailings management facility (TMF). The amendment comes with the condition that Seabridge creates twice the amount of productive fish habitats as it will impact as compensation. Seabridge plans on doing this by repurposing streambeds and creating new side channels that fish can live in. The TMF will store the project’s ore-processing byproducts downstream in an effort to minimize environmental impacts.

Iamgold and Sumitomo Metal Mining entered into a joint venture in the Côté gold project in Ontario’s Abitibi gold belt with Sumitomo taking a 30-percent interest in the project for US$195 million, the companies announced early in June. Upon closing on June 20, Sumitomo paid Iamgold US$100 million and will pay the rest within 18 months.

The project is still in its pre-feasibility study phase, and production is scheduled to start in 2021. Côté is expected to average an annual output of 320,000 ounces of gold over its 17-year life.

Luxembourg’s parliament passed a law on July 13 legalizing the possession of space resources by private companies and establishing the procedures for authorizing and supervising space exploration missions. The new law is the first of its kind in Europe and is part of the country’s space resources initiative, which aims to support the development of space industry activities.

Pretium announced Brucejack’s first gold pour on June 20, two weeks before the mine reached commercial production.

Compiled by Elle Crosby

August/Août 2017 | 19

indicates a healthy mix of projects that can be developed into mines both in the near term and B.C.’s future,” said Buchanan.

IDM Mining took a major step toward its 2019 production goal at the Red Mountain underground project by submitting applications for environmental assessment to provincial and federal regulators in July. AuRico Metals also announced a positive preliminary economic assessment for the Kemess East deposit in April, following the same for the Kemess Underground deposit a year earlier.

– Kylie Williams

Tahoe Resources halts operations at Escobal The Supreme Court of Guatemala suspended Tahoe Resources’ mining license for its Escobal mine on July 5 in response to a lawsuit against the country’s Ministry of Energy and Mines

IDLERS

(MEM) brought by anti-mining organization CALAS. Tahoe said in a press release that it will take “all legal steps possible to have the ruling reversed and the license reinstated as soon as possible.” In the meantime, “the mine will be placed on stand-by and is planned to be maintained in a manner such that full production can be expeditiously resumed on a reversal of the suspension.”

CALAS alleges that the MEM violated the Xinca Indigenous people’s right to consultation in advance of granting a mining license to Tahoe’s Guatemalan subsidiary, Minera San Rafael. Tahoe refuted this, saying that because of the lack of Indigenous communities in the area of the mine, there was no need for consultation, and that they still did undertake a consultation process, of which there is evidence.

Tahoe is planning to appeal the decision to the Constitutional Court and to ask for the Supreme Court to reconsider its provisional ruling. The

PULLEYS

Constitutional Court could rule on the appeal within two to four months.

The company is assuming a threemonth suspension period in an attempt to estimate the expected impacts of the suspension, including that 5.1 million ounces of silver production would be deferred, royalties and taxes related to the deferred production would not be accrued, and the company would not be able to confirm previously issued guidance.

This is not the first problem to arise at the Escobal mine. In June, protesters claiming that mining at Escobal is causing seismic activity in Casillas (located about 20 kilometres from the project) blocked access to the mine, delaying shipments and supplies. A few months earlier, the British Columbia Court of Appeals ruled that a lawsuit brought by seven Guatemalans who allege they were shot at by Tahoe security guards during a 2013 protest at Escobal can proceed in Canada rather than Guatemala.

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developments Escobal, Tahoe’s flagship mine, started commercial production in 2014, and in 2016 it produced 21.2

million ounces of silver in concentrate.

Following news of the suspension, Tahoe’s stocks dropped 28 per cent on

the Toronto Stock Exchange.

– E. Crosby

Hydraulic air compressor demonstrator makes its public debut UDMN and its Northern Ontario collaborators test their innovative take on the 100-year-old system

By Elle Crosby

Courtesy of Shannon Katary, Centre of Excellence for Mining Innovation

Finding new ways to use able to reduce the lifecycle old tools is the cornerstone cost of compressed air in of innovation, and Ultramines by 40 per cent. “It can Deep Mining Network’s be better than that if you take (UDMN) Hydraulic Air advantage of site-specific Compressor (HAC) demonresources that might be presstrator, officially unveiled ent, as mines typically on June 21 at Science already have shafts and raises North’s Dynamic Earth in that can be re-engineered for Sudbury, Ontario, is the use in HACs, in which case product of just such a development costs are even process. lower.”

The HAC demonstrator, installed in what was an eleHow it works vator shaft, will act as a testing facility and a template Water from the forebay for the commercial producchamber and air from the tion of similar systems at atmosphere descend the 100mines around the globe. feet downcomer shaft The goal of the project is to together, and as they travel produce compressed air for downwards, the water compneumatic power with less presses the bubbles of air. At energy and lower costs. the bottom of the shaft the Dean Millar, MIRARCO’s gas and liquid are separated director of energy, renewin the air-water separation ables and carbon managechamber. At this point, the ment, told CIM compressed air travels in a Magazine that this system tube to its destination while will consume at least 13 per the pumps raise the water up cent less electricity than the riser shaft to be used mechanical compressors. again in the closed circuit.

The HAC relies on water The UDMN Hydraulic Air Compressor demonstrator will be a testing facility for the This straightforward sysand gravity to compress air commercial production of similar systems at operations around the world. tem not only compresses air, it simultaneously cools the rather than an electrically The first HAC and one of Millar’s gas without needing additional equippowered engine and is constructed with no moving parts other than the inspirations for this project, Ragged ment, as mechanical compressors do.

With ore grades declining, many two centrifugal pumps, so the system is Chutes in Cobalt, Ontario, was built in mining companies are digging deeper relatively maintenance free. “Histori- 1910 and worked nearly continuously to access minerals, but the deeper you cally, the majority of the HACs that for almost 70 years. dig, the hotter the mine will be. Millar Millar said he believes that because were built in mines outlived the said he anticipates that the compressed resources; it’s a very, very reliable tech- his system uses less electricity and has air released from a HAC will be low maintenance costs, HACs will be nology,” explained Millar.

August/Août 2017 | 21

approximately -60 C. This stream can be mixed with the ventilation air to bring down the aggregate temperature of the mine, allowing operations to mine deeper by maintaining a comfortable temperature for the workers underground.

What has held HACs back?

Former HACs used natural sources of flowing water instead of a cyclical system, and because pneumatic power cannot travel more than a few kilometres efficiently, the location of the resources had to correspond to the location of the demand, which was not always feasible. This newest version of the HAC makes use of a continuous loop system so that it can be set up in any environment regardless of the resources available.

Additionally, older models of HACs sometimes produced oxygen-deficient gas due to the solubility of gases in water at high pressures. The farther

down water and air travel together in the shaft, the greater the pressure on the gas is. When there was too much pressure, the oxygen dissolved in the water, which allowed it to bypass the air-water separator, thereby reducing the amount of oxygen being produced.

Millar has come up with the solution of adding salt to the water, which will dissolve first and so prevent oxygen from dissolving.

With these issues resolved, Millar is confident that HACs will prove to be an energy- and cost-efficient system.

UDMN collaborated with MIRARACO Mining Innovation, Laurentian University, Electrale Innovation, Reasbeck Construction, Centre of Excellence for Mining Innovation, Cambrian College, Vale, Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation and Independent Electricity System Operator to fund and build the project.

Millar said he is already in talks with mining companies both in Canada and internationally about setting up HACs at their sites. CIM

Contractors of Banro’s Namoya released after being caught between Congolese army and rebels Toronto-based Banro Corporation resumed operations at its Namoya gold mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on July 6 after evacuating employees days earlier when a convoy of 23 trucks belonging to a contractor of the mine was trapped in crossfire between the Congolese national army (FARDC) and a group of armed rebels.

The truck drivers, who were held captive by the Mai-Mai rebels after crossing through Lulimba, were permitted to leave the rebel territory on July 5 but had to leave their trucks, money and other belongings behind.

While Namoya was suspended a small group of staff members returned to the mine on July 4 to ensure maintenance of some equipment.

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Banro’s Namoya gold mine in the eastern DRC was temporarily closed due to rebel fighting in the area.

Despite the fact that the regional war in the area officially ended in 2003, the DRC’s eastern provinces, where Banro’s four projects are located, have continued to house active militia groups.

Banro is the only company operating in the area due to the fighting, and it has had two other recent run-ins with violence. In February, four people were killed by armed robbers at the company’s Twangiza gold mine, and on March 1 five employees of Namoya were kidnapped, the last of whom was released on May 28.

Namoya began commercial production in January 2016 and produced around 25,000 ounces of gold last year.

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Bert Wasmund, Ross Beaty appointed to Order of Canada

NARROW VEIN MINING SPECIALISTS

Two major figures in the Canadian mining industry were named to the Order of Canada this year. Bert Wasmund was appointed for his numerous contributions to the industry as a metallurgical engineer and Ross Beaty for his business contributions to the mining sector and his philanthropy aimed at preserving the environment.

Wasmund, who has worked at Hatch for more than 50 years, developed technology in 1973 to cool the walls of smelting furnaces using solid copper elements. This significantly improved the productivity, longevity and efficiency of furnaces and was the cornerstone of Hatch’s custom-design furnace business.

In 1989, Wasmund and the Hatch team designed a new electric furnace for platinum smelting that increased production and reduced energy requirements, thereby vastly

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August/Août 2017 | 23

Courtesy of Pan American Silver

Courtesy of the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame

Bert Wasmund

increasing the number of mines in South Africa.

Wasmund also helped create the technology systems for the sulfur dioxide abatement programs of nickel producers in Sudbury, Ontario, in the 1970s and ‘80s, and he later implemented a strategy to replace outdated blast furnaces with a new smelting process using fluid-bed roasters and electric furnaces that greatly mini-

Ross Beaty

mized the formation of acid rain.

“The mining industry always has to work on protecting the environment, and [acid rain] was a big problem when I came in,” Wasmund told CIM Magazine.

Wasmund has earned many awards and honours for his contributions to the mining industry, including the CIM Falconbridge Innovation Award in 1994 and the CIM Airey Award in

1998. Wasmund was inducted into the Engineering Hall of Distinction in 2006 and the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame in 2011.

All of these accolades may bear Wasmund’s name, but he attributes his success to the “dynamic team of exceptional engineers” at Hatch. “Working with people like that, innovative people, it was easy to make contributions.”

Beaty is currently the chairman of the renewable energy company Alterra Power. Though his work now focuses on clean energy, Beaty got his start in mining. His first company, Equinox Resources, developed three mines in West Africa before he sold it.

In 1994, he started Pan American Silver Corporation, the company for which he is best known and of which he is still chairman. He started and then sold six more companies, all focused on silver or copper mining, until 2008.

“I was as pleased as I was astonished to receive the call,” Beaty told his local newspaper, the Bowen Island Undercurrent. Beaty said he is proud of the work

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he has accomplished in both the mining and environmental sectors, which he does not believe should be perceived as incompatible.

In addition to leading Alterra, he created the Sitka Foundation, which distributes funds to around 75 envi-

ronmental groups. He also personally donated $9 million toward wildlife conservation efforts in 2017.

“I have no desire to die with a bunch of money, so I am pleased to support nature because nature supports us,” said Beaty in the same interview.

Beaty has received Ernst and Young’s Natural Resources and Energy Entrepreneur Award, PDAC’s Viola MacMillan Award and the CIM Vale Medal for Meritorious Contribution to Mining, among others.

– E. Crosby

Mining the motherboards EnviroLeach and Mineworx team up to develop e-waste processing plant with an environmentally sound extraction process Vancouver-based EnviroLeach Technologies is building a processing plant that it says will be an environmentally friendly solution to recover precious metals from electronic waste.

Over the last two years, the company has developed a water-based extraction process that it says will serve as an alternative to acid- and cyanidebased leaching.

According to the company, the ingredients in the patent-pending solution are all approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as medicines, food additives and nutritional supplements.

In June the company announced it teamed up with Mineworx Technologies, a mine process technology company, to build the components of the modular plant in Coquitlam, B.C. According to EnviroLeach, it will process some ten tonnes of e-waste per day and cost an estimated $5.15 million.

The company will focus on what CEO Duane Nelson calls “high-grade e-waste” like circuit boards and memory cards stripped from computers and cellphones.

EnviroLeach claims the plant, which is expected to be commissioned by the end of the year, will be the largest chemistry-based e-waste processing facility in North America.

According to Nelson, some plants use aqua regia, which uses nitric and hydrochloric acid to dissolve gold and creates poisonous gasses, and do not operate on the same scale.

26 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

Courtesy of EnviroLeach Technologies

By Joel Barde

EnviroLeach has developed a water-based extraction process it says can be an environmentally friendly alternative to acid- and cyanide-based leaching.

Nelson says that in addition to being environmentally damaging, aqua regia is inefficient. Acids and cyanides consume themselves during the process, whereas the solution used in EnviroLeach’s process is recyclable. Once it is “re-energized” it is good as new.

EnviroLeach acquired the intellectual property rights to the formula it will use in the plant for $10.1 million two years ago and has been working with a team of scientists – including two University of British Columbia PhD researchers – to develop it further.

According to Nelson, the plant will feature a series of machines that will be

used to grind the e-waste down to around -200 microns.

The solution, he explained, is “energized” using an electrochemical process that endows it with leach kinetics that are equal to or superior to cyanide.

Shredded e-waste is then placed in the solution, which, over two hours, dissolves it into various metal-bearing solutions that are filtered and extracted using a proprietary process.

The plant is considered an “end of life processor,” meaning it is where high-grade e-waste ends up once it has been dismantled into various parts by manufacturers’ recyclers.

Nelson said EnviroLeach has already teamed up with major e-waste recyclers and “household name” manufacturers. While the company has not named them, he said they plan to in the next three to four months.

The end product comes out in a sludge that will be dried and sold to refineries. Nelson said he anticipates that the company will produce 2,500 grams on a daily basis with production costs of $200 per tonne of waste processed.

EnviroLeach’s process could “change the face of mining” by serving as an environmentally friendly alternative to acid leaching, Nelson said. “Outside of heap leach, our fluid is as effective in any bath-leach situation,” he said.

The process could be used with “any relatively high grade material or gold concentrate that is produced from gravity concentration or flotation concentration. We’ve actually even run tailings with great success,” Nelson said, adding that with the process miners could avoid needing to obtain permits to process materials.

The process caught the attention of Jim Pucket, executive director of the Basel Action Network, a Seattle-based NGO that works to reduce the export of toxic waste from technology to developing countries. Pucket said it could be exported to the developing world and help reduce the use of toxic e-waste recycling methods like aqua regia.

But Pucket has some reservations.

“At some point you need to tell people what you’re using,” he said. “I can’t believe that anything that can cut and dissolve gold is completely benign.”

Nelson said that he understands such apprehensions. “Everyone we’ve shared the solution with was skeptical at the start,” said Nelson. He said that while the company may never publicly disclose what is in the solution, he is open to working with third parties or using non-disclosure agreements to gain environmental certification.

According to Statistics Canada, Canadians generated about 24 kilograms of e-waste per person in 2012, or more than 860,000 tonnes for the country as a whole. CIM

Courtesy of BHP

developments

Construction of the new Santarem dam at BHP and Vale’s joint venture Samarco is underway after the disastrous collapse of a previous dam in 2015.

Judge suspends multibillion dollar claim against Samarco A Brazilian judge indefinitely suspended a US$47.5-billion civil claim filed by federal prosecutors against Samarco’s parent companies BHP and Vale, related to the 2015 Fundão tailings dam failure, Vale announced on July 17.

A significantly smaller claim of $6.1 billion, filed by the Brazilian government, is still lodged against the companies.

The news comes three weeks after Brazilian prosecutors granted the companies a four-month extension on the preliminary agreement for both claims.

The companies entered into a preliminary agreement with Brazil’s federal prosecutors’ office on January 18 that outlined the process and timeline for negotiation of a settlement of the two claims. In a June 30 press release, BHP announced the companies had received an extension, giving them until October 30 to continue working

on the claims, which they will still have to adhere to for the remaining claim.

BHP said it will provide US$250 million in financial support to Samarco to aid in remediation. The funds will be drawn from a US$1.3 billion provision BHP took last year to cover the costs of the accident that killed 19 people.

The majority of the money – US$174 million – will go to the Renova Foundation and will be offset against the provision for the dam collapse. The world’s largest miner by revenue will make the remaining US$76 million available to Samarco for stabilization work as required.

The Renova Foundation was created by BHP and Vale and launched in August 2016 with the aim of creating, managing and implementing environmental and socioeconomic programs to restore communities affected by the dam collapse.

Vale also announced on June 30 that it would make a US$76 million “short-term facility” available to Samarco “to support its operations in the second half of 2017.”

August/Août 2017 | 27

which supplied management expertise to junior exploration companies. After retiring as CEO of the company in 1996, he remained on the board for another 18 years. “I love [mining],” McLeod said in an interview for his induction into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame (CMHOF)

Courtesy of Bruce McLeod

There has been no cash flow from the mine for nearly two years. In August 2016, BHP reported a record loss of US$6.4 billion due to the dam collapse combined with a slump in commodity prices, and later that year Samarco failed to pay interest on a US$500-million bond.

BHP said it is “unlikely” Samarco will restart in 2017 due to the regulatory approvals and licenses that need to be obtained as well as the restructuring of Samarco’s US$3-billion debt.

Before the dam caused Brazil’s largest-ever environmental disaster, Samarco was one of the world’s biggest producers of iron ore pellets, producing 30 million tonnes of iron –E. Crosby ore a year.

B.C. mining legend Don McLeod dies at 88 Respected British Columbia mine developer Don McLeod died at 88 years old in West Vancouver, B.C., on May 27, surrounded by his wife of 58 years, Christa, and his children, Bruce McLeod and Catherine McLeodSeltzer.

“He was really always full of life.

One of the things we’ve heard from so many people is that he was always the guy with the embrace, the bear hug, the warm handshake,” said Catherine, the chair of Bear Creek Mining.

McLeod was born on Oct. 21, 1928 in Stewart, B.C., and left home in his early teens in search of work to help support his family, who had fallen on hard financial times. He started working as a horse wrangler for a mine and over his career worked in nearly every position in the industry, from mine manager to mucker to CEO. McLeod worked on more than 40 projects over his career and was best known for his role in the development of the Brandywine and Summit gold mines in B.C., as well as for making high-grade gold discoveries at the Brucejack project, later acquired and developed by Pretium Resources. He founded Northair Mines in 1966, 28 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

as a resource for anyone who needed help or advice.

“He really loved people and especially loved helping them. I always knew that he mentored people my age and my brother’s age, but I didn’t realize how many of this new generation in the industry he helped get jobs and advance in their careers and make big decisions,” said Catherine. “He supported people.”

Bruce, CEO of Sabina Gold and Silver, recalled his father bringing sets of the hand-drawn plotters home for his children to colour in and taking his family on “vacations” that involved camping at mineral prospecting sites.

McLeod loved mining and shared that passion with his family, even after his retirement and while in the hospital.

“We grew up in mining, the talk around the dinner table was always rocks and stocks,” Bruce said. “And it was rocks and stocks until the very last day.”

– E. Crosby

Tanzania hands Acacia US$190-billion bill for allegedly underreporting mineral exports "One of the things we’ve heard from so many people is that he was always the guy with the bear hug," recalls McLeod’s daughter Catherine McLeod-Seltzer.

earlier this year. “I couldn’t have quit mining if I’d wanted to.”

McLeod was named a Cambridge House “Mining Living Legend,” and received AME BC’s E.A. Scholz Award for excellence in mine development as well as CIM’s Proficiency Award. In January, McLeod became the oldest living person to be admitted into the CMHOF. While he was proud of the accolades, his family said McLeod cared more about helping others succeed.

Known for his generosity, optimism and warm handshakes, he shared much of his time and expertise with young miners in the industry, including his children. And even after retiring from Northair’s board of directors in 2014, he continued to act

The Tanzania Revenue Authority charged Barrick Gold subsidiary Acacia Mining US$190 billion in fines and allegedly unpaid taxes in late July.

The massive bill stems from a Tanzanian presidential committee’s findings in June alleging Acacia owes the government for under-reporting gold and copper levels in its concentrate exports over the past 19 years, which Acacia has repeatedly denied.

Responding to the announced fine, the company maintained it has fully declared all its revenues and said it is “considering all of its options and rights” moving forward.

The committee, composed of lawyers and economists and created

by Tanzanian president John Magufuli to determine the economic impact of exporting concentrates, presented its findings on June 12, only a few weeks after another committee made up of academics and industry professionals alleged the miner’s concentrate con-

developments tained 10 times more gold than it had declared.

“If they accept that they stole from us and seek forgiveness in front of God and the angels and all Tanzanians and enter into negotiations, we are ready to do business,” Magufuli said in a televised statement in Swahili following the second report, according to Bloomberg.

Barrick executive chairman John Thornton met with Magufuli on June 14 and agreed to begin negotiations to resolve the dispute. On July 4, Acacia formally filed international arbitration notices regarding the disputes. The arbitration will be conducted by Barrick, but Acacia told its shareholders the company will have a say in any course of action taken. Acacia has said that the second committee’s claims of unpaid taxes were based upon the “erroneous figures within the first committee report.”

In mid-July, the country passed new laws that increase royalty rates for metallic minerals to six per cent, up from four, impose a one per cent clearing fee on exports and allow the government to renegotiate or dissolve mining contracts. Acacia agreed to pay the higher rates.

On Acacia’s microsite created to provide information regarding the dispute, the company stated its financial, production and gold reserve records “are audited to international standards by leading international, independent auditors. It would not be possible for Acacia to under-report gold reserves, gold production and revenues even for a short period of time, let alone over many years.”

Acacia also called attention to the fact that the Tanzanian government has had full access to concentrate analysis at Acacia’s mines for more than 30 years and has never indicated that there were any discrepancies until now.

Troubles between Acacia and the Tanzanian government began in March when the latter issued a ban on concentrate exports. Last year concentrates accounted for 30 per cent of Acacia’s revenue, and the company said it estimates the export ban is costing it US$1 million each day.

The second committee endorsed maintaining the ban until back-taxes were paid to the government. The committee made 20 recommendations, all of which Magufuli said he wants to pursue, including redesigning mining and tax laws to make the industry more beneficial to the nation.

While Acacia’s production has increased over the first six months of 2017, the company reported revenues of US$391.7 million, down 22 per cent from the first half of 2016, which it attributed to the concentrate export ban. Shares in Acacia have fallen more than 66 per cent since the ban began – E. Crosby in early March.

August/Août 2017 | 29

SAVE THE DATE August 26–29, 2018 • Ottawa, Canada

Organized by the Metallurgy and Materials Society (MetSoc) of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM); the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration (SME); and The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS).

The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society

MARK YOUR CALENDAR: ABSTRACT SUBMISSION OPENS SOON!

Don’t miss this new opportunity to gather with your colleagues in the global extractive metallurgy community.

Symposia include, but are not limited to: •

•

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Pyrometallurgy › 7th International Symposium on Advances in Sul de Smelting › Peter Hayes Symposium on Thermochemistry and Process Modeling Hydrometallurgy › 8th International Symposium on Hydrometallurgy � Gordon Ritcey Symposium on Advances in Hydrometallurgical Solution Puri cation Separations � Processing of Critical Metals Sul de Flotation Extractive Metallurgy Markets and Economics

Other highlights include networking events, tours, and an industrial exhibition.

Visit www.ExtractionMeeting.org for details and to sign up for e-mail updates.

Conference Co-Chairs:

MetSoc: Boyd Davis, Kingston Process Metallurgy Inc., Canada SME: Michael Moats, Missouri University of Science and Technology, USA TMS: Shijie Wang, Rio Tinto Kennecott Utah Copper Corp., USA

column

A tool for these times

By Philippe Lebleu

onsidering the current resurgence in commodity prices, every mining company should concentrate on strategy optimization to ensure that operations move from a cost-focused mindset to one centred on value maximization in order to reap the benefits of the upturn in the mining industry.

Recent advances in open-pit strategic mine planning software enable the optimization of intricate mining problems associated with a complex and vast array of parameters and constraints. These programs simultaneously optimize the mining sequence, cut-off grade selection, amount of mining equipment needed and capital expenditure to maximize the net present value (NPV) of a project or deliver on corporate goals. These modern techniques should be adopted at the strategic or life-of-mine planning level to ensure mines are developed in the most valuable fashion within the bounds of practical mining.

Traditionally, mine planning involves following a series of sequential processes to evaluate the merits of different mine planning scenarios. Typically, a mine plan is produced based on fixed cut-off grades and strives to achieve a primary goal, such as a target mill feed, while maintaining a smooth total material movement to simulate the operation of a pre-determined mining fleet. The mine plan is then used as a basis to calculate equipment hours and numbers. The latter form the input into cost models that calculate mining costs and overall project value. The process is repeated with different assumptions for total material movement, sequencing or cut-off grades. Once the mining engineer driving the mine plan is satisfied that an adequate number of scenarios have been evaluated, the best outcome

Courtesy of AMC Mining Consultants

C

is selected and used for the rest of the process such as waste dump and stockpile design.

The problem with this approach is that the entire process can be time-consuming, sub-optimal from a value perspective — especially when the operation being planned is complex — and heavily reliant on the mining engineer’s understanding of the deposit and their experience.

That is why the use of advanced mine planning software is becoming

more widespread among mining companies and consultancies. Mixed-integer linear programming processes and advanced algorithms allow rapid evaluation of complex problems and help engineers and management make educated decisions regarding the best mine development or optimization strategy to adopt.

The power of advanced mine planning software lies in its ability to achieve multiple targets while respecting a variety of constraints by looking ahead to ensure that the choice of mine development made in the first year of production, for example, does not jeopardize its ability to achieve targets in subsequent years and achieve optimum value. This is a vast improvement from a traditional approach whereby a mine plan is derived one period at a time.

Improving a project’s NPV can be achieved by applying variable cut-off grades by scheduling period. This is accomplished by defining grade bins based on the spatial distribution of the ore and grade tonnage curves.

Advanced mine planning software can define a high-grading strategy that brings high-grade material to the processing facility earlier in the mine life while balancing the total material mined, and therefore the mining costs to do so. Following a high-grading strategy can typically result in a 15 per cent higher NPV compared to directly processing run-of-mine ore.

One of the issues with high-grading is that mining more material requires additional equipment. The impact of that cost can be evaluated within the software by accounting for equipment hours as a variable in the model.

Assigning a capital cost to a larger fleet allows the software to gauge whether and when to increase production capacity to optimize the project’s NPV. August/Août 2017 | 31

Courtesy of AMC Mining Consultants

Capital expenditure decisions are not limited to the mining fleet and can extend to evaluating the merits and best timing for increasing processing plant capacity or putting capital toward developing a new pit.

Optimizing project value becomes increasingly difficult for mining engineers when they must satisfy multiple targets or constraints. In iron ore deposits, for example, it is common to have to deal with stringent grade specifications and contaminant levels. Minimum and maximum grade constraints can be input to ensure the software respects them for the life-of-mine while achieving production targets and optimizing cut-back sequencing to obtain the highest possible project value.

These programs can also optimize the shape of waste dumps while simultaneously considering the aforementioned constraints or variables to maximize project value. Dump envelopes, representing the maximum possible waste storage capacity, can be imported into the software for evaluation. To generate hauling costs, the program uses cycle times from each mining block to each dumping block within multiple waste dumps. Subsequently, the hauling cycle times and costs help define the most suitable waste destination for each waste block to minimize hauling costs or level the hauling fleet over the project’s life.

Despite the advances in mine planning software, mining practicality still Send comments to editor@cim.org

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needs to be central to a development strategy. To avoid the “black box” solution effect that cannot be explained by the engineer, it is in the engineer’s best interest to produce multiple scenarios to demonstrate the incremental value generated and help tell the story behind the decision-making process.

These are only a few of the many applications of modern mine planning software that underlines how useful it is as a tool for mining companies to maximize the value extracted from their active mines or future projects. CIM

Philippe Lebleu has extensive consulting and operational experience in the mining industry. He currently works as a Principal Engineer for AMC Mining Consultants (Canada) Ltd.

033-033 ICAA.qxp_. 2017-08-09 12:17 PM Page 1

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Courtesy of Motion Metrics

Because loaders, unlike shovels, are squat and do not have a boom, the only place Motion Metrics’ LoaderMetrics tooth detection technology can be successfully installed is between the front wheels of the loader with the lens looking up at the bucket.

Equipment monitoring through machine learning Loader monitoring system employs deep learning to keep operations running smoothly

By Cecilia Keating

hile machine and deep learning – both forms of artificial intelligence – are increasingly prevalent in day-to-day life, from self-driving cars to spam filters and personalised video recommendations, they remain relatively unchartered territory in mining.

Motion Metrics, however, is doing some pioneering work in that area with the launch of its loader tooth monitoring system LoaderMetrics. Using a rugged thermal camera and a sophisticated computer algorithm, the system identifies teeth that have broken and fallen into the bucket, which can end up mixed in with ore. The system alerts the machine operator with an audible alarm and a visual indicator on an in-cab display. The operator can then ensure that the heavy steel tooth is not unwittingly dumped into the crusher plant with the ore, and avoid a colossal – and highly expensive – jam.

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“When you lose a tooth, you’re stuffing something very large and hard into your crusher,” explained Derek Cooper, head of business development at Motion Metrics. Loader teeth can weigh up to 100 kilograms and jammed crushers bring operations to a standstill. An even worse scenario, he added, is if the tooth makes its way further downstream, through the primary crusher and mangles the mine’s secondary crushing systems. “That just rips everything apart, from conveyor belts to gear boxes. It’s nasty.”

The downtime needed for the removal process for a jammed tooth in a crusher is considerable and results in huge financial losses. “For less precious commodity mines, you are looking at $100,000 per incident,” Cooper said. “If you are looking at a precious metal mine, it could be millions of dollars. [Tooth monitoring] pays off in one incident.”

heavy equipment In order to remove a jammed loader tooth from a crusher, all other material in the crusher plant has to be painstakingly scooped out. Mine operators crouched in the belly of the emptied crusher have to use a cutting torch to cut, soften and free the jammed tooth. Reacting to extreme pressure and heat, the tooth can eject at a high speed and at great risk to mining personnel.

The shovel tooth monitoring system grew out of a PhD thesis in robotics and intelligent systems by now-Motion Metrics CEO Shahram Tafazoli at the University of British Columbia. Tafazoli had been informed by an industry insider about the catastrophic effect a broken tooth has on mine operations and safety.

Tafazoli would later found Motion Metrics to provide advanced monitoring solutions to mines worldwide. The company’s flagship technology, ShovelMetrics, rolled out in 2000, addressed the same tooth breakage issue in shovels using custom-developed conventional image processing methods.

Developing and adapting the preceding shovel monitoring technology for loaders involved overcoming a tough set of technological challenges. The shovel technology relies on an optical camera and an LED light mounted on the highest point of the shovel, up to 15 metres above the ground. This positioning affords a clear, unobstructed view of the shovel bucket below, allowing the camera to monitor for teeth for at least 20 to 30 seconds of the 45-second loading cycle.

Necessity breeds invention Loaders, on the other hand, are more squat and do not have a boom. The only place a camera can be installed is between the front wheels, with the lens looking up at the bucket. As a result, there is a far smaller window for datagathering; Cooper estimated it at two to four seconds. Moreover, when positioned so close to the ground and looking up, the camera and LED lights are more acutely exposed to the perils of the harsh mining environment, such as debris, rocks, dirt, mud and rain.

As a result, the team developing LoaderMetrics realized early in the research and development process that the technology needed an algorithm that processed images more effectively than before. “We couldn’t analyze the images fast, often and accurate enough with the conventional method,” said Saeed Karimifard, LoaderMetrics product manager.

“This is where deep and machine learning come in.”

Motion Metrics put together a team consisting of machine learning experts plus electrical, mechanical and computer engineers over a two-year period to develop the AI-based technology, which was later led by Karimifard and rolled out in 2016. Their main challenge was to improve the system’s image-grabbing frequency and accuracy in missing tooth detection, and to design a resilient camera that could survive unforgiving conditions.

In order to train the algorithm to identify a missing tooth and trigger an alert in real time, the team had to teach the

algorithm to focus data-gathering efforts on the part of the image containing the bucket and teeth – in the same way a human instinctively knows to look on the table, not the floor or ceiling, when asked to find a glass of water. They also had to teach it how to recognize whether the tooth was missing or not from the camera pixels.

To do so, the team designed an artificial neural network (ANN). They labelled thousands of images of the bucket area and teeth, creating a vast data set that was fed into the network. The algorithm interpreted this data set to learn how to detect those regions in an image and determine the status of the tooth on its own.

“Human reinforcement is key to this type of machine learning,” said Cooper. “So, when we have a whole bunch of humans labelling images, that’s essentially training the computer algorithm to know to look for the tooth in a certain area, and to know that a tooth looks a certain way.”

ANNs are what set deep learning apart from other types of machine learning. They are a multi-layered, interconnected group of nodes, inspired by the vast network of neurons in the human brain. Each layer of data takes the output of the previous one as its input and creates a more abstract representation of it. This teaches the computer to recognize abstract patterns and to correct its predictions based on all the samples it has seen.

“It’s like when you teach a child the difference between a cat and a dog,” explained Karimifard. “By repetitively showing them the animals and clarifying which it is, you are training them. They are going to improve performance and accuracy through time.” He added that the fact that the neural networks become more and more adept at correctly identifying the image is a “key advantage” of deep learning.

In order to combat the camera’s shortened visibility time and vulnerable position, and to eliminate the need for the LED light, the team opted for a thermal camera, instead of an optical one, and designed a strong metal mesh to guard the camera glass from falling rocks without obstructing its view.

They also invented an automated lens-cleaning solution made from a combination of high-pressure washer fluid and compressed air that can withstand temperatures ranging from -40 C to 40 C. While other tooth detection technologies exist, some of which involve embedding an RFID tag inside the teeth, Cooper said he believes Motion Metrics’ approach is “easier, more cost-efficient, more reliable and accurate.”

He added that while machine learning technologies are still novel for the mining industry, he said he believes the technology has huge potential for asset management techniques and operational improvements in mining. (Motion Metrics recently applied the deep learning techniques to the latest version of their shovel technology.)

“We are moving dirt and rocks in the mining industry,” he explained. “But in reality, we are moving data. Every single bucket scoop is giving us valuable data and operational insight and that’s what we are hoping to gather.” CIM August/Août 2017 | 35

Courtesy of the DET CRC

Field trials of DET CRC’s RoXplorer CT rig (below) demonstrated proof of concept for a drill that costs around $50/metre down to a depth of 500 metres and weighs less than 10 tonnes.

Reel disruption Australian research co-op successfully trials coiled-tubing drill rig in all rock formations

By Tom DiNardo

n Australian research consortium believes it has made a technological breakthrough that will relieve some of the problems that have plagued the exploration sector in recent years by adapting drilling technology from the oil and gas industry to create a safer, more economic and flexible drill for mineral exploration.

In June, the Deep Exploration Technologies Cooperative Research Centre (DET CRC) finished the third and final field trial for its coiled-tubing (CT) drill rig for greenfield exploration, dubbed the RoXplorer. The field trials for the project proved the team at DET CRC had achieved their original goal of developing a drill that would cost $50/metre down to a depth of 500 metres and weigh less than 10 tonnes with ancillary safety and environmental benefits. According to DET CRC drilling program leader Soren Soe, that is compared to around $500/metre for diamond drilling in the peak drilling years and $300/metre for reverse circulation drilling.

All three field trials took place in Australia over the course of about seven months, the first two in the state of South Australia in harder consolidated rock settings and the third in Horsham, Victoria, in an unconsolidated environment with an underlying basement. “We were basically trying to increase the

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readiness level of the technology around the RoXplorer system,” said Soe. “We had very successful trials in both states.”

The genesis for the project was AMIRA International’s Drilling Technology Roadmap, which was developed in the mid-2000s to explore new drilling practices. The DET CRC, created in 2010, grew out of AMIRA’s initial effort as an R&D venture to determine a cheaper and safer method for exploration.

According to Soe, major miners, including BHP, Barrick, Vale, Newcrest Mining, Gold Fields and Anglo American, wanted to “make a fundamental change in the exploration drilling industry and they realized that it would not be a change that could be driven from the service providers in the industry alone.” It would simply be too expensive and distracting for them to develop on their own.

So with AU$155 million in funding from the government of Australia and its major industry sponsors, the DET CRC allocated some of that funding to develop a mobile, lightweight drill rig that would be a cheaper alternative to diamond drilling and produce more accurate samples than reverse circulation, and could drill in both hard rock and unconsolidated formations.

heavy equipment Rig ready After researching several different options, the DET CRC decided in 2015 to move forward with CT technology, a practice inspired by similar drill rigs used in the oil and gas industry. Unlike most drills, where an operator must stop drilling every three, six or nine metres to add a drill rod, the CT drill consists of a single continuous drill pipe made of malleable steel on a reel.

One of the advantages is the elimination of rod handling, which has long been a safety hazard for drillers and offsiders.

According to Soe, about half of the injuries in mineral exploration are from rod handling or rod transportation. “You have a lot of finger injuries when you are connecting or disconnecting, and handling rods,” said Soe. “And by having a CT drill rig, you would have almost zero rod handling involved.”

The RoXplorer also applies constant in-hole pressure as the operator never has to stop drill fluid circulation, which increases borehole stability when drilling unconsolidated formations in particular. Constant fluid pressure on the borehole walls means operators are less prone to get stuck pipe or hole collapse.

The fact that the CT drill rig has performed so well with unconsolidated formations is particularly encouraging to Soe. “It opens up a lot of formations for this type of drilling, that we are able to drill these unconsolidated formations, and continue to drill through the basement where you typically find the mineralization,” he said.

The CT rig drills micro-boreholes at a diameter of 60 millimetres, compared to a typical borehole with a diameter of around 75-100 millimetres or even larger for reverse circulation. “That’s the smallest size you would normally drill anything with, but we drill that pretty much all the way down, which is definitely not common,” said Soe. In line with the DET CRC’s objective of reducing environmental impacts of a drill rig, micro-boreholes use less energy to drill and create less waste as they remove less material. This is significant as miners drill deeper to reach potential mineral deposits.

The DET CRC has also figured out a way to drill in a closed loop, meaning there are no mud pits or mud sumps. “We are using mechanical processing of the drilling fluid in a closed loop system,” said Soe. “We don’t have any fluid on the ground. It’s all contained in solids removal units.”

Robbie Rowe, manager of research integration for drilling trials and products at the DET CRC, said the technology can be used “in almost all exploration that involves looking for mineral deposits and is most suited for exploration below post-mineral cover.” That means it could be used to explore anywhere – not just in Australia where it is being developed – for example, under the gravels of Chile, for Carlin deposits in Nevada, and under the glacial till cover in Canada.

According to Soe, the CT drill rig would be a game changer. “If you can drill a lot of cheap, fast holes, you open up another way of doing exploration or another way of doing prospecting,” he said. “In the old school, you follow the trace on the ground or the outcrop to find the source

and the mineral deposits. If you drill enough holes and understand deposit footprints, this will allow you to vector to the source of the mineralization. If we manage to deploy all our technologies efficiently, it will lead to a new type of prospecting.” That could mean drilling wider-spaced drilling patterns. Coupled with another technology the DET CRC is developing – its Lab-at-Rig system, which would analyze assays in a matter of hours rather than weeks – companies could quickly and efficiently explore and target prospective properties.

Ironing out the kinks One of the main challenges for the team at the DET CRC was how to improve the fatigue life of the coil. “It’s a little bit like a paper clip, when you bend it and stretch it many times, it fatigues and fails between your fingers,” said Soren. The DET CRC was able to bring the fatigue life to 1,000 trips into the ground up from 35 for the initial drill rig it tested. Soe declined to give specifics, but he said the achievement was the result of tweaking elements of the coil material, design of the machine, and optimizing the overall system with techniques like micro-tripping.

Another was how to cut hard rock efficiently using a CT drill rig. When the DET CRC started researching the technology five years ago, “you couldn’t cut rock at any cost-economical rate at all,” said Soe. With the technologies available at the time, they were only able to cut hard rock about 25 millimetres per minute in a hard-rock environment. By optimizing the pressure, the drilling technology, the systems, and improving their sensors, the DET CRC was able to improve the drilling rate to 500 millimetres per minute.

Coming commercialization With the successful proof of concept, the RoXplorer is set to be offered to industry sponsors Boart Longyear and Imdex for possible commercialization in November, allowing the companies first right of refusal to the technology. Once commercialized, the technology will be made available first to the mining companies involved in the DET CRC and then to the industry as a whole, although Rowe said it is difficult to put a date on when that will be.

“It’s years away realistically,” he said. “Whether that’s two years away or five years away, we don’t know. And I think that really is up to a company to try and take this on and develop it and make it into a commercial product.”

Nevertheless, Rowe is adamant that the RoXplorer is potentially a transformational technology that will impact mineral exploration along with the rest of the work being done at the DET CRC. “The key thing is that the DET CRC is working on technologies for the short to medium term; the incremental technology that people can use on current drill rigs and current technology,” said Rowe. “They’re working on things that can make the difference tomorrow or within a few years, but at the same time, they’re working on truly disruptive technologies that will change the way we drill holes in the ground and therefore how we explore.” CIM August/Août 2017 | 37

Courtesy of Nautilus Minerals

A watertight design Nautilus Minerals’ CEO Mike Johnston on deep sea mining equipment

By Elle Crosby

autilus Minerals is expected to be the first company to harvest high-grade minerals from the bottom of the ocean in early 2019, and CEO Mike Johnston has been in the front seat during the conception and development of this project. After twenty years working as a geologist for traditional mining companies, Johnston took on the position of vice-president for strategic development and exploration at Toronto-based Nautilus in 2006. Six years later, he was appointed interim CEO before being offered the permanent position in 2014.

During his tenure at Nautilus, the company has been a trailblazer in the realm of deep sea mining. It delivered the world’s first NI 43-101 resource mine plan and environmental impact statement for mining seafloor massive sulfides (SMS) at its Solwara-1 project located at a depth of 1,600 metres in the national waters of Papua New Guinea (PNG).

It also obtained the first exploration licence granted to a publicly listed company by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) and developed the first commercial exploration and resource evaluation programs for polymetallic nodules in the Clarion Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCZ) in the South Pacific Ocean.

Now the company is nearly ready to start digging at Solwara-1. To extract the minerals, Nautilus has created specially designed underwater mining tools adapted from those used in the offshore oil and gas and terrestrial mining industries. These machines will cut up the seafloor (similar to how a tractor tills soil) to a depth of five to ten metres to loosen the ore from the seabed. A collection tool then gathers up the ore from the floor and the resulting plume above it and delivers it to a vessel on the surface to be dewatered and processed.

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CIM: What kind of factors did you have to take into consideration when designing these machines that you wouldn’t have had to if you were mining on land?

Johnston: [On the seafloor], there’s this massive pressure trying to crush everything. You’ve got to design for that massive pressure and if there is a single fault in one of your machines, you will know very quickly. It has to be pristine because there is no second chance; it will fail and get crushed.

Water at that depth also absorbs energy, so our cutting machines for the SMSs are designed to accommodate for the energy that gets lost [in the digging process]. On land, if you’ve got a pick and you smash a rock, first the pick jabs into the rock, and as it hits the rock, there is a shattering effect and the energy dissipates into the rock through that shattering motion.

The deeper you get in the ocean, the more energy is absorbed by the water, so that shattering effect is very much reduced. So you have to calculate what they call the hyperbaric effect to know how to make up for that lost energy. That’s why the machines are so big and heavy.

CIM: Nautilus, with the help of various contractors, consultants, and companies, has designed and built three seafloor production tools. How do they work?

Johnston: The three machines perform different functions.

The first machine is what we call the collection machine, and it’s designed to collect the already cut material and transfer it to the pumping and riser systems to get it up to the vessel. Then there are two mining machines that are quite different. We have what we call the auxiliary machine, which has a boom with four

Courtesy of Nautilus Minerals

heavy equipment

Nautilus Minerals has created three seafloor production tools to mine the seabed at its Solwara-1 project off the coast of Papua New Guinea. From left to right : the collection machine, the bulk cutter and the auxiliary cutter.

counter-rotating cutter heads that’s able to swivel and reach in different directions. It’s designed to go in the more rugged areas and make them more level. That’s done in preparation for the main cutting machine, the bulk cutter. It has rough teeth all over it and is designed to produce at a very high rate. It’s the heaviest of the machines and it uses that weight to cut at a very high rate.

CIM: How are the tools you created SMS-specific?

Johnston: The machines are built to be big and heavy, and that weight gets transferred into the rock-cutting process. Nodules, [as opposed to SMS,] sit like potatoes scattered all over the seafloor, and the sediment they sit in has very minimal load bearing capacity. On land it would be like having to send machines onto a tailings dam. You couldn’t use the tools we have in that sediment unless you seriously accommodated for the weight with buoyancy.

CIM: What kinds of trials have you been undertaking with the machines since they were completed and delivered in 2015?

Johnston: As well as the functionality of the machines themselves for how they handle irregular ground and their collection capability – making sure that the specifications that we’re using in our mine plans are accurate with what the performance of the machine is – we’re also testing visualization technology [that allows the remote operator to see what the machines are doing underwater]. From the design concept phase through to build and delivery, there was about a six-year period, and in that time there have been massive changes in visualization technology, so we are looking at upgrading those functions.

CIM: What kinds of impacts do you think these machines will have on a deep sea environment and what is Nautilus doing to try to mitigate these?

Johnston: The machines will have an impact on the environment because they’re designed to extract rock from the

seafloor, so we will be modifying the seafloor. We have a number of strategies to try to decrease our impact, like relocating organisms, putting down alternate substrates and reducing the plume. The machines are designed to limit the amount of plume because while they suck up the ore, they’re designed to also suck up the plume.

On land, the grades are getting lower and lower, and on the seafloor it’s actually the exact opposite. Our SMS site has a copper grade of nearly eight per cent and a gold grade of nearly seven grams per pound of ore. The average grade of a copper mine last year was between 0.5 and 0.6 per cent, so the grade of our deposits is about 20 times what the grade is on land. For the nodules [in the CCZ], it’s about one per cent copper, but it also comes with grades of 1.2 per cent nickel and 0.25 per cent cobalt. These deposits on the seafloor are the largest single deposits of copper, nickel, cobalt and manganese in the world. We only have to mine a very little bit on the seafloor to get the same results as huge pits on land.

CIM: What’s next for Nautilus?

Johnston: The ISA [which governs and regulates all mineral-related activities in seabed areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction] probably isn’t going to have its [exploitation] regulations available for another couple of years, and we plan to be commercially producing [in PNG’s national waters] at the end of the first quarter of 2019, so we’ll already be mining by that time. But once the ISA’s regulation is finalized, we’ll put the foot on the accelerators to seriously develop the CCZ. We’ve got equipment designs sitting ready to put into action, so I’ve just got to get a bit further on Solwara-1, and once it’s built and tested and once we complete a bit more of that, then we’ll start to crank up some of the nodule engineering bits as well. CIM August/Août 2017 | 39

Courtesy of Hecla Mining Company

THE AUTOMATION REVOLUTION

What is the best way into the automated future?

By Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

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A C O M P ANY O U R S IZE AND TH E TY P E O F M INING W E DO . ” Without the deep pockets of mining giants such as Rio Tinto or Anglo American that have championed, developed and implemented automation, Hecla was forced to be very strategic, thoroughly analyze its operations and identify where automation would bring the greatest benefit and return on investment. It also looked externally at technologies being successfully employed by other mining companies.

Board and his team travelled to Europe, where they spoke with vendors and visited other mines that had implemented various automation technologies to solve similar issues they faced, including Boliden’s mines in Sweden and Dundee Precious Metal’s Chelopech mine in Bulgaria.

Back at home, they developed a unique and customized staged approach for each mine and budgeted for the gradual implementation of automated tools. “We have been working on implementing things we thought made sense for Hecla on a step-by-step basis,” said Board. Earlier this year at Greens Creek, the company introduced Sandvik’s AutoMine Lite system to tele-remotely operate load-haul-dump (LHD) loaders. It made sense for the mine because Greens Creek staff have a 45-minute commute by ferry to get to work for their shifts. “It’s a long day and there’s a lot of lost time between shifts,” said Board. “Mainly, we use the autonomous LHD loaders to muck the headings at shift changes so we can clear a heading out and speed up the process to get the

Opposite page: In May, Hecla Mining Company announced it had introduced Sandvik’s AutoMine Lite system to tele-remotely operate load-haul-dump (LHD) loaders at its Greens Creek mine in Alaska.

people back in and start putting in ground support and drilling the heading.”

At Casa Berardi, they introduced Atlas Copco semi-automated drill jumbos, including computer-controlled rig guidance of drill patterns and drilling control as well as a Sandvik automated longhole production drill, automated hoisting and tele-remote rockbreakers controlled from the hoist room. In the fourth quarter of this year, the company will have autonomous trucks moving ore and waste from the main mining zones to the shaft.

And at Lucky Friday, the company is testing automated haul truck driver assist technology. It is also working on a longerterm step in its strategy with Atlas Copco to develop a mechanical mobile miner for vein mining. Initially, the machine will be tested using on-board personnel, but it will be equipped for tele-remote control with automated muck haulage should Hecla decide to go that route in the future.

Hecla is just one of many mining companies that has put its money on an automated future. And while automation may be the newest tool for mine operators to extract minerals and metals as safely and efficiently as possible, it will only be useful if those who implement it do so with two hands firmly on the wheel. Innovation presents risks – technological over-reach, network security, and social impacts, for example – and the key is to anticipate and mitigate as many of these as possible.

A STAGED APPROACH

There may not be a tried and true blueprint for companies that want to start automating their operations, but Hecla’s August/Août 2017 | 41

Courtesy of Hecla Mining Company

Hecla is developing a customized approach to automation for its four mines: Lucky Friday in northern Idaho, Casa Berardi in Quebec, San Sebastian in Mexico, and Greens Creek (above) on an island off the coast of Alaska.

step-by-step approach is in fact the implementation strategy experts recommend mining companies take.

“When we start talking about automation in the mining industry, right away people think about a fully autonomous fleet of machinery,” said François Gariépy, director of technology solutions for Peck Tech Consulting. “Instead of going for fully automated machines, there are many things companies can automate that will provide more value per dollar than making the fleet fully autonomous.”

But you cannot start blindly automating, even if it is little by little. According to Drew Larsen, mining business development director for Autonomous Solutions Inc. (ASI), companies need a long-term strategy in order to be successful. “What is it they want to see happen in their operation?” he said. “How can they get the most value through the technology? What would that future state look like? They may have to take that vision and break it up into smaller pieces. But each one of those pieces needs to be structured such that they can scale or gradually keep building toward that vision.”

A successful strategy also requires building a strong business case for automation initiatives, according to Larsen. “At the end of the day, it’s really about bringing the whole organization to get buy-in from the operations and line up the needed capital to make this successful,” he said.

Al Poole, chief electrical designer at Stantec concurred.

“Getting the project and operations teams aligned with the automation philosophy is critical. Unfortunately, sometimes project teams want to implement a new automation system, yet the operations group isn’t interested in using it. This can lead to cost overruns and schedule delays to get the teams aligned on how to best operate the facility,” he said.

Change management is also critical, said Larsen. “It includes things like a review of their internal procedures and processes.

Technology provides the ability to replicate something and have a high degree of repeatability, but to really leverage that, they have to pair it with the operational rigour in their own processes in order to maximize that technology,” he said. “The old adage ‘garbage in, garbage out’ applies. If you’re going to automate a junky process, it’s just going to be an automated junky process.”

42 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

ONE EYE ON THE PROBLEM

A big deal has been made about the potential for machines to take jobs away from humans, and rightly so. In theory, the number of workers who could be displaced across sectors is staggering. A study by McKinsey & Company and the Brookfield Institute concluded about 40 per cent of tasks currently done by humans could end up being automated. However, the original driver for automation in mining was never to eliminate human operators, according to Gariépy. Rather, it was to solve a specific problem. “In Western Australia, they were short on labour so for them, full automation was the solution. In other cases, mines were dealing with dangerous terrain. They had to be able to operate their machines without sending people into the pit. In that case, a remote-controlled solution was just as suitable as an autonomous vehicle, and could be less expensive. What we’ve found is the mines that automated and increased productivity and realized the most savings were the ones that deployed an autonomous solution to solve a specific problem.”

A successful automation implementation strategy, said Gariépy, leverages the best of artificial intelligence and the best of human intelligence. “In anything that’s complex that requires some thought process, people are the cheapest and most efficient solution for addressing the problem. If it’s just computation or accuracy, there’s probably no one who can beat a machine at that. So let’s use people for what they are good at.

Where machines can do better, well, this is where it is worth investing in the autonomous technology.”

There is no cookie-cutter automation answer for all mines, he said. The optimal and most cost-effective solution with the highest return on investment will differ from mine to mine and could include various levels of semi-autonomous and autonomous solutions.

Artificial intelligence is excellent at repetition. Human beings are brilliant at problem solving, dealing with the unexpected and complex thinking. The key is to develop solutions that leverage the best of both. “Hauling is quite a repetitive task and most people are looking at that area,” he said. “Digging in and of itself, picking up material, is repetitive but choosing what you are picking up requires some thought process. For shovels,

you probably don’t want to remove the operator, you just want to add auto-dig and auto-dump. That would prevent shovel operators from boom-jacking or hitting the trucks every now and then, for example. So, with that level of automation, you’d be more efficient, reduce wear on your equipment and could make operators more proficient with much less training.”

RISKY BUSINESS

Cybersecurity is already a concern for mining companies, and it has been for several years. As more operations automate, this risk only increases. “[Automation] means there are more machines and all those machines are connected online,” said Daniel Tobok, CEO of Toronto-based cybersecurity firm Cytelligence. “Anything that is online can be hacked.”

Given the world we live in, it does not take much imagination to think of the catastrophic possibilities of an autonomous machine being hacked and the havoc it could cause in a mine.

“Mining companies tend to rely on IT for this, but they are not the people to look after security because it isn’t an IT problem,” said Tobok. “It’s an operational problem. A million fire walls and intrusion detection systems and fancy stuff works to a point, but the best way to address it is to be proactive and build cybersecurity from the ground up that has proper security and protocols in place.”

Another potential risk of replacing human operators with robots has to do with safety and equipment damage or loss.

“Humans are just brilliant at detecting things that are not normal, whether it’s a strange smell or a black smoke,” said Jonathan Moore, ASI’s chief engineer.

And despite advances in sensor technology, it still cannot replicate human senses. “When you remove the operator, you lose all that [human] forewarning and diagnostic [for the equipment],” said Moore.

The human brain is also finely tuned to react to the unexpected and make quick judgment calls. “You hope an unforeseen emergency situation never happens, but when it does, you know you’ll do the right thing.” If, for example, a human is driving a car and the breaks fail, they will react quickly by honking to warn others, steering and trying alternative ways to stop the car. “For robots, we don’t even attempt to train those scenarios,” said Moore. That is because robots are limited by the situations their programmers can anticipate, and equipment failure is not always predictable.

Moore points out that the airline industry has very high levels of automation and high levels of reliability. “The failure rate in airlines is very low. But there is a cost to that in the development and analysis,” said Moore, who said he believes this issue will need to be addressed by the mining industry with new, higher standards for failure rates.

SHARED VALUE

Last February, imagining the massive revenue loss in income taxes that a reduction in jobs performed by humans would represent for governments, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates suggested they should tax companies that replace human workers with a robot. But the implications of large-scale automation

displacing countless workers are more far-reaching than government revenues.

“A lot of mining companies think they are going to be hiring fewer people when they automate,” said Jeff Geipel, venture leader for Mining Shared Value – a venture of Engineers Without Borders Canada – and one of the authors of a recent research study led by the International Institute for Sustainable Development on the influence of technology on local employment and procurement. “But they may be overlooking the fact they could end up buying fewer things, such as uniforms and camp services, and that loss in local procurement is going to add up to a significant amount that will impact the host economy.”

This is important because a company’s pitch to local communities to operate a mine in their backyard often includes some form of local employment and procurement in order to foster a mutually beneficial relationship, a concept known as “shared value.” If machines perform many of the jobs, both local employment and procurement go down while local governments receive less money from income taxes from local residents. This could in turn make it harder for companies to convince jurisdictions to let them operate within their borders.

Rather than doom and gloom, Geipel said he believes mining companies and governments need to begin planning for these impacts and develop new structures and relationships that build on the concept of shared value.

Whether or not automation will result in dramatic job losses remains to be seen. And, in fact, there is no certainty automation will even solve the labour shortages predicted for the mining industry. For example, the Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MiHR) has found that while automation will certainly reduce the need for certain types of workers, the industry’s hiring needs have been shifting toward more university-level training and away from those with high school or no diploma, certificate or degree.

“It can be challenging to predict a monumental shift in technology such as automation, especially with very few previous historical observations to point to,” said Ryan Montpellier, executive director at MiHR. “It is also difficult to predict the impact automation will have on the composition of the workforce, the new skills that will be needed from future generations and the adoption rate from mining companies, communities and workers.”

On the edge of this monumental shift, many mining companies, according to Stantec’s Poole, are interested in automation but not moving toward it. “In some cases mines don’t want to be first,” he said. “Instead, they prefer to be fast-followers.”

The fast-followers, however, are already implementing their automation strategies. Hecla is one of them. “For companies our size, adopting even incremental automation and innovation strategies has a significant bottom line impact.

And other mining companies that have already begun this process have been amazingly generous toward us with information,” said Board. “There’s a certain camaraderie among mining people and a willingness to share information with others, and that’s helped our application go in a relatively straight forward way. Hecla is the same. We don’t see it as a competitive advantage. We too will share all the information we have with other companies.” CIM August/Août 2017 | 43

The gilded

South

The Haile mine in South Carolina, which poured its first gold in January, counters the trend of increasingly remote, logistically complex mines. It does, however, belong to a long tradition of mining in the area. And it is one that the team at OceanaGold continues to build on, having already announced expansion plans for the newly commissioned mine.

By Ryan Bergen

The results of the recent optimization study with higher gold price means the size of the eight planned pits will expand.

Photo by Ryan Bergen

Courtesy of OceanaGold

Courtesy of OceanaGold

Left: OceanaGold’s chief development officer Mark Cadzow enjoys the moment of Haile’s first gold pour in January; right: The expansion project at Haile will include an upgrade of the plant and its process controls.

ocated a few minutes from the small town of Kershaw, South Carolina, Haile has the distinction of being the only gold mine in the United States east of the Mississippi River. More to the point, unlike many new operations it is, if traffic cooperates, just an hour and a half from both an international airport and a domestic hub for air cargo.

It also has the advantage of a deep labour pool nearby and easy access to power and roads, which helped OceanaGold build the 6,300- tonnes-per-day operation for an estimated US$400 million.

L

Past to present Gold was first discovered in the area in the 1820s by tenants clearing the land owned by Benjamin Haile. The first placer operations evolved to include a stamp mill, and the gold extracted helped fund the losing Confederate effort in the American Civil War. Legendary Union General William Sherman made a point of destroying Haile’s mine facilities as he and his troops returned north and operations only resumed in the 1880s when New York investors brought it back into production. The mine eventually hit its stride once the German engineer Carl Adolf Thies introduced the barrel chlorination process at the operation and brought the recovery rate from the sulfide ore up to near 90 per cent, from 40. That successful run came to a tragic end with the explosion of a boiler in the stamp mill in 1908 (See our mining lore on pg. 74). Gold prices rose in the 1930s and Haile was briefly brought back to life before President Roosevelt ordered gold mines – considered a non-strategic resource – to be shut. The emergence of heap leaching in the 1970s gave Haile a few more years of life.

The mine’s latest incarnation began in 2007 when Romarco Minerals picked up the property and began exploration and development, securing all of the permits by November 2014.

Several months later, OceanaGold, which operates two mines 46 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

in New Zealand as well as Didipio in the Philippines, took its big step into North America when it acquired Romarco Minerals for $856 million. And now that OceanaGold has its foothold on American soil, its ambitions have found a home.

“We want to build the best, safest and most environmentally responsible gold mine in North America,” said Mark Cadzow, executive vice-president and chief development officer for OceanaGold when CIM Magazine visited the site in late April.

Cadzow took over as project lead in late 2015, with the earthworks already begun.

In the long term, the OceanaGold team is making the case for itself. The company announced in late June that as part of its optimization study it had expanded the mineral reserves at Haile by 70 per cent to 3.46 million ounces, added two years to the mine life of the open pit operation and conceived an underground development called Horseshoe that would have a six-year mine life and produce an estimated 440,000 ounces.

These figures are based on Proven and Probable Reserves of 55 million tonnes with a grade of 1.71 grams per tonne, and a cut-off grade of .45 g/t for the open pit and 3.12 million tonnes at 4.38 g/t at a cut-off of 1.50g/t for the underground operation. Initially, the mine plan called for the processing of three million tonnes per year over the mine’s 14-year life. That figure is now up to four million.

“Very shortly we will commence the permitting process and work closely with the regulator and all stakeholders to advance the Haile expansion project to construction,” said OceanaGold’s CEO Mick Wilkes in a statement accompanying Opposite page, clockwise from top: currently the Haile process plant handles 6,300 tonnes per day; the purchase of Romarco Minrerals included an ISO 17025 accredited mineral lab a short drive from the mine. It is the only such lab east of the Continental Divide; Haile operation process manager Quenton Johnson describes the processing steps for the plant; the tailings storage facility is lined with an HDPE geomembrane. An overpass was built over a local highway to ease the construction process and to transport the tailings from process plant.

Ryan Bergen

Ryan Bergen

Ryan Bergen

Courtesy of OceanaGold

project profile

August/Aoรปt 2017 | 47

Project specs

Current workforce 314 Expansion from 3 Mt/y to 4 Mt/y Process plant upgrade $67 million Mining fleet upgrade $60 million Site infrastructure $65 million Open pit mine life 16 years Ore feed 3.3 Mt/y Open pit Updated Proven and Probable reserves Cut-off Mt Au g/t Au Moz

Underground mine life 6 years Mining method Long-hole open stoping with ramp access Construction start 2019 First ore 2021 Pre-production Capex $55 million Ore feed 700,000 t/y Underground Updated Proven and Probable reserves Cut-off Mt Au g/t Au Moz

.45 g/t Au

1.5 g/t Au

55

1.71

3.02

3.12

4.38

.44

Current mining fleet 2 Cat MD6290 and 2 Cat MD5150C blast hole drills; Cat 993 and Cat 988H wheel loaders; Hitachi 1900 hydraulic shovel; Cat 6020 hydraulic excavator; 12 Cat 777 and 3 Cat 785 haul trucks; Cat dozers, graders and compactor

the June announcement. “We continue to ramp up operations and drill targets at depth and along strike to further add to the already significant resource base. These targets include Palomino and beneath the Snake pit, both of which were not included in the study and represent potential additional value of the asset.”

On the same day, however, the company also declared that Haile has struggled to reach commercial production.

The poly-urethane liners of all eight carbon-in-leach tanks delaminated and will have to be reapplied, one tank at a time so as not to disrupt production. The operations team also discovered gold-bearing slurry from the carbon-in-leach tanks was being sent to tailings after it “identified the CIL piping system was under designed.” OceanaGold also noted improvements to be made in the SAG mill and slurry feed to the fine grinding circuit, as well as to the plant’s process control system. “Although disappointed with the delay,” stated Wilkes, “I am highly confident in the team and with their ability to deliver this plant to meet our expectations for production and cost.”

The upgrade of the control system will be completed in stages and will feature a real-time monitoring system to analyze the sulfur content in the mill feed as well in the slurry further along the process circuit. “If you know how much sulfur you have in your feed then you can tailor the amount of reagents or the amount of physical material which allows you to streamline your process, saving money on reagents by not having to put in as much as you would’ve for a ‘just-in-case’ scenario.” explained Cadzow. The technology, manufactured by Sabia, relies on prompt gamma neutron activation analysis (PGNAA), which irradiates the feed and identifies its elements through the unique gamma ray that each emits. There are smelters in Sudbury nickel operations that use the same technology to analyze the sulfur in the smelter feed, but, according to Cadzow, this is the first time it will be put to use at a gold operation.

48 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

From mine to mill The Haile deposit is part of the Carolina terrane, once known as the Carolina slate belt, which runs northeast from Alabama into Virginia. The host rock, formed 550 million years ago off the west coast of Africa, contains some of the world’s oldest epithermal deposits. Haile’s low sulfidation

“We are very transparent – you can see what we’re doing, and that we are doing the right thing. It’s part of our culture.”

– M. Cadzow

epithermal mineralization is one of three types of gold deposits in the terrane, which also includes a high sulfidation mineralization that kept the Brewer gold mine 10 kilometres northeast of Haile operating off and on between 1828 and 1995, and a shear-zone orogenic style, the source of gold for the Howie mine in North Carolina that shuttered in the 1940s.

Multiple generations of flooding added gold-rich sediment to the Haile deposit where now the ore body, a combination of pyrite and electrum, is contained in hard and soft rock.

Once ore is mined from a series of open pits, it is reduced to less than 15 centimetres by the primary jaw crusher before heading to the SAG then ball mills prior to flotation. Concentrate from the flash and rougher flotation is reground in six Metso stirred media detritors so that 80 per cent is 13 microns or less before it heads to the carbon-in-leach stage. The flotation tailings and the discharge from the concentrate leach tank are combined in the additional seven CIL tanks before passing through cyanide recovery thickener, with the tailings

A loader delivers ore destined for the mill.

heading to a storage facility lined with sheets of high-density polyethylene.

With its mining past, South Carolina has also inherited its liabilities. Two past-producing gold mines in the state are among the Environmental Protection Agency’s sites identified as areas contaminated by hazardous waste and in need of clean-up at taxpayers’ expense. Obtaining the federal wetlands permit – one of more than two dozen from federal, state and county regulators – from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the mine proved a long process, due both to the scale and the regulators’ lack of experience with such a project. The permitting, which allowed for 120 acres of wetlands to be filled in, took three years and requires the preservation of wetlands through the classification and storage of the overburden with the potentially acid-generating material stored in a lined facility where the drainage is collected and treated at the site’s water treatment facility.

Up to the challenge For his part, Cadzow, who is a veteran of several OceanaGold projects including the construction of its Macraes mine, the installation and commissioning of an autoclave there as well as the lead for the development of the mine infrastructure at Oceanagold’s Didipio operation in the Philippines, is confident in the talent working to bring Haile up to capacity. “Every ore body is different, but is the processing more technically challenging than other

Courtesy of OceanaGold

project profile

ore bodies we’ve got? No. We’ve run more complex ones and we’ve run less complex ones.” He did, however, concede that there was an aspect of the project that did give him pause. “I would say that I was a little bit worried about the safety culture. I think people tend to take risks without thinking about their own personal risk and potentially the risk to others. That would certainly be one of the biggest challenges here.”

That concern informed their hiring process which did not necessarily move applicants with mining experience to the front of the line. “We like to get local people who don’t have a great knowledge of mining so that we can train them the way we want them, rather than potentially have them bring bad habits with them, and our training techniques are wellproven with mines in New Zealand and the Philippines,” explained Cadzow. And, according to data from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, that approach has paid off.

There have been no fatalities at the mine and the site’s lost time injury rate has been consistently better than the national average for metal mines.

Cadzow tipped his hat to the Romarco team who got the project underway. “They did it the right way, and got a lot of community engagement and the community has been very excited to see the progress.” And the change of hands has been a smooth one. “People here have been very impressed with the professionalism of Haile. We are very transparent – you can see what we’re doing, and that we are doing the right thing. It’s part of our culture.” CIM August/Août 2017 | 49

The bandwidth backbone The data demands of mining technology are pushing developments in underground communications infrastructure

Courtesy of the Lumens Group

By Eavan Moore

A WiFi-connected tablet installed and in use at Dundee Precious Metals’ Chelopech operation.

n its 2017 Tracking the Trends report, Deloitte identified what it called a “digital revolution” as one of this year’s top ten trends for mining companies. “As mines embrace digital, their core processes will become fully integrated, autonomous, remote and automated,” the report said.

This vision relies on a communications infrastructure that can support data-heavy technologies.

The traditional leaky feeder systems found in underground mines are giving way to Wi-Fi networks designed for autonomous equipment and extensive real-time monitoring. Although the new communications infrastructure is largely based on technologies proven in other industries, mining companies and their suppliers have come up with new solutions to the specific problems of running high-tech underground operations safely and affordably.

I

Autonomy Barrick Gold’s Hemlo operations have been using Sandvik autonomous haul trucks at the Williams mine for the last ten years. Patrick Marshall, senior production systems engineer at Barrick Hemlo, said that the existing leaky feeder radio system was unsuitable for automation. “Leaky feeder supports neither the bandwidth nor latency for automation,” he said. “So to service the haul 50 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

trucks, we had fibre optic cable run down our shaft and broken out on the level that the automated trucks run on. There are Wi-Fi network access points throughout the haulage drift and in the cutouts for loading and dumping.”

Each of Sandvik’s autonomous vehicles requires around 10 Mbps of bandwidth. “What consumes bandwidth is video feed,” said Marshall. “So the more angles of view that you desire, the more bandwidth you consume. We have two video views on board the truck, plus additional fixed-point cameras all through the automation zone, so that you can see key infrastructure points and passing points.”

Because most mine sites are currently running only a few pieces of automated equipment, bandwidth is unlikely to be a limiting factor on modern networks with gigabitlevel fibre backbones. Marshall thought that efficient compression of the video feed could also help reduce bandwidth use if necessary.

Where direct communications between vehicle and surface servers are concerned, latency (delay in data transfer) is more important than bandwidth. Marshall explained that the Profinet communications protocol is used between key infrastructure such as the automated equipment, safety gates, e-stops and the system server to allow the high-speed transfer of data. Therefore network switches and Wi-Fi access points that are compatible with the Profinet protocol must be used in most automation installations. He said the Sandvik system is “basically designed so that if it at any point feels that it has lost communication for a substantial amount of time – and we’re talking in a matter of milliseconds, less than 10 – it will come to a stop and shut down as a safety precaution.”

The vehicle must also migrate seamlessly from one access point to another. As the onboard Wi-Fi antenna comes within range of a new access point, it needs to be able to handshake with that access point, go through its security protocols for connecting, and disconnect from its previous access point.

“When this first went in nine to 10 years ago, there was difficulty with getting that connection from one access point to the next,” said Marshall. “If this is not seamless, you cannot control critical systems such as navigation, speed, steering, brakes and emergency stop.”

Sandvik solved this problem by working with networking firm Moxa to develop a feature called “turbo roaming” that makes rapid handovers possible. Mikko Koivunen, automation business line manager at Sandvik Mining & Rock Technology, said Sandvik offers customers the option of using its Wi-Fi system, which is based on standard protocols but employs such features to ensure it will work with automated equipment.

Other network providers have similar solutions. Alex Smith, account manager at Cisco, said his company has just developed a new parallel redundancy protocol to reduce dropped signals and keep handovers smooth: “As the access point that the [vehicle Wi-Fi radio] is leaving is getting dimmer and dimmer, and another access point is getting stronger and stronger, it is sending a redundant signal to both access points, and it will continue to do that along its path. So it’s

| technology

Courtesy of MST

C O M M U N I C AT I O N S

pretty well impossible to lose a Mine Site Technologies’ wireless signal.” The protocol also sends repeater node can be moved easily to connect people and equipment at duplicate packets to the same the working face to the mine’s access point when only one is communication infrastructure. in range, improving the reliability of the connection.

Autonomous equipment underground typically operates in isolated areas with dedicated Wi-Fi networks. Ideally, a communications installation could be tailored to the ephemeral nature of mine workings, with no unnecessarily permanent infrastructure. The Williams mine is currently commissioning an Atlas Copco ST14 autonomous Scooptram; unlike the fixed-circuit trucks, scoops follow production activities as they move around the mine, and the network sometimes has to move as well.

To minimize fixed infrastructure, Barrick is experimenting with a mesh network, in which a series of routers pass Wi-Fi signals from one to another, allowing wireless coverage to extend well beyond the fibre installation. “We’ve pre-hung power cables throughout our mining levels, and we can locate those meshing access points on an as-needed basis throughout the level,” said Marshall. “They will daisy-chain to each other to transmit a Wi-Fi message back to the primary access point at the local entrance, which is hard-wired into the switch.”

Mesh networks – and robust connectivity underground, more generally – are not just for automation. Long-established communications provider Mine Site Technologies recently introduced a battery-powered meshing device called the Wireless Repeater Node (WRN). Affixed to walls or equipment, the WRN maintains Wi-Fi coverage and serves as a position reference point for tags in underground tracking applications.

Denis Kent, international business manager at Mine Site Technologies, said that spacing the WRNs at about 400 to 500 metres apart would keep their bandwidth above 5 Mbps.

According to Kent, Mine Site Technologies identified equipment monitoring as an emerging area in 2005. “We could see the bandwidth of traditional leaky feeder radio sysAugust/Août 2017 | 51

Courtesy of MST

tems was just not able to support video, tracking systems, gas and equipment sensors, et cetera,” said Kent. “Now, with the much talkedabout Internet of Things, these sensors are becoming even more available and in greater quantities, so a way to link to them and deliver their data to where it can be analyzed and used is even more critical.”

Smith said that Cisco’s mining customers typically develop a business case for one new application and upgrade their network infrastructure to serve that use. He suggested that mines should anticipate the future and base their new networks on open standards. “It’s making life easier in the second, third, fourth, fifth application,” he said. “If it’s based on open standards, then the need to rebuild the network down the road will be greatly diminished.”

Network devices for underground operations have to be able to withstand the working environment. Here an MST network switch is installed in a salt mine.

Open standards These days, that should not be an issue at the network level. “There are still vendors who prefer proprietary because they feel that it’s better for business if they have a lock in,” said Smith. “But for the most part, the communications industry has figured out that an explosion of growth can only occur if everything can talk to everything else. Ethernet and Wi-Fi are very open standards. What you’re putting on top of them tends to get more proprietary.”

Where automation is concerned, it is unclear whether systems will ever be able to integrate. Barrick has a long-term goal of working with equipment vendors to integrate brands within the same zone. “So one day an automated Atlas Copco Scooptram might load an automated Caterpillar truck,” said Marshall, “and that Caterpillar truck could feed ore to orepasses and down to Sandvik automation trucks, while communicating with automated rockbreakers and other fixed plants, all providing a seamless integration across multiple automation systems and multiple vendors. That would be a great long-term goal.” Fred Delabbio, director of Strat52 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

egy Focused Innovation and previously underground innovation general manager at Rio Tinto agreed having the ability to combine automation products has been the goal of various companies for many years. That was the impetus for the International Rock Excavation Data Exchange Standard (IREDES), a standardized approach to having mining equipment and underground systems communicate. “Having been involved in many automation projects since the early 1990s, besides the bandwidth and latency issues that are always a constraint, there are many fundamental challenges that hopefully can be converted into opportunities as we utilize the ‘plug & play’ approach from other industries,” said Delabbio. “These opportunities include: increased open systems from equipment and system providers, reducing the complexities of having a mixed fleet of equipment on the same system, reducing production risks associated with upgrading automation software versions, and reducing the impediments to changing out technologies that are not sufficiently supported or lacking capabilities based on future operational needs.”

Affordable, pervasive coverage Despite a recent surge of interest in advanced communications, mining companies may still have difficulty justifying the cost of upgrading their networks. Dundee Precious Metals (DPM) set an example for other relatively small mining companies when it implemented real-time monitoring of equipment and employees throughout its underground Chelopech mine in Bulgaria. Shift workers underground use WiFi-connected tablets to stay in constant communication with their supervisors, who track progress toward short-term production goals and use that information to issue instructions.

This meant DPM had to build a robust communications infrastructure that could extend into every corner of the mine.

“There are only a handful of companies that can afford that type of technology,” said Mark Gelsomini, corporate director of information technologies at DPM. But his company did it anyway – by purchasing off-the-shelf network hardware and mobile communications equipment intended for less harsh environments, then ruggedizing that equipment with selfdesigned covers and enclosures. The guts of its wireless access points are Cisco products made for office environments.

In 2016, DPM created a spinoff firm, Terrative Digital Solutions, to sell its solutions to other mining companies with similar ambitions. Gelsomini said that Terrative had already found customers.

Terrative hired consultant Joe Gladu to help bring its products to market. Having spent the last eleven years selling communications technology to mining companies, Gladu said he expects the small pool of technology providers to grow and become more competitive. “We’re going to see a tremendous movement in the adoption of Wi-Fi solutions over the next coming years,” he said. “This year, it’s just really taking off, and there’s a lot of interest. That, to me, is going to drive the price down.” CIM

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PRELIMINARY PROGRAM

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WELCOME from the MeMO 2017 General Chair On behalf of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) and its Saskatoon Branch, the Maintenance, Engineering and Reliability Society, the Underground Mining Society, and the Saskatoon GeoSection, we are honoured to welcome you to MeMO 2017 – a conference for operators, by operators.

Our theme of Finding MeMO was selected because we knew to have a successful conference in this economic downturn, we needed to find Maintenance, Engineering, and Mine Operators. Once again, the Saskatchewan mining industry has demonstrated that this is a fantastic place to hold a successful conference, even at a time when everyone is focused on reducing costs. MeMO 2017 is an opportunity for our mining community to share and gather information through our workshops and short courses, inspirational keynote speakers, informative technical program, and outstanding field trips and industry site tours, so that we can continue to inspire each other to increase productivity while improving safety and reliability.

The MeMO Trade Show is an excellent platform for the latest in maintenance and operations technology. Be sure to make time to visit the 64 companies showcasing their products and services.

Chuck Edwards MEMO 2017 Conference Chair

Drop in to see CIM’s popular Mining for Society (M4S) educational and interactive show on mining, minerals, metals and materials taking place downstairs.

Everyone is welcome to explore the pavilions and learn a little more about the life cycle of mining and its role in our everyday lives. M4S is very important for CIM because it delivers a positive message to elementary and high school students about the mining industry, the interesting and rewarding careers we offer, and our contribution to society. Our M4S partners, The Saskatchewan Mining Association and Saskatoon Industry Education Council, were instrumental to this event.

On the social and relaxation side, don’t miss the Opening Reception on Sunday evening, the Lunch and Beer Reception on both Monday and Tuesday on the Trade Show floor, our MeMO Banquet on Monday evening, and the CIM Foundation’s Tuesday Networking Evening (aka Scotch Tasting Night).

Finally, we would like to thank our sponsors without whom this conference would not be possible. Your support is very much appreciated.

We hope you enjoy the conference and the Saskatoon experience!

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE Conference Chair Chuck Edwards Technical Program Chair Donna Beneteau Sponsorship Chair Rory Duncan Field Trip Co-Chairs Robert Carey Shayne Rozdilsky Sheldon Hill

M4S Co-Chairs Pam Schwann Janet Uchacz-Hart

Underground Mining Society Donna Beneteau

SOCIETY REPRESENTATIVES

Maintenance Engineering and Reliability Society Andy Lemay Rhaul Lakhote

GeoSection Shayne Rozdilsky Surface Mining Society Zoltan Lukacs

Society for Rock Engineering Douglas Milne

CIM CONTACTS Event Team Leader Chantal Murphy Director, Conferences and Trade Shows Lise Bujold Trade Show Manager Martin Bell Registration Coordinator Carol Lee

memo2017.cim.org | 55

FIELD TRIPS FABRICATION SHOP TOUR WEDNESDAY SEPT 27 HALF DAY Saskatoon has a wealth of fabrication and machining capability serving the mining sector. This half-day tour will provide an opportunity to visit four well established industrial facilities in Saskatoon providing machining, millwrighting, repair/rebuild, engineering, and fabrication services. Tours of the following facilities will be provided: Venables Machine Works Ltd; Industrial Machine and Mfg Inc.; RMD Engineering Inc.; Deca Industries Cost: $50 Included: Bus transportation

SEABEE GOLD MINE TOUR WEDNESDAY SEPT 27 FULL DAY Attendees will tour the Santoy Mine Complex, and examine the underground geology and structural controls associated with the Gap Deposit, before returning to surface. The afternoon will consist of a field lunch, followed by a surficial tour of the property, including the examination of outcrops and discussions of the structural history and geochemical properties of the mineralization at the Seabee Mine Operation and the regional Pine Lake Greenstone Belt, Glennie Domain.

Cost: $1600 Included: Bus to airport, charter flight, bus transportation at the site, lunch and guidebook

ATHABASCA BASIN URANIUM, MINING AND EXPLORATION TOUR WEDNESDAY – FRIDAY SEPT 27 – 29 3 DAYS This multi-day geological tour will travel to three mine and exploration sites in northern Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin Uranium District. Attendees will spend a day touring each the McArthur River Mine, the Wheeler River Project, and the Christie Lake Project. Overnight accommodations will be provided at the McArthur River Mine, where each attendee will have a private room, and access to the shared washroom facilities, and the 24hour dining facility. Attendees will be provided with the required protective equipment while underground.

Cost: $2,200 Included: Bus to airport, charter flights to each site, transportation at the sites, 2 nights lodging at the McArthur River Camp, meals and guidebook

POTASH CORP ALLAN TOUR THURSDAY SEPT 28 FULL DAY Participants will travel from Saskatoon to the Allan Mine via a chartered bus. At the site, the group will undergo safety induction before heading underground for a tour of the mine. Back at surface, the group will tour the mill facility before returning to Saskatoon that afternoon.

Cost: $125 Included: Bus transportation to the site and lunch

CIGAR LAKE MINE TOUR WEDNESDAY SEPT 27 FULL DAY

ARROW URANIUM DEPOSIT TOUR

Attendees will spend the day touring the underground mine, and surface operations, including the ore loadout faculty, where ore is loaded for processing at Areva Resources’ McLean Lake mill.

Cost: $950 Included: Bus to airport, charter flight, bus transportation at the site, lunch and guidebook

THURSDAY SEPT 28 FULL DAY Participants will travel from Saskatoon to the Rook I camp at Patterson Lake, via Fort McMurray. On site, delegates will be treated to technical presentations, a visit to the Arrow drill site, along with a tour of the core shacks and examination of drill core from the deposit and property.

Cost: $1600 Included: Bus to airport, charter flight, bus transportation at the site, lunch and guidebook

More detailed information on the field trips can be found at memo2017.cim.org

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TECHNICAL PROGRAM KEYNOTE SPEAKERS MONDAY SEPT 25 9:00 – 10:00 Lawrence Devon Smith, Principal Consultant at Lawrence, Devon, Smith and Associates Larry is a mining engineer with over 40 years of experience in project engineering and economic evaluations for mining, metallurgical and industrial projects. He is considered an expert in mineral project evaluation, discount rates and risk assessment.

TUESDAY SEPT 26 9:00 – 10:00 Ryan Morelli, Assistant Chief Geologist of the Data Managemet unit, Saskatchewan Geological Survey Since 2007, Ryan was a Precambrian Research Geologist with the Saskatchewan Geological Survey. In this role he undertook bedrock mapping and drill core investigations throughout much of the Reindeer Zone in the Trans-Hudson orogen. Ryan has recently become Assistant Chief Geologist of the Data Management unit.

MONDAY SEPT 25 Room 1 9:00 - 10:00

Room 2

Room 3

Room 4

HEALTH, SAFETY & ENVIRONMENT Environment

MINERAL EXPLORATION AND GEOSCIENCE Exploration Techniques

HEALTH, SAFETY & ENVIRONMENT Data

MINERAL EXPLORATION AND GEOSCIENCE Geoscience

HEALTH, SAFETY & ENVIRONMENT Safety Systems

COMMUNITY & MANAGEMENT Community

Room 3

Room 4

EMERGING INNOVATIONS Energy

PROCESSING Pipeline Technology

EMERGING INNOVATIONS VR and Tele-Operations

PROCESSING Processing

EMERGING INNOVATIONS Strategic Initiatives

PROCESSING Processing and OH&S

KEYNOTE SESSION COFFEE BREAK

10:30 - 12:10

MINING Haulage

MAINTENANCE & RELIABILITY Maintenance Excellence

MINING Production Efficiency

MAINTENANCE & RELIABILITY Material Discharge and Bin Design

LUNCH

13:30 - 15:10

COFFEE BREAK

15:30 - 17:10

MINING Geotechnical

MAINTENANCE & RELIABILITY Optimization

Room 1

Room 2

TUESDAY SEPT 26 9:00 - 10:00

KEYNOTE SESSION

10:30 - 12:10

MINING Mine Ventilation

MAINTENANCE & RELIABILITY Ropes and Hoisting

13:30 - 15:10

MINING Bolting

MAINTENANCE & RELIABILITY Machinery Maintenance

15:30 - 17:10

MINING Mining Methods

MINING Equipment

COFFEE BREAK

LUNCH

COFFEE BREAK

memo2017.cim.org | 57

WORKSHOPS SUNDAY SEPT 24 TCU PLACE 9:00 – 17:00 | $200

MINING 101 AND MILLING 101 Mining 101: An overview of mining from exploration to closure including highlighted aspects of surface and underground mining methods, the tools that are used and the roles that people play in the mining process.

Specialist activities such as blasting, understanding the proportion of waste to ore moved and reclamation planning receive attention.

Milling 101: An introduction to, and an overview of, the unit operations used in mineral processing and extractive metallurgy, their functions and their operation and the roles of individuals in a milling operation. Specific applications in operations are presented and described.

Facilitators: Tim Joseph, Associate Dean, Faculty of Engineering at the University of Alberta and Chuck Edwards, Process Engineering Advisor with the Saskatchewan Research Council in Saskatoon.

COST SAVING STRATEGIES IN MINE VENTILATION The mining industry consumes a large percentage of the energy generated in our country, with ventilation comprising 50% of a mine’s energy consumption and 25 to 40% of the total mining costs. This workshop will show the operator how to perform day-to-day inspections and surveys to not only identify deficient areas needing prompt attention, but also to quantify their efficiency and effect on performance, costs and safety. It will explain how to prepare internal corrective action proposals for consideration by site managers as well as how to perform

58 | memo2017.cim.org

calculations to demonstrate cost savings and payback periods when bringing the upset condition into conformity.

The workshop will also introduce management programs that consist of audit, verification and corrective action procedures used to improve system efficiencies and achieve reductions in energy and in overall costs.

Facilitator: Euler De Souza, Associate Professor with the R.M. Buchan Department of Mining, Queen’s University

GEOLOGICAL & ROCK MECHANICS GEOLOGICAL WORKSHOP FOR STAKEHOLDERS IN NATURAL RESOURCE EXPLORATION AND EXTRACTION Efficient natural resource exploration and extraction is inherently tied to understanding geology. This course is designed for stakeholders interested in the geologic history of Western Canada, with a specific focus on the resulting diverse geological settings in Saskatchewan.

The development of world-class deposits in the province will be reviewed, with a focus on the Devonian Prairie Evaporite Formation exploration strategies including the use and interpretation of wireline logs. While informative as a standalone, this course will introduce topics covered in the rock mechanics workshop. Upon registration, participants will receive access to online course materials ahead of the workshop.

Facilitators: Deb Shewfelt, Senior Geologist, Director of Workforce Development; Tabetha Stirrett, Senior Geologist and Business Development Manager, North Rim

ROCK MECHANICS FOR STAKEHOLDERS IN EXPLORATION, RESOURCE ESTIMATION AND MINE PLANNING

DAILY SCHEDULE

This course is designed for stakeholders involved in various stages of mine exploration and development in hard rock and evaporite settings. The role geotechnical investigations have in identifying risks will be explored as it relates to mine design, stability assessments and resource estimation. The goal of the workshop is to identify what data should be collected depending on the stage of mine exploration and development, demonstrate how the collected data apply to mine design and discuss the implications of uncertainty in the data and data gaps.

8:00 - 20:00 9:00 - 17:00 18:00 - 20:00

Facilitators: Cody Vining, Project Engineer at RESPEC; Doug Milne, Professor at the University of Saskatchewan

GEOSCIENTISTS CANADA - QP This short course will provide information on NI 43-101 and 51-101. It is intended to inform practitioners working in the mineral and oil & gas resource exploration areas, using these instruments, of their duties as professionals working in these areas and will provide background information as to what is required to become a Qualified Person with respect to these national instruments.

The workshop format is a mix of lecture and group case studies.

Previous participants have found great value in the knowledge of the presenters and the dialogue between the attendees.

Facilitators: John Styles, President and CEO of Pilgrim Energy Inc., and Monica Tochor, Sr. Geologist with Mosaic Potash

More detailed information on the workshops can be found at memo2017.cim.org

SUNDAY SEPT 24 Registration Workshops Opening Ceremony & Reception on Trade Show Floor

MONDAY SEPT 25 7:30 - 8:30 7:30 - 17:00 9:00 - 10:00 9:30 - 14:30 10:00 - 16:00 10:30 - 17:10 12:00 - 13:30 15:00 - 16:00 19:00 - 22:00

Presenters’ breakfast Registration Keynote Speaker M4S Educational Outreach Program MEMO Trade Show Technical Program Lunch on Trade Show Floor Beer Reception on Trade Show Floor Banquet Evening

TUESDAY SEPT 26 7:30 - 8:30 7:30 - 14:00 9:00 - 10:00 9:30 - 14:30 10:00 - 16:00 10:30 - 17:10 12:00 - 13:30 15:00 - 16:00 18:30 - 21:30

Presenters’ breakfast Registration Keynote Speaker M4S Educational Outreach Program MEMO Trade Show Technical Program Lunch on Trade Show Floor Beer Reception on Trade Show Floor Networking Evening (Scotch Night)

WEDNESDAY SEPT 27 6:00 6:00 6:45 8:00

Seabee Gold Mine Tour Cigar Lake Mine Tour Athabasca Basin Uranium, Mining and Exploration Tour Fabrication Shop Tour

THURSDAY SEPT 28 6:00 6:00

SOCIAL PROGRAM SUNDAY SEPT 24

TRADE SHOW EVENTS

Arrow Uranium Deposit Tour Potash Corp Allan Tour

EVENING EVENTS

Opening Ceremony & Reception at the Trade Show

MONDAY SEPT 25

Lunch from 12:00 to 13:00 Beer Reception from 15:00 to 16:00 Included in delegate registration price

MEMO 2017 Banquet Reception at 18:30 Banquet from 19:00 to 22:00 TCU Place – $100 per ticket

TUESDAY SEPT 26

Lunch from 12:00 to 13:00 Beer Reception from 15:00 to 16:00 Included in delegate registration price

Networking Evening (Scotch Night) 18:30 to 21:30 Stantec Office: 100-75 24th Street East $100 per ticket

memo2017.cim.org | 59

TRADE SHOW Sunday, September 24 18:00-20:00 Monday, September 25 10:00-16:00 Tuesday, September 26 10:00-16:00

The trade show will showcase 64 exhibiting companies with the latest technologies, equipment and services for mine operators. It will provide participants with the opportunity to renew established contacts and make new ones while exploring the booths. Lunches on the trade show floor and end of day trade show receptions are great opportunities for networking and business.

HOTELS Hilton Garden Inn Saskatoon Downtown Double Queen: $169.00; King: $179.00 90-22nd Street E; Saskatoon, SK S7K 3X6 Tel.: +1 (306) 244-2311; Fax: +1 (306) 664-2234 Website: airlinehotels.ca

Holiday Inn Saskatoon Downtown Double Queen: $169.00; King: $169.00 101 Pacific Avenue; Saskatoon, SK S7K 3X6 Tel.: +1 (306) 986-5000; Fax: +1 (306) 986-5001 Email: hisaskatoon@prhotels.ca; Website: holidayinn.com

REGISTRATION Delegate registration includes the Keynote Sessions, Technical Program, Trade Show access, Monday and Tuesday luncheons, drink tickets for the Opening Reception on Sunday and the Beer Receptions on Monday and Tuesday.

CIM National Member Delegate Regular Member Delegate Presenter / Chair Student Unemployed / Retired Life Member Non-Member Delegate Non-Member Delegate registration also includes one-year membership with CIM.

Regular Non-Member Delegate Presenter / Chair Student Unemployed / Retired One-Day Option Monday Only Tuesday Only

Before August 18 $450 $350 $100 $100 $100

On/After August 18 $600 $350 $100 $100 $100

Before August 18

On/After August 18

$550 $500 $100 $100

$700 $500 $100 $100

Before August 18 $300 $300

On/After August 18 $300 $300

One day registration includes the Keynote Session, Technical Program, Trade Show access, Lunch and the Beer Reception on that day.

Trade Show Visitor to the Trade Show

Before August 18 FREE

On/After August 18 FREE

4 free passes

4 free passes

The educational public show on Mining, Minerals, Metals and Materials CIM and MeMO provide hands-on education to students and teachers of the greater Saskatoon region.

M4S is presented to help build knowledge of the mining cycle – from exploration and extraction to production and reclamation – as well as to introduce the many different skilled people in the industry that make mining safe and efficient.

Visitors will be surprised at how sophisticated and complex our modern mining industry is and by how much mining positively impacts our life and daily activities.

Something for everyone – MeMO delegates and other participants are invited to visit M4S. You can help perpetuate facts about mining and its various facets by visiting the SIX pavilions: Exploration • Mining • Processing Products & Fabrication • Sustainability Safety The interactive activities are sure to make the experience unforgettable.

(Access to the Trade Show Floor only)

Exhibitor Staff*

* Access to the Trade Show Floor, the Keynote Sessions and the Technical Program. Lunch Tickets are available to purchase at $22 with the registration.

60 | memo2017.cim.org

Date Sept 25 and 26 Time 9:30 to 14:30 Audience Elementary School Students (Grade 4 & up) and High School Students Location TCU Place, Centennial Hall

SECTION francophone 62 Lettre de l’éditeur | Mot du président article de fond

63 La révolution de l’automatisation Cela ne fait aucun doute, l’avenir de l’industrie minière passe par l’automatisation. Cependant, à quoi ressemble cet avenir et par quel chemin allons-nous y arriver?

67 Le Sud doré OceanaGold rédige le dernier chapitre de la longue histoire de la mine Haile en Caroline du Sud Par Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco Par Ryan Bergen

La version française intégrale du CIM Magazine est disponible en ligne : magazine.CIM.org/fr-CA

lettre de l’éditeur

mot du président

Leçons d’histoire

L’innovation

Le projet Haile d’OceanaGold situé en Caroline du Sud, dont vous trouverez le profil dans cette édition (en page 67) a retenu mon attention alors que Romarco Minerals l’orientait encore vers la production. D’une part, la teneur de deux grammes par tonne qu’affichaient les réserves me semblait extrêmement élevée pour une exploitation à ciel ouvert ; d’autre part, la situation géographique de cette exploitation (proche de villes, de routes et reliée aux services publics) la distinguait des nombreux autres projets que je suis de près, lesquels ont tendance à se trouver dans des lieux de plus en plus isolés. Ce projet-ci n’était pas aux prises avec nombre des difficultés logistiques qui sont si communes au développement de mines dans des zones encore vierges.

L’histoire de cette mine suit une trajectoire différente et illustre parfaitement la façon dont la technologie et les nouvelles idées peuvent insuffler une nouvelle vie dans des gisements existants.

Pendant près de 200 ans, la mine Haile a connu une alternance de périodes fastes et funestes. À la fin du XIXe siècle, c’est l’application du procédé de chloruration en tonneaux qui a contribué au succès de l’exploitation. Près d’un siècle plus tard, la lixiviation en tas a redonné vie à la mine. Aujourd’hui, des systèmes de commande de processus de pointe et des contrôles rigoureux de l’environnement ont rendu ce gisement viable des points de vue économique et social.

L’histoire de la mine Haile, à laquelle nous consacrons notre profil de projet ainsi que l’article de la rubrique Mining Lore Folklore minier (en anglais uniquement, p. 74), raconte l’innovation du point de vue d’une mine sur une période donnée et vient admirablement compléter notre article de fond, La révolution de l’automatisation (p. 63). Cet article orienté sur l’innovation et dédié au moment présent de l’industrie minière explore la façon dont différents fournisseurs et exploitations évaluent et appliquent la technologie de l’automatisation. En tant que solution technique, l’automatisation est un défi exaltant. C’est pourquoi on peut aussi craindre que sa valeur soit exagérée. Une mine entièrement autonome peut certes se révéler être un accomplissement remarquable, mais l’automatisation est uniquement un moyen de parvenir à ses fins, à savoir développer une mine sûre et rentable. Les exploitations y parviendront non pas en automatisant l’intégralité de leur mine, mais en mettant en œuvre l’automatisation le plus judicieusement possible.

Il convient de rappeler qu’à la fin du XIXe siècle, la mine Haile est devenue une merveille en termes de production grâce aux outils que la révolution industrielle avait procurés ; ce sont ces mêmes outils qui ont mené à sa déchéance.

L’industrie minière vit au rythme de cycles, et sa fascination pour l’innovation ne fait pas exception. Cet engouement s’intensifie lorsque la demande de produits de base est en baisse durant les périodes de ralentissement ou de redressement économiques.

On peut classer l’innovation en deux catégories. La première concerne l’innovation issue de nouvelles idées ou de découvertes, comme par exemple le recours à la lixiviation par cyanuration pour la récupération de l’or, fruit de la collaboration de M. McArthur et des frères Forrest à la fin des années 1880. Près d’un siècle plus tard, la lixiviation en tas par cyanuration des minerais à faible teneur en or, et la lixiviation en tas par voie acide des minerais à faible teneur en oxyde de cuivre ont été mises au point, permettant la récupération de métaux dans les matières résiduelles. À ces procédés novateurs s’ajoutent d’autres réalisations importantes, notamment les fours de fusion éclair pour l’extraction du cuivre mis au point par Outokumpu en Finlande, les procédés plus économiques de charbon en pulpe et de lixiviation au carbone pour la récupération de l’or, ainsi que le broyage autogène et semi-autogène pour remplacer les multiples étapes du broyage. Aujourd’hui, grâce à l’émergence de la technologie des batteries au lithium, nous avons la capacité de concevoir une mine souterraine entièrement électrique.

C’est ce que fait la société Goldcorp à sa mine de Borden Lake en Ontario, ce qui lui permet de réduire les coûts d’exploitation et d’améliorer la santé et la sécurité des travailleurs.

La deuxième catégorie d’innovation concerne les améliorations continues qui ont permis à l’industrie de réaliser des progrès.

L’évolution du forage en est un exemple ; elle a commencé par l’introduction du marteau perforateur monté sur béquille durant la révolution industrielle et a été suivie de développements ultérieurs menant aux jumbos de forage, ce qui a entraîné une amélioration de la productivité et la réduction des problèmes de santé. L’arrivée du moteur à bobinage a représenté une avancée majeure en matière de conception mécanique et électrique, et a ouvert la porte aux broyeurs semi-autogènes (broyeurs SAG) beaucoup plus imposants. Parmi les autres innovations figurent, à la fin des années 1990, le développement des broyeurs birotors munis de deux compartiments, suivi du grillage oxygéné pur à 99 % dans des fours de grillage en deux étapes pour extraire l’or contenu dans les grains fins de sulfure.

Pour l’avenir, c’est probablement le développement de l’Internet des choses qui aura la plus grande incidence ; l’association des technologies de l’information et de l’exploitation ouvrira de nouvelles voies permettant d’optimiser l’efficacité, de limiter les coûts d’investissement et d’exploitation, et surtout d’améliorer la santé et la sécurité des travailleurs.

Quelles que soient les possibilités offertes par ces technologies, la planification et la direction nécessaires à la fabrication de ces outils resteront néanmoins toujours les facteurs déterminant si ces technologies réinventent réellement l’industrie. Cette idée a été et demeure une constante, peu importe la phase du cycle minier dans laquelle nous nous trouvons.

Ryan Bergen, Rédacteur en chef editor@cim.org @Ryan_CIM_Mag

Kenneth (Ken) G. Thomas, Président de l’ICM 62 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

LA REVOLUTION , D AUTOMATISATION S’engager au mieux dans la nouvelle ère de l’automatisation

I

Par Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

L Y A TR O IS ANS , H EC L A M INING C O M P ANY , U NE S O CIÉTÉ

M INIÈR E DE L ’IDAH O FO NDÉE IL Y A 1 26 ANS ET S P ÉCIAL IS ÉE

DANS L ES M ÉTAU X P R ÉCIEU X , A CO M M ENC É À S ’INTÉR ES S ER

AU X TEC H NO L O G IES D’AU TO M ATIS ATIO N P O U R S ES Q U ATR E

M INES , À S AVO IR L A M INE L U C KY FR IDAY AU NO R D DE L ’IDAH O , L A M INE C AS A B ER AR DI AU Q U ÉB EC , L A M INE S AN S EB AS TIAN

AU M EX IQ U E, ET L A M INE G R EENS C R EEK S U R U NE ÎL E AU L AR G E DE L A CÔ TE DE L ’AL AS KA. « NO TR E S O CIÉTÉ N’ES T P AS TR ÈS

GR ANDE » , DÉC L AR AI T M AR K B O AR D, VICE- P R ÉS IDENT DES

S ER VIC ES TEC H NI Q U ES DE L A S O CIÉTÉ. « AU S S I, P L U TÔ T Q U E DE NO U S L ANCER TÊTE B AIS S ÉE DANS L ’AU TO M ATIS ATIO N

INTÉG RAL E DE L A M I NE, NO U S NO U S S O M M ES DEM ANDÉS

L ES Q U EL L ES DE NO S AC TIVITÉS P O S AIENT P RO B L ÈM E AFIN DE

DÉTERM I NER C E Q U I ÉTAI T JU S TIFIÉ DU P O INT DE VU E

ÉCO NO M I Q U E P O U R U NE S O C IÉTÉ DE NO TR E TAIL L E ET P O U R

L ES TY P ES D’AC TI VI TÉS M I NIÈRES Q U E NO U S M ENO NS . »

August/Août 2017 | 63

64 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

Avec l’aimable autorisation d’Hecla Mining

Ne disposant pas des mêmes ressources financières que les géants de l’industrie minière tels que Rio Tinto ou Anglo American, lesquels ont défendu, développé et mis en pratique l’automatisation, Hecla a été contrainte d’adopter une approche hautement stratégique, d’analyser rigoureusement ses exploitations et de cerner les activités pour lesquelles l’automatisation s’avèrerait la plus profitable et apporterait le meilleur rendement du capital investi. La société a également exploré les technologies que d’autres sociétés minières utilisent avec suc- En mai, la compagnie Hecla Mining a annoncé l’implantation du système AutoMine Lite de Sandvik de commande à distance pour ses chargeurs-transporteurs à la mine de Greens Creek en Alaska. cès.

M. Board et son équipe ont parcouru l’Europe pour s’entretenir avec des fournisseurs et automatisés. Elle collabore également avec la société visiter d’autres mines qui ont adopté différentes technologies Atlas Copco sur une étape à long terme de sa stratégie afin de d’automatisation pour résoudre des problèmes semblables aux mettre au point une machine d’abattage pour l’exploitation leurs, notamment les mines de la société Boliden en Suède et des filons. Cette machine sera d’abord mise à l’essai avec des la mine Chelopech en Bulgarie de la société Dundee Precious employés à bord, mais elle sera équipée d’un système de téléMetal. commande avec roulage automatisé au cas où Hecla déciderait Dès leur retour, ils ont élaboré une approche progressive d’adopter cette approche à l’avenir. unique et adaptée à chaque mine, et ont établi un budget pour Hecla fait partie des nombreuses sociétés minières à avoir la mise en œuvre graduelle d’outils automatisés. « Nous nous investi dans l’automatisation. Par ailleurs, même si l’automasommes efforcés de mettre en œuvre ce qui nous semblait tisation s’avère être l’outil le plus récent dont disposent les avoir un sens pour Hecla, en procédant par étapes », déclarait exploitants miniers pour extraire les minéraux et les métaux M. Board. Ainsi, au début de l’année, la société a mis en ser- de façon aussi sûre et efficace que possible, elle n’aura de réelle vice le système AutoMine Lite de Sandvik pour commander à utilité que si les personnes qui la mettent en œuvre tiennent distance les chargeurs-transporteurs. Les employés de Greens solidement la barre. L’innovation présente des risques, notamCreek consacrant chaque jour 45 minutes de trajet en traver- ment au chapitre de l’excès technologique, de la sécurité des sier pour aller prendre leur poste, cette solution était judi- réseaux ainsi que des répercussions sociales. Il importe d’en cieuse pour la mine. « Les journées sont longues et on perd prévoir et d’en atténuer le plus possible. beaucoup de temps entre chaque poste », poursuivait M. Board. « Nous utilisons les chargeurs-transporteurs autonomes principalement pour charger les déblais des galeries L’APPROCHE PROGRESSIVE Il n’existe peut-être pas de formule éprouvée pour les sociéd’avancement aux changements de postes afin de déblayer la galerie et d’accélérer le processus permettant aux ouvriers de tés qui souhaitent commencer l’automatisation de leur exploirevenir sur les lieux pour commencer à installer les ouvrages tation, mais l’approche progressive adoptée par Hecla constitue de fait la stratégie de mise en œuvre que les experts de soutènement du sol et à forer la galerie. » À la mine Casa Berardi, ils ont utilisé des jumbos de forage recommandent aux sociétés minières. « Lorsqu’on commence à parler d’automatisation dans l’inAtlas Copco semi-automatisés dotés d’un dispositif informatisé de guidage selon le plan de forage et d’une commande de dustrie minière, les gens imaginent immédiatement une flotte forage informatisée, de même qu’une foreuse automatisée de machines entièrement autonomes », faisait remarquer Sandvik de production pour le forage de longs trous, un sys- François Gariépy, directeur des solutions technologiques chez tème de levage automatisé et des brise-roches télécommandés Peck Tech Consulting. « Plutôt que d’automatiser l’intégralité depuis la salle de treuils. Au quatrième trimestre de cette de leurs machines, les sociétés peuvent choisir d’automatiser année, la société utilisera des camions autonomes pour le certains éléments qui offriront une solution plus rentable que transport du minerai et des stériles des zones principales d’ex- de rendre la flotte entièrement autonome. » Cependant, on ne peut se lancer aveuglément dans l’autoploitation jusqu’au puits de mine.

Enfin, à la mine Lucky Friday, la société teste actuellement matisation, même si on le fait petit à petit. Selon Drew Larsen, la technologie d’aide à la conduite des camions de roulage directeur du développement minier chez Autonomous Solu-

tions Inc. (ASI), la réussite des sociétés passe nécessairement par une stratégie à long terme. « Quels résultats souhaitent-elles obtenir dans leur exploitation ? », demandait-il. « Comment peuvent-elles tirer au mieux profit de la technologie ? À quoi ressemblera leur exploitation si elles adoptent ces technologies ?

Ces sociétés seront peut-être amenées à fragmenter leur vision en petits éléments, sachant que chacun de ces éléments devra être structuré de manière à pouvoir s’adapter ou à continuer à rechercher une solution progressive tendant vers cette vision. » D’après M. Larsen, une bonne stratégie nécessite également de procéder à une solide analyse de la rentabilité des initiatives d’automatisation. « En fin de compte, il s’agit d’aider l’ensemble de l’organisation à obtenir l’appui des équipes d’exploitation et de trouver les fonds pour en assurer la réussite », concluait-il.

Al Poole, concepteur en chef de l’électricité chez Stantec, est du même avis. « Il est essentiel que les équipes du projet et de l’exploitation s’entendent sur la philosophie d’automatisation. Malheureusement, les équipes de projets souhaitent parfois mettre en œuvre un nouveau système d’automatisation que les groupes d’exploitation ne veulent pas utiliser. Cette situation peut entraîner des dépassements de coûts et des retards dans le calendrier de mise en œuvre pour parvenir à une entente entre les équipes quant à la meilleure façon d’exploiter l’installation », ajoutait-il.

La gestion du changement constitue également un élément essentiel, expliquait M. Larsen. « Elle passe par différentes étapes, comme une analyse des procédés et des processus internes. La technologie permet de reproduire une chose avec fidélité, mais pour vraiment en tirer profit, il faut l’associer à la rigueur opérationnelle des processus établis qui permettra d’optimiser cette technologie », soulignait-il. « L’automatisation ne fait pas de miracles. Si vous choisissez d’automatiser un processus déficient, vous n’obtiendrez rien d’autre qu’un processus déficient automatisé. »

UN OEIL SUR LE PROBLÈME

On a fait grand cas, à juste titre, de l’éventualité du remplacement des humains par des machines dans certains emplois. En théorie, le nombre de travailleurs susceptibles de perdre leur emploi dans les différents secteurs est renversant.

Selon une étude de McKinsey & Company et du Brookfield Institute, 40 % des tâches actuellement accomplies par des humains pourraient devenir automatisées. Cependant, selon M. Gariépy, la motivation première pour introduire l’automatisation dans l’industrie minière n’a jamais été d’éliminer les opérateurs humains. Il s’agissait plutôt de résoudre un problème particulier. « L’Australie-Occidentale souffrait d’une pénurie d’ouvriers ; dans ce genre de situation, l’automatisation intégrale constituait la meilleure solution. Dans d’autres cas, les mines étaient exploitées dans des sols dangereux ; il fallait pouvoir utiliser les machines sans envoyer les ouvriers dans la mine. Dans ce cas, une solution télécommandée convenait aussi bien qu’un véhicule autonome et pouvait s’avérer plus économique. La conclusion à laquelle nous sommes arrivés est que les mines qui ont automatisé et augmenté leur productivité et qui ont réalisé les économies les

plus importantes sont celles qui ont déployé une solution autonome pour résoudre un problème particulier. » D’après M. Gariépy, une bonne stratégie de mise en œuvre de l’automatisation met à profit le meilleur de l’intelligence artificielle et de l’intelligence humaine. « Pour tout ce qui est complexe et nécessite une réflexion, l’humain constitue la solution la plus rentable et la plus efficace pour régler le problème. S’il s’agit simplement de calcul ou de précision, il est probable que personne ne peut surpasser une machine. Dans ces conditions, utilisons les humains dans les tâches où ils excellent, et investissons dans la technologie autonome pour des tâches où les machines affichent des capacités supérieures. » D’après lui, il n’existe pas de solution d’automatisation prête à l’emploi qui convienne à toutes les mines. Ainsi, la solution optimale la plus économique et la plus rentable diffère d’une mine à l’autre, et peut comprendre différents niveaux de solutions semi-autonomes et autonomes.

L’intelligence artificielle est excellente pour les tâches répétitives. L’homme excelle lorsqu’il s’agit de résoudre des problèmes, de gérer les imprévus et de se livrer à une réflexion complexe. L’idéal est de développer des solutions qui tirent le meilleur parti des deux. « Le roulage est une tâche passablement répétitive, c’est pourquoi la plupart s’intéressent à ce sujet », indiquait-il. En soi, creuser et ramasser sont des tâches répétitives, mais déterminer ce qu’il faut ramasser nécessite une certaine réflexion. Dans le cas des pelleteuses, on ne souhaite pas nécessairement éliminer l’opérateur, mais simplement ajouter le pelletage et le déchargement automatisés. Par exemple, cette solution éviterait aux opérateurs de pelleteuses de heurter de temps à autre les camions avec leur bras ou dans leurs déplacements. Ce niveau d’automatisation permet d’accroître l’efficacité, de réduire l’usure de l’équipement et de rendre les opérateurs plus habiles avec une formation moindre. »

UNE ACTIVITÉ À RISQUE

La cybersécurité fait déjà partie des préoccupations des sociétés minières et ce, depuis plusieurs années. Plus les exploitations s’automatisent, plus les risques augmentent.

Selon Daniel Tobok, directeur général de Cytelligence, une société de cybersécurité basée à Toronto, « [l’automatisation] entraîne l’augmentation du nombre de machines, et toutes ces machines sont connectées en ligne. Tout ce qui est en ligne peut être piraté. » Compte tenu du monde dans lequel nous vivons, on peut facilement envisager les conséquences catastrophiques du piratage d’une machine autonome et les dégâts qu’elle pourrait causer dans une mine. « Les sociétés minières ont tendance à se fier aux technologies de l’information (TI) pour cela, mais il ne revient pas au service des TI de s’occuper de la sécurité, car cette dernière ne relève pas des TI », précisait M. Tobok. « Il s’agit d’un problème d’exploitation. Disposer d’une multitude de pare-feux, de systèmes de détection d’intrusions et d’autres dispositifs sophistiqués sera efficace jusqu’à un certain point, mais le meilleur moyen de s’attaquer à la question est de faire preuve d’initiative et d’édifier une cybersécurité à partir de zéro dans laquelle la sécurité et les protocoles adéquats sont mis en place. » August/Août 2017 | 65

Remplacer les opérateurs humains par des robots présente un autre risque potentiel : la sécurité et les dommages causés aux équipements ou la perte de ceux-ci. Selon Jonathan Moore, ingénieur en chef chez ASI, « l’homme a toutes les capacités pour déceler ce qui n’est pas normal, que ce soit une odeur bizarre ou une fumée noire. » Malgré les progrès réalisés en matière de technologie des capteurs, ces derniers ne parviennent pas à reproduire les sens humains. « Lorsqu’on élimine l’opérateur, on perd toute cette capacité [humaine] d’anticipation et de diagnostic [pour l’équipement] », soulignait M. Moore.

Le cerveau humain est parfaitement adapté à réagir à l’inattendu et à prendre des décisions rapidement. « On espère toujours qu’une situation d’urgence ne se présentera jamais, mais lorsque cela se produit, on sait qu’on fera ce qu’il faut. Par exemple, si un homme conduit une voiture et que les freins lâchent, il réagira rapidement en klaxonnant pour aviser les autres, tournera le volant ou essaiera par tous les moyens possibles d’arrêter la voiture. Pour ce qui est des robots, on n’essaie même pas de les programmer pour ces scénarios », ajoutait M. Moore. La raison en est que les robots sont limités par les situations que leurs programmeurs peuvent prévoir.

Or, une panne d’équipement n’est pas toujours prévisible.

M. Moore soulignait que le degré d’automatisation est très élevé dans l’aviation commerciale et qu’elle affiche un niveau élevé de fiabilité. « Le taux de panne de l’aviation commerciale est très bas. Cependant, cela a un prix en termes de développement et d’analyse », déclarait-il, ajoutant que l’industrie minière doit aborder cette question en adoptant de nouvelles normes plus strictes concernant les taux de panne.

VALEUR PARTAGÉE

En février dernier, en songeant aux pertes massives de revenus fiscaux tirés des salaires et de l’impôt sur le revenu que représenterait pour les gouvernements une réduction des emplois exécutés par des humains, le cofondateur de Microsoft Bill Gates a suggéré que l’on impose une taxe aux sociétés qui remplacent les travailleurs humains par des robots. Cependant, les répercussions du remplacement des travailleurs dans le cadre d’une automatisation à grande échelle touchent beaucoup plus de domaines que les revenus gouvernementaux. « De nombreuses sociétés minières pensent qu’elles embaucheront moins de personnel lorsqu’elles auront automatisé leur exploitation », indiquait Jeff Geipel, chef de projet de l’initiative Valeur partagée en matière d’exploitation minière lancée par Ingénieurs sans frontières Canada, et coauteur d’une étude technique de l’institut international du développement durable (IIDD) dédiée à l’influence de la technologie sur l’emploi et l’approvisionnement local. « Cependant, elles négligent le fait qu’elles pourraient finir par réduire leurs achats, comme des uniformes et des services de campement de chantier, et que les pertes au chapitre de l’approvisionnement local représenteraient des sommes considérables qui auraient des répercussions sur l’économie du territoire d’accueil. » Ces aspects sont importants, car les arguments que présente une société minière à la collectivité locale pour exploi66 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

ter une mine sur son territoire comprennent souvent une certaine contrepartie sous forme d’emploi et d’approvisionnement local pour établir une relation mutuellement profitable, concept que l’on appelle la « valeur partagée ». Si des machines remplacent de nombreux emplois, l’emploi et l’approvisionnement local en souffrent et les gouvernements locaux perçoivent moins d’argent provenant de l’impôt sur le revenu des résidents locaux. Cette situation risquerait de rendre encore plus difficile pour les sociétés de convaincre les autorités de leur permettre d’exploiter une mine sur leur territoire.

Au lieu d’envisager la situation d’un œil pessimiste, M. Geipel estime que les sociétés minières et les gouvernements doivent commencer à élaborer des plans concernant ces impacts et à développer de nouvelles structures et de nouvelles relations fondées sur le concept de valeur partagée.

Reste à savoir si l’automatisation provoquera ou non des pertes catastrophiques d’emploi. De fait, rien ne garantit que l’automatisation parviendra à résoudre les pénuries de maind’œuvre que l’on prévoit dans l’industrie minière. Ainsi, le conseil des ressources humaines de l’industrie minière (RHiM) a constaté que malgré le fait que l’automatisation réduira certainement les besoins de certains types de travailleurs, les besoins de l’industrie en matière d’emploi évoluent de plus en plus vers des postes nécessitant une formation universitaire, et de moins en moins vers des postes n’exigeant qu’un diplôme d’études secondaires, voire aucun diplôme ou un simple certificat. « Il est difficile de prévoir la direction que prendra une évolution technologique comme celle de l’automatisation, principalement du fait qu’on ne dispose que de très peu d’observations historiques sur lesquelles se fonder », précisait Ryan Montpellier, directeur général du RHiM. « Il est également difficile de prévoir les répercussions qu’aura l’automatisation sur la composition de la main-d’œuvre, sur les nouvelles compétences que devront posséder les générations futures et sur le rythme d’adoption de cette technologie par les sociétés minières, les collectivités et les travailleurs. » Selon M. Poole de Stantec, à l’aube de cette évolution monumentale, de nombreuses sociétés minières s’intéressent à l’automatisation, mais ne s’y aventurent pas. « Dans certains cas, les mines ne souhaitent pas jouer les pionniers », indiquait-il. « Elles préfèrent suivre. » Ces dernières, cependant, mettent déjà en place leur propre stratégie d’automatisation. Hecla fait partie de ces sociétés. « Pour une société de notre envergure, même l’adoption de stratégies d’automatisation et d’innovation progressives a des répercussions importantes sur nos résultats. D’autres sociétés minières qui se sont déjà engagées dans le processus ont partagé très généreusement leurs informations avec nous », indiquait M. Board. « Il existe une certaine camaraderie entre les personnes travaillant dans le secteur minier ainsi qu’un empressement à partager leurs informations. Cela a considérablement facilité la mise en œuvre de notre solution. Hecla partage cette vision. Nous ne considérons pas cela comme un avantage concurrentiel ; nous aussi, nous avons l’intention de partager toutes les informations dont nous disposons avec d’autres sociétés. » ICM

Le développement des routes de transport comprenait des blocs de la fondation en béton du concentrateur construit dans les années 1930.

a mine Haile en Caroline du Sud, qui a coulé son premier lingot d’or en janvier dernier, vient briser les stéréotypes des mines de plus en plus éloignées et complexes du point de vue logistique. Elle s’inscrit cependant dans une longue tradition d’exploitation minière dans la région, tradition que l’équipe d’OceanaGold s’efforce de perpétuer ; elle a d’ailleurs déjà annoncé ses projets de développement de la mine récemment mise en exploitation.

L

PAR Ryan Bergen

Ryan Bergen

Le Sud doré Située à quelques minutes de la petite ville de Kershaw, en Caroline du Sud, Haile présente cette particularité d’être la seule mine d’or aux États-Unis se trouvant à l’est du Mississipi. Qui plus est, contrairement à beaucoup de nouvelles exploitations, la mine se trouve à seulement une heure et demie, si le trafic est fluide, d’un aéroport international ainsi que d’une plaque tournante nationale pour le fret aérien. Elle présente aussi l’avantage de disposer d’un grand réservoir de main-d’œuvre à proximité et d’un accès facile au réseau électrique et à la route, ce qui a aidé Oceana à construire cette exploitation traitant 6 300 tonnes par jour pour une somme estimée à 400 millions $ US.

D’hier à aujourd’hui C’est en 1820 qu’en défrichant les terres appartenant à Benjamin Haile, leurs locataires découvrent pour la première fois de l’or dans la région. La première exploitation August/Août 2017 | 67

Avec l’aimable autorisation d’OceanaGold

Avec l’aimable autorisation d’OceanaGold

Mark Cadzow, responsable en chef du développement pour OceanaGold, profite de l’instant lors de la première coulée d’or à la mine Haile en janvier.

Actuellement, l’usine de la mine Haile traite 6 300 tonnes par jour.

placérienne se modernise, et un bocard y est ajouté ; l’or extrait aide à financer les efforts des Confédérés en pleine déperdition durant la guerre de Sécession. Général légendaire de l’armée de l’Union, William Sherman se fait un point d’honneur à détruire les installations de la mine Haile alors qu’il retourne avec ses troupes vers le Nord ; les activités ne reprendront que dans les années 1880, lorsque des investisseurs de New York relancent la production. La mine finit par trouver son rythme de croisière lorsque l’ingénieur allemand Carl Adolf Thies introduit le procédé de chloruration en tonneaux dans l’exploitation et augmente le taux de récupération du minerai sulfuré de 40 % à près de 90 %. Ce grand succès se soldera malheureusement par un événement funeste ; en 1908, la chaudière du bocard explose (voir notre article de la rubrique Mining Lore - Folklore minier en page 74). Les prix de l’or décuplent dans les années 1930, et la mine Haile reprend ses activités avant que le président Roosevelt n’ordonne que les mines d’or, considérées comme une ressource non stratégique, soient fermées. L’émergence de la lixiviation en tas dans les années 1970 redonnera quelques années de vie à Haile.

La dernière personnification de la mine commence en 2007 lorsque Romarco Minerals rachète la propriété et commence l’exploration et le développement ; la société obtient tous les permis en novembre 2014. Plusieurs mois plus tard, OceanaGold, qui exploite deux mines en Nouvelle-Zélande ainsi que la mine Didipio aux Philippines, franchit une grande étape en Amérique du Nord lorsqu’elle achète Romarco Minerals pour la somme de 856 millions $. Maintenant qu’Oceana est implantée sur le sol américain, ses ambitions ont trouvé leurs racines. « Nous souhaitons 68 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

construire la mine d’or la plus performante, la plus sûre et la plus respectueuse de l’environnement en Amérique du Nord », déclarait Mark Cadzow, vice-président exécutif et responsable en chef du développement pour OceanaGold lorsque l’équipe du CIM Magazine est allée visiter le site à la fin du mois d’avril. Fin 2015, M. Cadzow a endossé le rôle de chef de projet alors que les travaux de terrassement avaient déjà commencé.

Sur le long terme, l’équipe d’Oceana a des arguments de poids. Fin juin, la société annonçait que dans le cadre de son étude d’optimisation, elle avait augmenté les réserves minérales à la mine Haile de 70 % pour atteindre 3,46 millions d’onces, ajouté deux années à la durée de vie totale de l’exploitation à ciel ouvert, et prévu un aménagement souterrain baptisé Horseshoe d’une durée de vie estimée à six ans et qui produirait environ 440 000 onces. Ces chiffres sont fondés sur des réserves prouvées et probables de 55 millions de tonnes à une teneur de 1,71 gramme par tonne (g/t) pour une teneur de coupure de 0,45 g/t pour l’exploitation à ciel ouvert, et 3,12 millions de tonnes à 4,38 g/t pour une teneur de coupure de 1,50 g/t pour l’exploitation souterraine. Initialement, le plan de mine exigeait le traitement de trois millions de tonnes par an sur la durée de vie de 14 ans de la mine. Ce chiffre est maintenant passé à quatre millions de tonnes. « D’ici très peu de temps, nous entamerons le processus de délivrance de permis et collaborerons étroitement avec les autorités réglementaires et toutes les parties prenantes pour amener le projet d’expansion de la mine Haile à la phase de construction », déclarait Mick Wilkes, chef de la direction d’Oceana dans une déclaration accompagnant l’an-

nonce du mois de juin. « Nous continuons d’intensifier nos activités et de forer des cibles en profondeur et parallèlement à la direction pour les ajouter à notre base de ressources déjà conséquente. Ces cibles comprennent Palomino et la zone en dessous de la fosse Snake, lesquelles ne figuraient pas dans l’étude et ajoutent une valeur supplémentaire à notre actif. » Ce même jour, la société déclarait aussi que la mine Haile avait rencontré de grandes difficultés pour atteindre le stade de la production commerciale. Les bandes de garnissage en polyuréthane de huit cuves de lixiviation au carbone (CIL, de l’anglais carbon-in-leach) s’étaient désagrégées et devraient être recouvertes, une cuve à la fois de manière à ne pas perturber la production. Après qu’elle « ait réalisé que le système de canalisation du CIL avait été mal évalué lors de la conception », l’équipe de l’exploitation a également constaté que de la boue contenant de l’or dans les cuves de lixiviation au carbone était envoyée à tort dans les résidus. Oceana parlait également d’améliorations à apporter au broyeur semi-autogène (broyeur SAG) et au circuit d’alimentation des boues dans le circuit de broyage fin, ainsi qu’au système de commande de processus de l’usine. « Nous sommes déçus des retards engendrés », expliquait M. Wilkes, « mais j’ai toute confiance dans l’équipe et dans sa capacité à construire une usine qui répondra à nos attentes en termes de production et de coûts ».

La mise à niveau du système de commande sera effectuée par étapes et comprendra un système de surveillance en temps réel pour analyser la teneur en soufre dans la charge d’alimentation, ainsi que dans les boues le long du circuit de traitement. « Si l’on connaît la quantité de soufre dans l’alimentation, on peut adapter la quantité d’agents réactifs ou de matériel physique, ce qui nous permettra de simplifier le procédé, et par là même d’économiser de l’argent sur les agents réactifs en n’étant pas obligés d’investir autant que dans un scénario présentant des inconnues », expliquait M. Cadzow.

Cette technologie, développée par Sabia, repose sur l’analyse par activation neutronique aux gamma prompts (AAGP), qui irradie l’alimentation et identifie ses éléments par le rayonnement gamma unique que chacun émet. Dans les exploitations de nickel de Sudbury, des fonderies utilisent la même technologie pour analyser le soufre dans l’alimentation de la fonderie ; cependant, d’après M. Cadzow, c’est la première fois qu’elle sera mise à contribution dans une exploitation aurifère.

De la mine au concentrateur Le gisement Haile fait partie du terrane de Caroline, que l’on appelait autrefois la Carolina slate belt (la ceinture d’ardoise de Caroline), laquelle s’étend de l’Alabama jusqu’à la Virginie. La roche hôte, qui s’est formée il y a 550 millions d’années au large de la côte ouest de l’Afrique, renferme certains des plus vieux gisements épithermaux au monde. La minéralisation épithermale à adulaire-séricite de Haile constitue l’un des trois types de gisements aurifères dans le

L’installation de stockage des résidus est revêtue d’une géomembrane en polyéthylène haute densité (PEHD). Un passage surélevé a été créé au-dessus d’une route locale pour faciliter le processus de construction et pour transporter les résidus de l’usine de traitement.

terrane. Ce dernier renferme également une minéralisation à fort degré de sulfuration qui a permis à la mine d’or Brewer, située à 10 kilomètres au nord-est de Haile, de fonctionner par intermittence entre 1828 et 1995, et une zone de cisaillement de type orogénique, la source d’or pour la mine Howie en Caroline du Nord qui a définitivement fermé ces portes dans les années 1940.

Des générations d’inondations ont ajouté un sédiment riche en or au gisement Haile ; aujourd’hui, le corps minéralisé, une association de pyrite et d’électrum, est renfermé dans une roche dure et tendre.

Une fois que le minerai est extrait d’une série de mines à ciel ouvert, il est réduit à moins de 15 centimètres par le concasseur primaire à mâchoires ; on l’envoie ensuite vers le broyeur SAG puis vers les broyeurs à boulets avant la flottation. Le concentré résultant de la flottation rapide et de dégrossissage est rebroyé dans six dessableurs agitateurs de corps de Metso de manière à ce que 80 % du concentré soient réduits à 13 microns ou moins avant de passer à l’étape de lixiviation au carbone. Les résidus de la flottation et de l’évacuation de la cuve de lixiviation du concentré sont mélangés dans sept autres cuves de CIL avant de passer par un décanteur de récupération des cyanures ; les résidus sont envoyés vers une installation de stockage revêtue de feuilles de polyéthylène haute densité.

August/Août 2017 | 69

Ryan Bergen

profil de projet

Ryan Bergen

Quenton Johnson, directeur des procédés de l’exploitation Haile, décrit les étapes de traitement pour l’usine.

Le passé minier de la Caroline du Sud n’est malheureusement pas dissocié des préjudices y afférents. Dans cet État, deux anciennes mines d’or en production font partie des sites identifiés par l’agence de protection de l’environnement comme des zones contaminées par des déchets dangereux et nécessitant un assainissement aux frais du contribuable.

Obtenir le permis fédéral relatif aux milieux humides (un parmi les deux douzaines à obtenir auprès d’autorités réglementaires aux niveaux fédéral, de l’État et du comté) de l’U. S. Army Corps of Engineers (le corps des ingénieurs de l’armée américaine) pour la mine s’est avéré être un processus long, en raison de l’ampleur du projet ainsi que du manque d’expérience des autorités réglementaires quant à ce genre de projets. Il a fallu trois ans pour obtenir le permis autorisant à remplir 120 hectares de zones humides, lequel requiert la préservation des zones humides en assurant la classification et le stockage des morts-terrains acidogènes stockés dans une installation revêtue où les eaux de drainage sont recueillies et traitées à l’usine de traitement de l’eau du site.

À la hauteur du défi Vétéran de plusieurs projets d’OceanaGold dont la construction de la mine Macraes, l’installation et la mise en service d’un autoclave sur le site, et responsable du développement de l’infrastructure minière à l’exploitation Didipio d’Oceana aux Philippines, M. Cadzow est quant à lui convaincu du talent des équipes œuvrant à développer les capacités de la mine Haile. « Chaque corps minéralisé est différent, mais le traitement est-il techniquement plus complexe que pour nos autres corps minéralisés ? Je ne pense pas. Nous en avons traité de plus complexes et de moins complexes. » 70 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

Il reconnaissait cependant qu’un aspect du projet en particulier lui avait donné matière à réflexion. « Je dois admettre que je me suis un peu inquiété de la culture de sûreté. Nous avons tendance à prendre des risques sans penser aux risques possibles sur le plan personnel mais aussi pour les autres.

C’est sans doute l’une des plus grandes difficultés en ce qui nous concerne. » Cette inquiétude a eu une influence sur la procédure d’embauche, qui n’a pas forcément placé au premier rang les candidats ayant de l’expérience dans le domaine minier. « Nous préférons embaucher des habitants de la région qui n’ont pas nécessairement une grande connaissance du secteur ; cela nous permet de les former comme nous le souhaitons, plutôt que de devoir réprimer les mauvaises habitudes des travailleurs qualifiés dans ce domaine. Nos méthodes de formation se sont révélées efficaces pour des mines en Nouvelle-Zélande et aux Philippines », expliquait M. Cadzow. D’après les données de l’U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA, l’administration de la santé et la sécurité dans les mines des États-Unis), cette approche a porté ses fruits. La mine n’affiche aucun accident mortel, et le taux d’accidents ayant entraîné des arrêts de travail sur le site est considérablement inférieur à la moyenne nationale pour les mines métallifères.

M. Cadzow a tiré son chapeau à l’équipe de Romarco, qui a mis à exécution le projet. « L’équipe a fait ce qu’il fallait, et elle a obtenu un fort engagement de la part de la communauté qui s’est montrée très enthousiaste face aux progrès réalisés. » Le changement de propriétaire s’est également déroulé sans accroc. « Tout le monde ici a été agréablement surpris du professionnalisme à la mine Haile. Nos procédures sont très transparentes ; nous ne cachons pas notre manière de procéder, et nous faisons les choses dans les règles de l’art.

Ceci fait partie de notre culture. » ICM

technical abstracts

CIM Journal Abstracts from CIM Journal, Vol. 8, No. 2

Economic analysis of waste crushing in semi-mobile in-pit crushing and conveying systems E. Dilhuydy, B. Ozdemir, and M. Kumral, Mining and Materials Engineering Department, McGill University, Montréal, Quebec, Canada

In-pit crushing and conveyor (IPCC) systems have become increasingly popular in the mining industry as an alternative to truck-and-shovel systems. Deciding whether to haul waste rock by truck or IPCC represents an important gap to be investigated in semi-mobile IPCC systems. A cost analysis is presented to evaluate the feasibility of crushing and conveying waste material in IPCC systems, along with sensitivity and risk assessments through Monte Carlo simulation. Although the capital expenditure is higher, results showed waste crushing will be feasible in deep pits and over long mine life and haul distances.

Study of the initial weathering stages of Red Dog mine waste D. Gajonera, C. A. Pickles, and K. Mackowiak, Robert M. Buchan Department of Mining, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Shake-flask oxidation tests were performed on Red Dog mine waste to study the initial dissolution behaviours of lead, zinc, and iron. The conditions for accelerated acid generation in terms of Eh and pH were determined. Each mineral behaved distinctly, with galena dissolving first, followed by sphalerite, then pyrite, although there was some overlap in behaviour. Iron was not detected in solution until approximately day 40 and was present at low concentrations. The experimental conditions and the theoretical model results indicated the formation of iron oxyhydroxides at low weathering times and jarosite at longer times.

Extracting gold from gravity concentrates using grinding and sieving G. Clarkson, R. Clarkson, and M. Hitch, Australian Centre for Sustainable Mining Practices, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

A novel reagent-free method of extracting gold from gravity middling concentrates in the Yukon placer fields is presented in this paper. This method exploits the malleability of gold by submitting concentrates to grinding in a rod mill. Brittle waste minerals are effectively reduced, whereas malleable gold particles are flattened and are then extracted by classification through sieves. Recoveries in the field using a laboratory-sized rod mill regularly exceeded 90%, whereas correlation laboratory tests indicated recovery to be most sensitive to the mill charge size. This method has broad potential, including application to the gravity circuits of large hard-rock processing circuits.

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technical abstracts

Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly Papers in CMQ, Vol. 55, No. 2

Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Al-alloyed Ductile Iron upon Casting and Austempering M. M. Mourad, S. El-Hadad, M. M. Ibrahim, A. A. Nofal, Central Metallurgical Research and Development Institute, Helwan-Cairo, Egypt

The Effects of Ni3Al Binder Content on the Electrochemical Response of Meltinfiltration Processed TiC–Ni3Al Cermets M. B. Holmes, A. Ibrahim, G. J. Kipouros, Z. N. Farhat, K. P. Plucknett, Dalhousie University, Materials Engineering Program, Department of Process Engineering and Applied Science, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Simultaneous Co-deposition of SiC and CNT into the Ni Coating M. H. Mosallanejad, A. Shafyei, and S. Akhavan, Department of Materials Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran

Effects of Ternary Elements on the Ductility of TiAl S.-L. Shu, Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials, Ministry of Education, and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of China and State Key Laboratory of Luminescence and Applications, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, People’s Republic of China; C.-Z. Tong, State Key Laboratory of Luminescence and Applications, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, People’s Republic of China; F. Qiu, Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials, Ministry of Education, and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of China and Department of Mechanical Engineering, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, United States; Q. Zou, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, United States; and Q.-C. Jiang, Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials, Ministry of Education, and Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of China.

Thermodynamics and Kinetics Analyses of ZrB2 Formation in Molten Aluminium Alloys A. Khaliq, M. A. Rhamdhani, G. A. Brooks, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia; and J. Grandfield, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia and Grandfield Technology Pty Ltd, Brunswick, Victoria, Australia

Synthesis of TiC–TiB–TiB2 Composite Powders by Solid Reaction of Powders S. Wu, State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China and College of Water Resources and Architectural Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Yangling Shaanxi, People’s Republic of China; Y. Wang, State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China; and Y. Fei, Y. Yang and Q. Guo, College of Water Resources and Architectural Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Yangling Shaanxi, People’s Republic of China

Effect of Oxygen on Near-neutral pH Stress Corrosion Crack Initiation under a Simulated Tape Coating Disbondment A. Eslami, Department of Materials Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran 84156 83111; R. Eadie and W. Chen, Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

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MINING LORE The many lives of the Haile mine

By Cecilia Keating

T

Courtesy of OceanaGold

he Haile gold mine in South Carolina has been in proThies’ chlorination process adjusted a basic chlorination duction intermittently for almost 200 years. Pre-dating procedure which involved exposing roasted ore to chlorine gas the California gold rush and the American Civil War, it in a wooden vat and then leaching the ore in a water solution was one of the first operating gold mines in the United States. to produce gold chloride. Ferrous sulfate was added to the Gold was first discovered on the banks and bottom of a solution to precipitate the gold, which was filtered out. The creek on Captain Benjamin Haile’s plantation in the northern Mears process, patented in 1877, had already significantly part of the state in 1827. advanced this system by exchangEasy-to-reach gold placers ing vats for lead-lined barrels and were exhausted on Haile’s propintroducing the gas under pressure erty by the mid-1830s and minin order to speed up the chlorinaers struggled to find ways to tion rate. Thies’ innovation was to recover gold from deeper generate the chlorine gas inside deposits. By 1837, Haile had the barrel itself, using bleaching invested in a five-stamp mill, powder and sulfuric acid. He also with steel stamps, or pestles, made changes to barrel size and that crushed ore into dust. Gold the number of rotations. was taken from the crushed Thies’ technique, known as the After the 1908 explosion that closed Haile, the mine briefly reopened from product.

Thies Barrel Chlorination Process to 1942 until President Franklin D. Roosevelt suspended gold The mine was abandoned in 1934 yielded 90 per cent gold in sulfide mining when the country joined the Second World War. Pictured is the the 1850s due to difficulties Haile mill’s first gold pour in March 1938. ore compared to the 40 per cent reaching ore combined with the recovered by other methods. He California gold rush, but operations resumed during the immediately implemented it at Haile and business boomed.

American Civil War, when the Haile Gold Mine furnished The mine became the most famous and profitable gold gold, pyrite and sulphite to the Confederate war effort. For this mining operation east of the Mississippi River and leading reason, Union General William Sherman’s troops sacked the metallurgical and mining engineers of the day visited it to works on their 1865 march through South Carolina, wrecking observe Thies’ new technology. Thomas Edison, curious about the buildings, mining equipment and much of the surround- all types of metals and minerals, including gold, silver and ing countryside. galena, detailed his visit to the mine in a January 1890 diary Emma Holmes, a local diarist, complained that Haile’s entry. granddaughters neglected to contribute to the Confederate At its peak, the mine had 175 workers and a railroad to war effort and hosted extravagant parties instead. If that was transport cars laden with ore from the mine to the mill. the case, they got their come uppance; before the war was setThies retired in 1904 and two of his sons, Adolph and tled, the Haile family sold off the mine for $20,000 in Confed- Ernest, took over operations, with Ernest acting as the mine’s erate money. By 1865, the money was worthless and they were general manager. penniless.

In August 1908, several men were killed when a large Profitable operations did not resume until 1888, when new steam boiler that operated crushing equipment in the mill Yankee owners enlisted the help of German-born mining engi- blew up, completely destroying the building. Ernest was neer Carl Adolph Thies to galvanize production. Over two among those killed. Without his leadership, the mine failed decades of working at the nearby Phoenix mine in North and its New York owners ended operations.

Carolina, Thies had developed a new gold processing techHaile operated periodically throughout the 20th century. nique for sulfide ores that resulted in the mine becoming one During World War One it was mined for sulfur for the war of the largest and most profitable in the state. effort, and $2 million worth of gold was produced in another Numerous techniques and procedures had been tried and brief reopening between 1934 and 1942. However, President tested at Haile by the previous, and long-suffering, superin- Franklin D. Roosevelt suspended gold mining when the U.S. tendent, including turning it from open-pit to underground joined the Second World War, in order to prioritize base-metal works, installing and expanding equipment to better process production. Operations were briefly resumed in the ‘70s and stamp mill tailings, roasting stamp mill tailings before amalga- ‘80s, but by the ‘90s the mine lay dormant again. On January mating them again and crushing them for a second time, and 19 first gold was poured at the newest iteration of the Haile using mercuric chloride to improve recovery. All failed. mine, owned by OceanaGold. See our profile on page 44. CIM 74 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 12, No. 5

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