Canadian Mining Journal May 2017

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May 2017

MINING’S next frontier ANALYTICS, AUTOMATION & AI

Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 40069240

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CANADIAN Mining Journal

MAY 2017 VOL. 138, NO. 04

www.canadianminingjournal.com

FEATURES 10 Canadian Mining Innovation Council’s Carl Weatherell on how to achieve a zero waste industry.

ANALYTICS, AUTONOMOUS MINING AND SAFETY 14 A look at how artificial intelligence, already in use in the oil and gas sector, could transform mining.

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20 Dundee Precious Metals brings its innovative Wi-Fi technology and software to market.

26 Rajant responds to the changing communications demands of the mining sector.

28 Welcome to the era of “wearables” in mining.

30 RCT describes its haul truck guidance system for underground mines.

32 Motion Metrics on how to avoid the dangers of a jammed crusher.

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PUMPS & WATER MAINTENANCE 36 How the right pumping technology can boost safety and efficiency.

41 Hatch reports on how bench-scale testing can be used to decrease water use and optimize water treatment systems at mines.

DEPARTMENTS 5 EDITORIAL | Connecting the dots 8 FIRST NATIONS | AFN Ontario Chief Isadore Day discusses the case for resource revenue sharing.

44 UNEARTHING TRENDS | Theophile Yameogo, EY’s Mining & Metals Advisory leader, comments on the digital future of mining.

46 CSR & MINING | Michael Torrance, a lawyer with Norton Rose, outlines what companies can do when hit by shareholder proposals focused on human rights.

36 ABOUT THE COVER

This month’s cover provided by Sandvik.

Coming in June Canadian Mining Journal looks at mining in the Prairies and base metals in Canada. Plus our semiannual Equipment Maintenance & Repair supplement.

For More Information

Please visit www.canadianminingjournal.com for regular updates on what’s happening with Canadian mining companies and their personnel both here and abroad. A digital version of the magazine is also available at www.digital.canadianminingjournal.com

MAY 2017

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FROM THE EDITOR

CANADIAN Mining Journal May 2017 Vol. 138 — No. 4

Connecting the dots Alisha Hiyate

W

hen I talk to people outside of mining about the new technology that’s starting to infiltrate the sector, they are invariably surprised that it doesn’t already exist in the industry.

For a society that’s constantly connected through our smart phones and awash in apps that can monitor your sleep habits or remotely control the temperature of your home, people assume that it’s standard for underground mines to be able to track the location of vehicles and people in real time, for example.

That may be why the perspective of mining outsiders has been so valuable in pushing forward innovation in the industry.

That is certainly the case with two of the people who feature in the pages of this month’s CMJ. Mark Gelsomini engineered solutions to many of the problems Dundee Precious Metals identified at its Chelopech copper-gold mine nearly a decade ago. Now Dundee’s corporate director, information technologies, Gelsomini joined the company in 2009 with no experience in the mining sector.

With a background as a computer engineer in the manufacturing industry, Gelsomini’s solutions at Chelopech brought reliable and inexpensive Wi-Fi to the more than 60-year-old underground mine. He and his team also created software applications that analyzed the real-time information generated at the operation to increase productivity and safety (see Page 20).

Canadian Mining Innovation Council Executive Director Carl Weatherell is also more of an outsider to mining than an insider. Having studied chemistry and worked as a CanMet scientist for 14 years, he has also worked in academia, where he was involved in 13 different consortiums across multiple industries, as well as for-profit and non-profit organizations.

Weatherell’s diverse background has served him well at CMIC, whose job is to catalyze innovation in mining by connecting all the various members of the “mining ecosystem.” Many of the ideas Weatherell brings to CMIC are from other industries.

The striking thing about both Gelsomini and Weatherell is their ability to see, as outsiders, what insiders may not.

When Gelsomini, for example, joined the industry, he saw an aversion among miners to using and adapting solutions that weren’t built specifically for mining.

“What I noticed almost a decade ago is that the mining industry wasn’t utilizing stuff that could have been off the shelf ideas and technology and trying to apply it to improve their operations,” Gelsomini says.

For his part, Weatherell also sees a big part of his role as harnessing “stuff” that’s already being used in other sectors and bringing it into mining (see Page 10).

“Basically, what I see is connecting dots – where are the bright, shiny objects that exist somewhere else in another industry that we can bring in,” Weatherell says.

Of course, it also takes insiders to make change. Gelsomini was acting to carry out a vision that Dundee CEO (then COO) Rick Howes had to “take the lid off the mine.”

Other mining companies have also started to warm up to the possibilities that come from working with experts in other fields. Several have partnerships that go beyond simply adopting new technology – see Goldcorp’s work with IBM Watson (Page 14).

Here’s hoping that these examples are just the start of a lot more cross-pollination, new perspectives and new ideas to come for our industry.

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CANADIAN MINING JOURNAL

38 Lesmill Rd. Unit 2, Toronto, Ontario M3B 2T5 Tel. (416) 510-6789 Fax (416) 510-5138 www.canadianminingjournal.com Editor-in-chief Alisha Hiyate 416-510-6742 ahiyate@canadianminingjournal.com Twitter: @Cdn_Mining_Jrnl Production Manager Jessica Jubb jjubb@glacierbizinfo.com Manager of Product Distribution Jackie Dupuis 403-209-3507 jdupuis@jwnenergy.com Publisher & Sales Robert Seagraves 416-510-6891 rseagraves@canadianminingjournal.com Toll Free Canada & U.S.A.: 1-888-502-3456 ext 2 or 43734 Group Publisher Anthony Vaccaro

Established 1882

Canadian Mining Journal provides articles and information of practical use to those who work in the technical,

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Dunlop points out that safety is a key focus for all of the Miller products.

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Miller has greatly improved its delivery schedule and quality control.

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FIRST NATIONS

Resource revenue sharing key to renewing nation-to-nation relationship

By Isadore Day

O

ntario has the largest First Nation population in Canada and the most diverse and far-reaching population. The Caldwell First Nation is located at Point Pelee, the most southern tip of Canada. The Fort Severn First Nation is located on Hudson Bay and is the most northern community in all of Ontario.

Fort Severn was established as one of the very first trading posts in North America in 1689. Just a few decades later, the Mississauga Ojibwe began trading with the British and French on the shores of Lake Ontario. In fact, the trading post of Port Credit was partly built with the assistance of the Ojibwe.

This is where our nation-to-nation relationship began – through trade with the newcomers. When the newcomers arrived, we welcomed them with our hand in friendship.

This is how treaties were formed; it is this hand in friendship and the friendship treaties – this is how Canada began.

From Hudson Bay and James Bay to the Great Lakes, we traded with the settlers, and made them wealthy. If it weren’t for our Peoples, there would be no one to trade with.

Back then, our Peoples had much in common with today’s prospectors and developers. We were entrepreneurs. We took risks. We relied upon our own skills. We were dependable and indispensable.

We prospered in good times and survived through the bad times. First Nations played a key role in building the original economy of Canada. Today, the mining industry plays a key part of this country’s economic engine.

First Nations need to renew that economic relationship. For us, it really is a matter of life and death.

Since the now 140-year-old Indian Act, we have been treated as wards of the state. We are First Nations, who are considered as afterthoughts in government policy and priorities, and treated like second-class citizens, some of whom live in third world conditions.

In 1974, B.C. First Nation leader George Manuel coined the phrase – and the title of a book – The Fourth World: An Indian Reality. It describes the struggles taken up by our Peoples to reclaim the riches in our traditional territories that we have been deprived of.

For the most part, that struggle continues today.

In 2017, as Canada celebrates its 150th anniversary, there are far too many of our children and youth who cannot even celebrate life.

We have children committing suicide due to poverty and despair, dysfunction and abuse. We have a welfare state system that renders far too many of our chiefs helpless and powerless.

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So how do we restart the relationship? The 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP) report is still the benchmark that has all the solutions, which boil down to self-government and a sufficient land base for economic selfsufficiency.

In Ontario, the 2007 Ipperwash Report repeats many of the same top RCAP recommendations.

However, one of the most important Ipperwash recommendations is that Ontario implement resource revenue sharing.

In February, I attended the Nishnawbe Aski Nation winter assembly. NAN represents 49 First Nation communities in northern Ontario, which include some of the poorest communities in Canada. Most of the three-day assembly was spent debating the latest suicide crisis.

There is a stark contrast if you were to attend a Grand Council of the Cree assembly on the other side of James Bay in Quebec. A good portion of the agenda is devoted to wealth sharing, commerce and industry, and the latest dividends from CREECO operations.

The Quebec Cree are already at the next level of self-governance and wealth generation through resource revenue sharing.

This is a conversation that First Nation leaders across the country must have with their provincial Premiers.

In the meantime, major investments are needed in child welfare, clean water, proper housing, education, and simply eradicating poverty and despair.

Two decades of a 2% cap on funding – which amounts to a loss of $30 billion to First Nation communities – has resulted in a very big hole of poverty and despair.

I remain confident that the current federal government is committed to following through on its mandate to renew the nation-to-nation relationship with Indigenous Peoples.

We must begin now to turn the corner on eradicating poverty and despair. We must begin now to rebuild at the community level. We must offer hope so our children no longer contemplate suicide.

Our children must be able to see a bright future where they are the masters of their own destiny. Our children must be empowered to become contributors and protectors of their families, their languages, and their cultures.

Our children must be able to prepare for a future where they are the leaders of happy, healthy communities. Most imporCMJ tantly, where they control their own destinies.

ISADORE DAY, Wiindawtegowinini, is Assembly of First Nations Ontario Regional Chief.

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THE

why, how AND what OF MINING

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innovation

GETTING TO CMIC’S ZERO WASTE VISION

A

s executive director of the Canada Mining Innovation Council (CMIC), Carl Weatherell has a lot of conversations with people in the industry about innovation.

But those conversations often have to start by defining terms – specifically by distinguishing innovation from research.

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“They are not the same thing, yet the industry and everybody around it still confuses them and connects the two,” Weatherell says. “Research is knowledge discovery – it requires a significant amount of money to discover new ‘stuff.’ Innovation actually does the opposite: it creates wealth.”

That confusion is one of the reasons the

mining sector doesn’t innovate as well as it should. In Canada, funding goes into research with the expectation that innovation will be the result, Weatherell says.

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way the innovation system has been set up. We fund innovation under the guise of research, and the result is little innovation.” A recent report by the Council of Canadian Academies even states that in Canada research rarely leads to innovation, Weatherell adds.

Another issue is that people in the minMAY 2017

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ing sector confuse innovation and optimization, such as advances in technology like automation.

“Innovation should drive a multiple order of magnitude return on your investment and we’re not doing that at the levels we need to.”

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Carl Weatherell, executive director of the Canada Mining Innovation Council.

There may still be confusion about what innovation is, but it’s become clear why the mining sector needs a fundamental transformation. Weatherell points to the big, common and seemingly intractable challenges mining companies are facing: lower grades, deeper, more complicated and harder to find deposits, energy challenges, social licence issues, etc.

“Because you can’t take any one of them individually, these big challenges are escaping or getting past our ability to deal with them. In other words, that innovation gap is expanding and it’s expanding rapidly.”

As a result, productivity has declined 3.5% a year for a decade, Weatherell says, whereas productivity in other industries is trending upwards.

So how do we solve these problems?

“The first thing we need to do is collaborate as an industry and look at these challenges as an industry across Canada and globally.”

While the industry has been the source of truly innovative ideas and technologies – processes like solvent-extraction electrowinning and smelting processes, for example – it hasn’t gone far enough to transform the industry.

“The way we’ve been doing this obviously hasn’t worked,” Weatherell says.

“Individual companies doing their own things, individual technology organizations, research organizations, innovation organizations, government labs, suppliers, haven’t made big dents in these challenges and again these macro-economic trends are showing that that is the case.”

That’s where CMIC comes in.

Formally established in 2009 by industry, government and academia, CMIC’s role is to catalyze innovation by connecting the whole mining ecosystem – mining companies, service companies, research organi12 |

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Above: A screenshot of the water quality Knowledge Hub. CREDIT: CMIC Left: An example of the preliminary common earth model developed by Footprints and Mira Geoscience for the Highland Valley Copper research site.

CREDIT: CMIC

zations, startups, and others – to solve the big challenges that threaten the industry.

Zero waste vision To get all the players in the sector pulling in the same direction, CMIC adopted something other industries such as software, manufacturing, aerospace and defence have done: technology road maps.

CMIC’s road maps outline a radical collective vision for where the industry wants to be in 15 or 20 years.

“Our vision is to transform mining towards a zero waste industry,” Weatherell explains. “So how do you get there?”

Starting from that end point, the technology road maps work backwards to show what can be done now, where the gaps are and how the industry can move forward.

The road maps target transformative changes in the “platforms” that make up mining. For example, the current conversation around tailings is mostly around how to manage them as operations get bigger and produce more of them. But using the platform approach, you would tackle how not to produce tailings at all – a fundamental change in the way mining is done.

The road maps also help to get players focused on delivering one piece of the puz-

zle to make collective progress much faster, rather than doing their own thing.

Another tenet of CMIC is the concept of open innovation – something that the mining sector is only starting to do.

“Open innovation means you have to share intellectual property amongst consortium members and collaborators at a much higher level. A secondary output to that is that you’re actually going to create new products or solutions that are potentially usable in other markets.”

Weatherell points to the consortium of 13 oilsands companies, Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA), as an example.

In addition to looking outside of your own company for solutions open innovation involves looking outside of your industry.

For example, one of the technologies CMIC is looking at applying to underground mining is actually a defence weapon that was developed with funding from the European Union.

“If we keep going down a myopic path and keep trying to reinvent the wheel to solve these things, well I’m sorry, a lot of this stuff already exists somewhere else: let’s use it.”

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The first thing we need to do is collaborate as an industry and look at these challenges as an industry across Canada and globally.

CMIC PROJECTS

CMIC projects are defined, funded and delivered by member organizations. The organization’s website currently lists more than 55 members ranging from major mining companies, suppliers, associations, governments, universities and more.

CMIC facilitates projects in four technical areas geared at helping the industry get to zero waste: exploration, underground mining, energy and processsing, and environmental stewardship. A selection of current CMIC projects follows.

Mineral exploration One of CMIC’s most advanced projects is its Footprints project with NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada), which began in 2013. The five-year, $13-million project brought together the largest multidisciplinary exploration geoscience consortium in North America. The consortium is working on developing novel methods for integrating multiple exploration data sets (geophysical, mineralogical, geochemical, etc.) that currently can be layered, but not truly integrated. The project uses software platforms that were originally developed for aerospace and the financial services industry and should enhance exploration methods as well as answering fundamental questions about the origins of large-scale, ore-forming systems.

Energy & processing Only 5% of the energy used to grind ore is actually used to break apart the rock, making the process 95% energy inefficient.

CMIC has a project in the lab testing phase MAY 2017

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looking at replacing ball mills. Compared to HPGR, this technology, which Weatherell describes as a game changer for new mines, could reduce energy consumption by 50-60% and capex in the mill by 20-30%. CMIC is supporting the development of a prototype, which is slated to begin later this year. After that’s complete and tested for a year, a full-scale demo would follow. “We’ve already got mining companies lined up saying we want to test it,” Weatherell says. If the technology works, CMIC is aiming to facilitate commercialization within five years.

Environmental stewardship CMIC has launched a Knowledge Hub in British Columbia to put water quality data online in geospatial format. One of the challenges for mining companies is that base line water quality data that they must collect and submit to a regulatory body isn’t easily available, although it is supposed to be public.

The hub, which has been up and running for about a year and a half, has transitioned from the minimum viable product stage to a prototype and provides access to 15 million water quality data points in British Columbia. The intent is to roll it out across the country. In future, the program could potentially to be used to curate or provide the portal for water quality monitoring data

that is submitted to regulators.

CMIC has also recently launched a project to support the development of remote, real-time sensors for water quality monitoring. One of the technologies being pursued leans on genomics as a tool to create sensors from bacteria – another example of open innovation at work.

Underground mining As more battery-powered vehicles are being developed and offered in underground mining, CMIC is working on standardizing the new technology. As it stands, the technology that is available from different companies is not compatible: in order to use vehicles from two different companies at one mine, two sets of infrastructure would need to be installed to charge the batteries. Working with the Global Mining Standards & Guidelines Group and the majority of the mining companies and mining suppliers in the battery-electric vehicle space in Canada and internationally, this partnership has completed guidelines for the technology in six months – a process that normally would take two or more years. In underground mining CMIC is focused on transforming the industry from a batch-dumb-carbon based process to a continuous-smart-electric process. For more information see http:// CMJ cmic-ccim.org/.

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MINING’S

NEXT

FRONTIER HARNESSING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO REVOLUTIONIZE MINING

By David Godkin

I can see this technology reinventing our industry.

– LUIS CANEPARI, VICE-PRESIDENT, IT, GOLDCORP

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T

he technology is IBM’s Watson cognitive analytics, known more colloquially as artificial intelligence or AI and soon to be applied to Goldcorp’s Red Lake mine in Ontario. There, Watson will ingest, analyze and synthesize massive amounts of complex geological and survey data, says Goldcorp’s Vice-President Technology Luis Canepari, signalling a potential sea change in mining and minerals exploration analytics.

“It’s similar to what happened in the oil and gas industry when fracking was discovered. That completely reshaped the way oil and gas was explored.”

IBM will tell you Watson has had nearly the same revolutionary effect on oil and gas exploration, assisting Woodside Energy’s assessments of how oil and gas platforms respond to extreme weather off Western Australia’s North West Shelf, and helping Spain’s Repsol do the same, but also evaluate external threats to WWW.CANADIANMININGJOURNAL.COM

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drilling, such as the cultural and political climates of a region.

But according to IBM’s oil and gas clients, Watson’s most impressive feat, says IBM Director of Cognitive and Analytics Solutions Development Dariusz Piotrowski, is “how to think like an engineer, but then teach them how to think like thousands of engineers.” That’s AI’s real power, says Piotrowski. “They’re systems that learn, rather than systems that are merely programmed.”

“And it’s Watson’s ability to interact with experts that is such an important part of solution development,” says Piotrowski.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

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IBM’s hope is to place the same power that helped oil and gas into the hands of miners and prospectors.

Older and even wiser IBM Watson works by combining disparate sources of knowledge typically found at most properties or exploration zones: geological and drilling data, drilling reports, surveys, historical information, and the reams of internal data contained in process logs, reports, and studies. Watson then synthesizes those massive amounts of data with the knowledge older geologists and engineers have accumulated from years of field experience. This, in turn, says Piotrowski, will enable them and a whole new generation of geologists to pose questions to Watson, along with its recommendations for minerals exploration.

“Watson allows geologists to interpret subsurface information and make predictions as to where the gold might be.” Geologists are not bound by Watson’s predictions, however. Instead, they provide Watson feedback on its predictions and recommendations so that it learns over time what works and what doesn’t.

“That’s half of the learning process,” says Piotrowski.

Just how accurate are Watson’s predictions? Well, if the oil and gas industry’s use of Watson is any indication, very accurate.

“Depending on whether it was gas or oil we’ve seen prediction accuracy improving from sixty or seventy per cent to more than ninety per cent,” Piotrowski says.

Whether mining can achieve similar results may be answered at WWW.CANADIANMININGJOURNAL.COM

2017-04-18 11:58 AM

Woodside, an Australian oil and gas company, uses IBM Watson to enhance decision making and increase efficiencies. CREDIT: WOODSIDE.

Goldcorp’s Red Lake facility this summer. There, geologists will assess Watson’s ability to accurately determine successive exploration targets and help teams locate gold deposits previous drilling campaigns failed to find. If Watson performs as promised, the end result could be higher yields along with less environmental impact.

Certainly that’s what Canepari is hoping for. But he believes Watson may be helpful in another way, by directing the company’s attention back to previous areas of exploration which failed to produce expected results. “The data may tell you to look back and redrill some of those areas and discover if you missed something.”

Watson’s primary purpose, however, is to identify fresh indicators in previously unknown gold resources that may also be subject to expert bias experienced geologists bring to older, unproductive properties. The key to Watson’s ultimate acceptance by those same experts, says Piotrowski, will be the logic and rationale underpinning Watson’s recommendations, giving them added confidence to make faster, more data-driven decisions.

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Above: Microsoft’s HoloLens technology places holographic images over physical structures, creating a mixed reality. CREDIT: MICROSOFT Left: Goldcorp’s Red Lake mine, in Ontario, where IBM Watson will soon be applied. CREDIT: GOLDCORP

ful or as effective as a strong process with a strong machine and the individual to benefit from that.” That’s how Vice-President of APM Product Management at GE Digital Jeremiah Stone summarizes work on AI done by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson at MIT on the effects of machine learning on industry and society. Machine and man must work together.

To make that tangible, Stone uses the example of how a haul truck performs in the field and GE’s empirical, machine learning model of the same truck, which tells you how that haul truck ought to be performing. GE calls this specific class of AI “similarity-based modelling,” constructed from historical data for an individual piece of equipment, and then overlaid with real-time sensoring data to provide an eye into the future for operations and maintenance planning.

Like Watson, GE’s “digital twin” continually refines itself for each asset it builds, becoming “a higher and higher fidelity representation of a physical asset in the field,” says Stone. The longer you run the analytics and the more data you bring in, the better the guidance provided operations management becomes. “You 18 |

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have fewer false positives and higher performance when applying analysis on that digital twin.”

All that data, whether it’s the direct sensor and control system data or the analytic data derived from the digital twin, belongs to the customer, adds Stone. “And if an operator wants a site specific infrastructure with their own room and their own engineers doing the analysis, we provide that. We have customers who have gone that route.”

All of this will have miners questioning whether they want to add more mechanical capacity at site when they might be able to get more capacity out their existing, deployed assets via the introduction of analytics, machine learning and AI. Straining the capex with a new ball mill and circuit may not always be the way to go when attempting to increase the ratio of metal to tailings, says Stone.

“I may be able to achieve my target production with improvements to my controls technology in the form of real-time, feed forward and feedback loop processing where we have analytics embedded directly in the mineral processing.”

Another question surrounds the degree of change management that has to occur when integrating existing process controls with cognitive analytics, which take advantage of the internet-based Cloud or customer data centre. No one wants to take down capital equipment in order to make a major change and lose a month of production and money better spent elsewhere.

GE’s solution, says Richard Carpenter, general manager of control platforms in automation and controls, has been to develop its technology in two pieces. One is development of the next generation of controls technology. The second is standalone IoT (Internet of Things) devices placed next to existing systems WWW.CANADIANMININGJOURNAL.COM

2017-04-18 11:58 AM

which act as the data concentration and collector point.

“These bring information to the cloud infrastructure where the analytics can be done,” says Carpenter. “Being able to run these things in parallel with existing systems, between cycles, really helps the client start to make use of that technology sooner.”

We’re in this together IBM won’t be alone at Red Lake. Microsoft has worked with Goldcorp in the past using machine learning algorithms to predict the location of additional exploration targets and locate undiscovered gold deposits. And this summer its Cortana Analytics Suite will be in head-to-head competition with Watson, says Microsoft Industry Solutions Executive Mark Speaker.

“It’s to help geologists make better decisions. So you’d have a number of screens on which you can view the ore body. You look at the results from numerically and visual based algorithms to determine ‘Hey is this the right spot to go after?’”

Like GE’s “digital twin,” Microsoft cognitive analytics places digital imaging over physical structures, creating a digital copy of mining assets. The difference is these are holographic images, a “mixed reality” product called HoloLens that enables staff to visualize the use of IoT to pull data from the process control systems and the creation of a hierarchical equipment structure.

“But unlike some competitors who see images in two dimensions on a flat screen, our customers see images in three and four dimensions,” says Speaker, the fourth dimension consisting of

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scenarios played out over time. “So, for example, if you want to see what happened on a mine site over the past five years you can play that in a holographic scenario just like you would play a movie and see that activity happen.”

Generational change Last July, Microsoft also announced its collaboration with GE to make its Predix platform available on the Microsoft Azure cloud, capturing intelligence from its machines and other industrial assets.

That includes natural language technology, artificial intelligence, advanced data visualization and enterprise application integration – all part of an effort to simplify business processes and “re-imagine” how work gets done, GE CEO Jeff Immelt said at the time.

And how might an industry with its feet planted firmly on the ground and still somewhat skeptical about such technology respond? Richard Carpenter says general acceptance may be a function of demographic and generational change. Many geologists and site managers have forty plus years of knowledge and experience but they are starting to retire, making way for the “digital” generation.

“That combination is what’s going to drive the future, where the knowledge is captured in a way that can be used coming into these industries, without the same level of experience as the people who are retiring,” Carpenter notes.

CMJ David Godkin is a freelance writer based in Toronto.

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CANADIAN MINING JOURNAL

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WI-FI GOES DEEP

Dundee brings its innovations to market with Terrative Digital Solutions

By Alisha Hiyate

W

hen Mark Gelsomini, an IT professional with a background in computer engineering, joined Dundee Precious Metals in 2009, it was during the market turmoil of the financial crisis.

“Gold prices were dropping, the housing market was dropping, the U.S. was going through a recession,” Gelsomini recalls. “Mining companies were trying to improve productivity without adding equipment or people.”

Over the next few years, Gelsomini, now the company’s corporate director of information technologies, succeeded in helping Dundee do just that at its Chelopech gold mine in Bulgaria. Tasked with “taking the lid off the mine,” by Dundee COO (now CEO) Rick Howes, and finding a way to

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gather information in real time, Gelsomini and his team turned the more than 60-yearold underground mine into one of the most technologically advanced in the world.

By adapting existing Wi-Fi technology to the underground mining environment, and developing its own software, the company was able to collect and analyze operating information as it was generated. As a result, Dundee was able to quadruple production and cut its costs per tonne, without additional labour and equipment.

As news of the company’s achievements has gotten out, Dundee has been inundated by mining companies that want to buy its technology.

“We were getting a lot of interest in our technology and we had a number of other mining companies and other companies go through our operations looking at the Wi-Fi, looking at the costing around it,” Gelsomini explains. “They kept asking,

‘How do we get it?’”

Now, they can.

Terrative Digital Solutions, a subsidiary of Dundee focused on developing digital technology for remote and underground mines, is having its official Mark Gelsomini launch at the CIM convention in Montreal Apr. 30-May 3.

The decision to launch Terrative had a dual purpose: to help commercialize Dundee’s technology and to establish a separate R&D division so that Dundee can remain focused on its primary business of mining.

Terrative already has several clients, including leading mining customers, says Gelsomini, who is also vice-president technology at Terrative.

WWW.CANADIANMININGJOURNAL.COM

2017-04-18 12:01 PM

Above: Mine360 software on a vehicle operator tablet.

Left: The office at Dundee Precious Metals’ Chelopech copper-gold mine, in Bulgaria.

That demonstrates how thirsty the mining sector is for digital solutions that have been proven to work at other mines – reducing the risk that comes with adopting technologies that are new to the industry.

“The technology that we’re designing has actually been tested in the real world.

That’s where our uniqueness is,” Gelsomini says. “We have an operating mine where our technology is being used – real time, real data, day to day, in and out, with constant feedback on improvement. And we have the results to show for it.”

Gelsomini adds that the technology, while complicated to develop, is easy to install and deploy with minimal involvement of IT experts, and that it’s standard across all of Dundee’s operations: Chelopech, at its Krumovgrad development project in Bulgaria, and its smelter in Namibia.

MAY 2017

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Safety driver While the productivity numbers that Dundee achieved are impressive, safety was the most important driver behind its innovations.

“The objective was, how do we improve safety in the underground so that our miners are safe and we know what’s happening and when it’s happening, as well as improve the underlying productivity,” Gelsomini says.

Being able to track the location of both employees and vehicles ensures the company knows what’s happening in real time at all areas of its operations.

“We wanted to streamline the processes, and have full visibility of where everybody is and where all the vehicles are so that there’s no missed hits or people or vehicles going where they shouldn’t be or doing what they shouldn’t do, such as speeding or overloading the vehicles.”

Two-part innovation Such advances were made possible by Dundee’s two-part innovation, both of which will be available through Terrative.

First, the physical equipment enabling low-cost underground Wi-Fi, and second, software that Dundee developed to collect and analyze information about production, equipment status and health and location, and employees’ whereabouts.

When Gelsomini first started looking into replacing the traditional “leaky feeder” radio communication system at Chelopech with Wi-Fi, he found that the existing solutions on the market, which were designed to be tough and durable specifically for mining, were far too expensive.

To bring the cost down, Gelsomini decided to adapt less expensive traditional Wi-Fi technology that’s used above ground to the rougher underground environment by producing enclosures for them that would “ruggedize” them.

That includes “access points” – devices with antennas in them that transmit the Wi-Fi signal, and Wi-Fi repeaters that extend the range of wireless coverage.

There were technical barriers to using traditional Wi-Fi equipment underground, however.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 22

CANADIAN MINING JOURNAL

ALL IMAGES COURTESY: DUNDEE PRECIOUS METALS

At Chelopech, Dundee even worked with Orica Mining Services to develop a way to conduct blasting over Wi-Fi, removing people entirely from the potential dangers.

“Everybody evacuates the mine, you set your detonating charges for your blasting routines, you exit the mine and from our control centre you can remotely blast over Wi-Fi,” Gelsomini says.

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The control room at Chelopech.

“The mine itself, the material that you’re mining, causes what we call the proverbial black hole,” Gelsomini explains. “So you may have an access point – you may have wireless there but getting absolutely no coverage. So what’s happening is that that wireless is actually being absorbed by the rock.”

As a result, Dundee developed its own custom antennas, which Gelsomini says improve coverage significantly. Whereas traditional access point spacing is limited, Dundee has been able to increase that distance due to their antenna design. The result is fewer access points required to achieve what they call “pervasive” Wi-Fi coverage.

“We have 360 access points in our flagship Chelopech mine,” Gelsomini says.

“If we were to use traditional antennas, which are much more expensive, the number would have to be significantly higher.”

Because they’ve adapted existing, low-cost technology, Terrative’s access points cost considerably less than their competitor’s.

Software The second part to Dundee’s innovation was its Mine 360 software, which it uses for maintenance control, work orders, scheduling, short interval control, and tracking of equipment and employees. Using data transmitted by Wi-Fi from tablets used by 22 |

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underground mine operators and sensors and RFID tags on equipment and employees, the software offers full visibility of an operation – a 360 degree view.

Dundee chose to develop its own software so that it could introduce new features as needed in a timely way without having to rely on a third-party vendor.

“The challenge is if you want (a vendor) to make a change to a software app to suit your needs, there’s a long process,” Gelsomini says. “The main point of building your own is that agile approach – well I want it to do this now.”

It may be unusual for a mining company to develop its own software, but it’s common for companies in other sectors such as manufacturing and banking to have custom software apps or to build one in-house.

Gelsomini says it was actually cost-effective for Dundee to develop the software in-house. “We knew what we wanted and how quickly we needed it and how quickly we would want to change it,” he says. And in the five years since it first developed its technology, Dundee is already on its 6th Generation of the technology.

“A traditional mine that doesn’t have this capability, they can’t flip their technology as often as they want,” Gelsomini notes.

“The advantage of our solution is it’s

low cost and modular, therefore inexpensive to replace and expand versus a traditional mining-specific communications systems. A leaky feeder system will have a much higher total cost of ownership, and provide a fraction of the functionality and bandwidth.”

As a former outsider to the mining industry and one of few IT professionals with a prominent role in the sector, Gelsomini has a unique perspective on the sector’s need for and simultaneous resistance to innovation.

“There’s a lot of conversation about it, there’s a lot of interest in it, but few are actually doing it to the extent we are, and, more importantly, driving the same outcomes,” Gelsomini says.

Part of it is confusion about what innovation actually is, he notes, adding that it is definitely not about optimization or improving processes.

When we’re talking innovation, we’re talking about bringing in technology or ideas that traditionally did not exist underground or in mining at all and applying them to the mining sector. That’s innovation,” he says.

“To me, the mining sector is almost on the precipice of saying, ‘we’re ready to jump.’”

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RAJANT TACKLES MINING’S BIG COMMUNICATIONS CHALLENGES

W

hen Rajant sold its first wireless communications equipment in the mining sector in 2005, it was to Rio Tinto’s Bingham copper mine, in Utah.

As Todd Rigby, Rajant’s director of sales notes, the open-pit mine is both very large and very complex. The communications system at the time was a patchwork of different networks that were specific to individual applications, such as fleet management and fuel monitoring.

“They had a number of different networks, each supporting individual apps and these essentially consumed all the available non-licenced frequency and channels,” Rigby explains.

“They came to the conclusion that they needed to find a high-performance network that used spectrum more efficiently and had the ability to carry more bandwidth so they could transfer their existing applications onto that network and have sufficient excess capacity to add additional apps down the road.”

More than a decade later, Rajant is seeing the same situation occur in underground mines.

“We’re getting calls literally on a weekly basis from underground mines that have several different types of communications systems running different apps and they’re up against the wall with the capacity of those systems,” Rigby says.

Rajant can offer those underground operations higher capacity with its private broadband mobile network. The company’s proprietary Kinetic Mesh technology, offers reliabile connectivity via a network of wireless nodes, which Rajant calls “BreadCrumbs,” and which offer redundant connectivity to ensure signals don’t drop.

“Connectivity is really an area where

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Rajant shines brightly and it ties back into our proprietary networking protocol that allows each node to maintain multiple redundant active and persistent connections to other devices,” Rigby says. “What that translates to is in a Rajant network, we can maintain continuous even connectivity as the network moves.”

Underground coverage is more expensive than above ground because it’s a line of sight network.

“A device needs to see another device to communicate with it,” Rigby notes. “It’s safe to say you’re going to need them closer underground than you do above ground to form a reliable network.”

However, reliable connectivity is required

for automation, and has huge payoffs in safety.

With the combination of a reliable wireless network and machine sensors and apps, mining operations can ensure that machine health systems, proximity apps, and asset tracking tools are always on, and equipment can be automatically shut down when threats arise.

Rajant’s military grade technology also offers a high degree of security.

“While we are proprietary, we do support industry standards,” Rigby adds. “So you can activiate our devices to also act as a Wi-Fi access point and we support all the access point security up to AES 256-bit encryption.”

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2017-04-17 11:51 AM

Wearables: Electronic devices worn by people to enhance their capabilities and extend how they interact with both the physical and digital worlds

WHAT THE

Wearables WILL MEAN FOR MINING

By Jurgen Beier

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sory or as a part of material used in clothing.

Over time, the definition of wearables has evolved to: electronic devices worn by people to enhance their capabilities and extend how they interact with both the physical and digital worlds.

Like any emerging technology, obstacles can slow down the adoption of wearables.

But usability, battery power, data accuracy, lack of standardization, privacy concerns, and stakeholder acceptance continue to be addressed. Early experiments are showing clear use cases where wearables have overcome these barriers to help control costs, improve productivity, enhance efficiency and improve processes. These barriers will

continue to be addressed and the benefits will continue to increase in visibility.

Wearables are now ready for enterprise use due to three important factors: 1 Clear return on investment: A growing number of companies have woken up to the potential of wearables and are testing applications within their businesses.

2 Breadth of wearable device capabilities: The expanded set of sensors in wearables today provides incredible potential for innovators to create rapid prototypes and solve real-world problems.

Photo: aeduard, iStockimages

I

t started with the arrival of personal computers, which changed our lives significantly, both at home and at work. Then, along came the internet to connect us in ways we’d never before imagined. In the last decade, the mobile revolution placed powerful, general-purpose computing in our hands, enabling users to take actions in the digital world while moving about in the physical one. What’s next?

Devices continue to become smaller, faster, smarter and hyper-aware – welcome to the Wearables era.

The original definition of Wearables was: electronic devices capable of storing and processing data that can be worn as an acces-

WWW.CANADIANMININGJOURNAL.COM

2017-04-18 12:04 PM

ties

Deloitte has partnered with software developer Vandrico and hardware developer Cortex Design to produce a smart helmet. The wearable attachment has sensors to measure levels of methane, carbon monoxide, diesel fumes and radiation.

CREDIT: DELOITTE

s era Photo: aeduard, iStockimages

These sensors offer a range of capabilities that enable users to connect seamlessly with the digital world. Over time, simple sensors integrated into wearable devices will make way for sophisticated devices with multiple sensors. It is believed that the average wearable device shipped in 2019 will incorporate 4.1 sensor elements, as compared to the 1.4 that were standard in 2013.

3 Disappearing barriers: In recent years, device manufacturers have invested heavily in reducing sensor power consumption and size. Key technologies such as micromachining have MAY 2017

28-29_CMJ May2017_deloitte wearables.indd 29

enabled greater miniaturization of sensors, addressing some of the barriers that once stood in their way.

The confluence of a number of factors has created a significant wearables opportunity in mining. Apart from the above mentioned factors around miniaturization, processing power, battery life, etc., the advent of underground Wi-Fi in mining coupled with the desire to improve underground mine safety and the ability to process large amounts of data with advanced analytics tools to gain uncommon insights, has created the conditions for wearables to solve meaningful business problems.

When wearables are used in conjunction with underground digital mining platforms, they have the ability to communicate and address multiple issues such as air quality (diesel particulate, gas levels, dust levels, temperature), location tracking using RFID (radio-frequency identification) tags, worker down alerts through accelerometers and last known position tracking during seismic events. These functions are largely passive and can be delivered through clothing, body and or helmet mounted technologies.

Body mounted technologies have the added advantage of being able to monitor heart rate, body temperature and other biometric indicators to help manage fatigue, although some privacy issues have not yet been totally overcome in the biometric sphere.

Many of these technologies have been tested and refined for underground application and the expectation is that the connected mine of the near future will use wearables and equipment-based sensor technologies (IoT) on common digital platforms to improve human safety and performance but also to optimize how humans and machines work together to improve the overall safety and efficiency of underground mining operations.

CMJ The author is a partner, National Consulting Energy & Resources leader at Deloitte and can be contacted at jbeier@deloitte.ca.

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RCT BRINGS AUTOMATION TO UNDERGROUND HAUL TRUCKS

O

ver the past several years, mining companies have been looking harder for ways to improve efficiencies.

Now, the focus has shifted towards the implementation of technology and automation to increase productivity, profitability and safety.

Automation is now the buzz word around the mining industry and it’s seen as the crucial step forward for companies to increase productivity and reduce costs.

The industry has already experienced much success, resulting in a major shift in the way companies are approaching mine planning and mining methods. Automation is no longer an afterthought; it is now being implemented at the planning stages.

RCT’s newest addition to its ControlMaster brand, the Haul Truck Guidance solution, is aimed at helping underground mines take advantage of the benefits of automation. As a leader with 45 years of experience in the remote control and automation fields, RCT saw an opportunity to leverage its ControlMaster Loader Guidance technology to address common issues with haul trucks in underground mines.

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“The decision to automate underground haul truck process was the next logical step for RCT,” said Dave Holman, RCT’s head of product management.

Derived from RCT’s Loader Guidance technology, the solution was developed and designed in-house with the close collaboration of key mining companies.

The haul truck process in underground mines can be problematic, with sites often experiencing inconsistencies in manual operation that result in costly damage and erratic production results.

RCT’s haul truck guidance solution. Far left, bottom: RCT surface control cabin; second from right: Underground guidance laser.

CREDIT: RCT

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2017-04-18 12:06 PM

“By automating the process we would simplify the task of driving a haul truck long distances within tight space limitations to deliver consistent cycle times while heavily reducing machine damage,” Holman said.

“The Loader Guidance system underwent a redesign of both hardware and software to suit the haul truck application, and as a result, the Haul Truck Guidance system is unlike anything else available on the market within the underground mining space.”

The latest solution physically removes the operator from the truck, taking the stress out of operating haul trucks, especially in difficult to navigate drives. As a result, operators’ fatigue levels are reduced and their overall working environment improves significantly as they can work from an ergonomic operator control station located in a safe location on the surface or underground.

RCT’s Guidance technology ensures the operator avoids collisions with walls and obstacles to keep the truck on the optimal tramming path. Steering, braking and speed are automatically controlled. In addition, the tramming speed is determined by the minimum width of the drive and the look-ahead distance of the on-board laser units.

The object detection feature further assists in tight areas.

“The first system was installed and commissioned in December 2015 and today it is a unique solution that has had an immediate and profound impact on the underground mining industry,” Holman said.

Benefits The ControlMaster Haul Truck Guidance solution, like RCT’s

entire range of solutions is universal across all global regions and can be installed on any mobile machine, regardless of make, model or brand.

“This is a major point of difference to other suppliers who are restricted to installations on only new or brand-specific trucks,” Holman said.

RCT has already successfully fitted the system to numerous trucks across three different brands and five models in five different regions – meeting customers’ expectations each time, he added.

“Each system was fully designed and implemented following a detailed machine audit to ensure that operations are carried out efficiently,” Holman said.

“It has already proven itself by reducing damage bills and downtime, creating a better working environment for operators and producing consistent cycle times to enable mining companies to accurately plan and meet tonnes moved.

Companies using the solution have reported real-time measureable outcomes in both the production and maintenance departments.

Due to the successful implementation of RCT’s Loader, and now Haul Truck Guidance solutions, the mining industry is now looking at how the systems can work collaboratively to deliver further productivity improvements in the loading and hauling applications.

“This is resulting in a major shift in the thinking of the mine planning and mine methods used going forward,” Holman said. CMJ This article was provided by RCT.

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HOW TO AVOID THE COST AND RISK OF A

jammed CRUSHER

By Simon Bill

A

foreign object, such as a broken shovel tooth, jamming a crusher presents serious safety issues for any mine. Such incidents can lead to expensive equipment damage and lengthy periods of downtime, bringing operations to a standstill. With the clock ticking, mine personnel must work nervously to remove the obstruction and get the mine working again. Because the huge amounts of stored energy present life-threatening risks, the removal process is potentially the costliest step of all.

Jammed crusher incidents can cause serious injury or even death and can occur at any mine. Canada is no stranger to these tragedies. In 2014, a worker at a mine in Sudbury, Ont., was killed trying to clear a jammed crusher. This fatal incident, which also led to a $1-million fine, is just one local example of the dangers of a jammed crusher. While there are no comprehensive Canadian statistics, American researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found that incidents involving crushers are the second most common cause of fatalities caused by stationary machinery at mines in the United States.

Before incidnet: 2016-11-19 05:30:45 Healthy teeth

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Blockages occur when an object with a higher material strength than what the crusher is designed for enters the crusher. There are many possible metallic or even non-metallic objects that can get caught in a crusher, but some of the most common crusher jam incidents are caused by shovel or loader bucket teeth. When a shovel or loader digs material from a mine face, their bucket teeth have the potential to break off. The problem often goes undetected by the machine operator because of limited visibility in the harsh mining environment. The broken tooth then gets mixed in with the rest of the material and hauled away to the crusher. Since a bucket tooth is made of steel and often weighs over 100 kg, it is too hard for the crusher to break down, causing it to jam.

The tooth removal process is dangerous, costly, and time consuming. First, an excavator needs to dig out all the other material in the crusher, leaving only the obstructing object. Then, a boilermaker uses a torch to heat and cut the tooth in order to loosen it.

Because heat causes the metal to expand, the process generates even more pressure than has already been built up, which can cause the 100-kg tooth to shoot out of the crusher at extreme speed.

After incident: 2016-11-19 05:32:51 An incident has occurred in the 2 minutes and 6 seconds since the previous image was captured

After tooth replacement: 2016-11-19 09:32:08 About 4 hours passed to replace the tooth

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A Bucket Tooth Stuck in a Crusher

The best way to avoid a tragedy is to minimize the risk of one occurring. While it is impossible to completely prevent the possibility of broken teeth, it is possible to mitigate the risk of a broken tooth jamming a crusher with safeguards such as Motion Metrics’ ShovelMetrics and LoaderMetrics missing tooth detection systems, currently in use at over 50 mines around the world.

Using a rugged camera with a clear view of the shovel or loader bucket and an on-board computer, the system constantly monitors the bucket teeth as the equipment is in operation. When a missing tooth is detected, the system immediately alerts the operator with an audible alarm and a visual indicator in the in-cab display. The operator can then notify dispatch, and the truck containing the tooth can be routed away from the crusher. The system also sends automatic alerts to MetricsManager Pro, Motion Metrics’ cloud-based data management system, allowing mine management to access critical system alerts.

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MacLean Booth #1022 Shovel and loader teeth do not break off every day and not every jammed crusher results in serious injury or death. However, despite its low probability, a jammed crusher can have a catastrophic impact on mine safety, and on production: If the crusher cannot operate, the entire plant comes to a halt. Therefore, it is imperative for operations to invest in safeguards that can help preCMJ vent the unthinkable from happening.

The author is a marketing communications specialist with Motion Metrics International.

MAY 2017

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A mine dewatering pump skid in a mine in Montana. CREDIT: NETZSCH

PUMPS & WATER MANAGEMENT

Going with the

By John Dean

THE RIGHT PUMPING TECHNOLOGY CAN BOOST SAFETY AND EFFICIENCY

T

he mining industry is supported by a vast system of pumps and pipes. Whether to transport slurries filled with product or to siphon away waste and excess water, pumps surround the operation.

However, mined materials are not always soft, safe, and easy to handle. A lot of damage can be done to the pumps trying to transport these materials, costing money in repairs and CONTINUED ON PAGE 38

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stablishing spill prevention and control measures is an integral part of best business practices for any

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PUMPS & WATER MANAGEMENT compromising safety. In order to ensure safety and efficiency, it is important to install pumping equipment that can handle the job.

A great variety of media must be conveyed at mining projects. As companies penetrate deeper into the earth seeking natural resources, they encounter a host of extraneous and/or waste materials that must be siphoned away. Other times, the substance being mined is extracted from sludges and slurries created by the mining process. In this case, the material must be safely pumped away for further processing.

When mining for precious metals and minerals, rock bearing these substances is often crushed into a slurry that then must be transported for chemical extraction and processing via pumping systems. While water is sometimes added to make transport easier, many slurries are eventually thickened to help separate the desired solids and to help with waste management.

The waste, or tailings, from processing and/or extraction, are pumped into a

waste area or facility for later disposal.

Pumps are also required to dose materials with additives, for example, when chemicals are added for treatment and processing, or flocculants are added to waste water to promote clumping and ease of filtration. Mining operations drain water from slurries of product to help extract the desired substance and from waste to simplify waste storage and minimize the potential for contamination.

Some mining requires more volatile practices such as the use of explosives or extraction of dangerous and/or radioactive materials. When explosives are needed, mining companies must be able to comply with special conveyance conditions to ensure safe transport. When mining materials such as uranium, companies must be able to safely transport the concentrated powder obtained from leach solutions known as yellow cake. All of these mining applications require proper pumping or conveyance methods to ensure safety and efficiency.

As companies penetrate deeper into the earth seeking natural resources, they encounter a host of extraneous and/or waste materials that must be siphoned away. Other times, the substance being mined is extracted from sludges and slurries created by the mining process.

Challenges and safety concerns

Mining precious metals or hard minerals can place machines under extreme stress, increasing the chances for mechanical failure and the price of the raw material. The sludges and slurries containing these materials are extremely abrasive and can destroy

A NEMO pump under a centrifuge at a yellow cake plant.

CREDIT: NETZSCH

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While pumping and conveyance of abrasive substances can be routine mining practice, it is important not to be complacent.

Some mining operations deal in acidic materials or hazardous chemicals. pumping systems in a matter of days. While adding water can make it easier to pump, it also increases the effort required to thicken, concentrate, and extract the substance later. The efficiency, safety, and uptime of the pumping systems can be increased by selecting the optimal pump technology for the application and using appropriate wear resistant construction materials.

While pumping and conveyance of abrasive substances can be routine mining practice, it is important not to be complacent. Some mining operations deal in acidic materials or hazardous chemicals.

If the right mechanical seal or sealing option is not used on the pump transportMAY 2017

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ing these materials, they could leak and cause dangerous contamination. In dewatering systems, such as a traveler system or a skid, moving belts, rotating pieces of machinery, and open tanks are a safety concern for employees.

In the case of uranium yellow cake, prevention of leaks and exposure hazards is especially important. Improper seals can allow hazard process fluid to contaminate the atmosphere and potentially endanger personnel. When mining in explosive areas, the electric components of mining equipment in motors, control panels, and VFD’s also need to be properly designed to ensure safety.

Centrifugal pumps

All mined substances must be properly conveyed and not all pipes and pumps are prepared to do the job. The most-used pump in the mining industry is a centrifugal pump, which uses a rotating impeller to move water and other fluids. While this is a convenient way to pump water, fluids containing solids like those encountered in mining operations pose a problem. The mineral slurries and the fluid pumped for dewatering can cause significant wear on the internal workings of the pump, leading to frequent replacement and extra cost. The problem with these pumps is that they are composed mostly of hard metal and are capable of high flow rates.

Usually, this is desired. The faster a fluid can be pumped, the faster the job is done.

Left: A TORNADO T2 at a mine in South Africa.

CREDIT: NETZSCH

Right: A truck-mounted NEMO pump dispensing ammonium nitrate. CREDIT: NETZSCH

However, in the case of abrasive fluids and fluids filled with particulates and solids, the pump only throws these solids against its metal harder and faster. This causes significant wear very quickly and can eventually compromise the entire process.

When considering dosing applications, centrifugal pumps are not an effective solution because they do not produce a precise flow and can shear fluids such as flocculants which reduces the efficiency and effectiveness of the dosing process.

In many cases, to combat this problem in dosing, positive displacement pumps like hose pumps or diaphragm pumps are used instead. However, these pumps, while better at metering, have pulsation and can lead to costly consequences. For instance, if the diaphragm or hose on these pumps breaks, the process fluid can be introduced directly into the atmosphere, resulting in dangerous or expensive leaks.

Well-designed pumping technology

To address these problems, companies can use pumps with slower operating speeds and more wear resistant construction materials, For example, Netzsch pumps operate with a slower speed (typically around 100-700 rpm), so the particulates CONTINUED ON PAGE 40

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PUMPS & WATER MANAGEMENT ees at risk. Pumps with slower operating speeds can be operated with smaller motors. Centrifugal setups often require a booster pump and a second pump to achieve some flow conditions such as a suction lift or when both a high flow and high pressure are required. In comparison, this can be accomplished using just one progressive cavity pump to pull a suction lift and generate the required pressure or flow all in one pump. This allows mining companies to cut down on power consumption and the associated cost. Durable and reliable joints and parts combined with the correct materials and construction get the best lifespan out of the pump and its various components.

Matching the appropriate seals to these more efficient pumps completes the package and ensures the safety of everyone involved. Netzsch pumps can accommodate any type of seal arrangement from a basic level of packing gland to single and double mechanical seals, including seal

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This prevents any dangerous and contaminating leaks and/or loss of product. Extra accessories can further ensure safety, such as protection to prevent pump damage due to running dry and pressure switches or release valves in the piping to prevent dangerously high pressures from building up.

In the end, quality equals safety and efficiency. Compromising with a slightly slower flow rate will increase the overall lifetime of mining equipment and save money on operating costs and replacements. A bit of attention to the appropriate seals and accessories will ensure the safety of the crew and the environment, and prevent damage. Instead of running systems full throttle and then dealing with the consequences as they come, most operators will choose efficiency and quality over speed and risk.

CMJ The author is project manager with Netzsch Pumps North America.

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Copyright © Weir Minerals Netherlands b.v. All rights reserved. WEIR and WEIR (logo) are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Weir Engineering Services Ltd. GEHO is a trademark and/or registered trademark of Weir Minerals Netherlands b.v.

in the fluid don’t hit or grind against the inside of the pump with as much force as they flow through. The rotors of their pumps turn in a soft elastomer stator. This creates a sort of pocket cavity for the fluid to pass through, keeping most of the solids in suspension instead of wearing the pump. When solids do come between the rotor and stator of the pump, the soft elastomer allows the metal rotor to compress the solid particles into the elastomer instead of grinding into them. Then as the rotor turns, the solids are released, re-enter suspension, and flow through the pump.

In addition, Netzsch pumps have low pulsation, low vibration, and a set volume in their cavities for high performance in metering and dosing.

Installing pumps such as these greatly increases efficiency and safety. Pumps that incur less wear last longer and require less frequent replacement. This reliability also reduces the chances of catastrophic mechanical failure that can put employ-

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PUMPS & WATER MANAGEMENT

Mine tailings pond. CREDIT: CUHRIG, ISTOCK

Back to the Bench WATER TREATMENT OPTIMIZATION THROUGH INNOVATION

By Chris Biederman

W

ater is an integral part of mining. Without ready access to water, ore processing and mineral production becomes prohibitively expensive, or is altogether not possible. Even when water is readily available, stakeholders expect that water will be used efficiently and sustainably by miners in order to be

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granted, and to maintain, a social license to operate.

Ore processing is water intensive and results in the production of tailings. Tailings are a mixture of gangue material, trace metals (or other minerals), residual processing aids, and water. For most mine tailings, the water readily separates from the solid fraction once the tailings are

deposited in a tailings management facility (TMF). The recovery of water from tailings is essential to mining operations, especially in arid climates with scarce water sources.

In most modern mines, all of the available water in a TMF is recycled. Direct recycle of water from a TMF without treatment is preferred, given the large CONTINUED ON PAGE 42

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PUMPS & WATER MANAGEMENT

Hatch has developed high-throughout methods to test mining waters and tailings.

It can test for up to 48 treatment conditions using small volumes.

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volumes of water in circulation. If treatment is required, steps should be taken to decrease water usage as much as possible and to optimize water treatment systems to manage operating costs. Bench-scale testing is one tool available to achieve this objective. Smart application of benchscale testing is a cost-effective way to evaluate various technologies in support of new capital projects, or troubleshoot and optimize existing treatment systems.

Bench-scale investigations should not replace long-term pilot programs at scale; instead bench-scale tests should be viewed as complementary and used to inform the piloting phase.

TEST AT THE SOURCE. When dealing with complex mine waters, variations in water quality often occur. These variations may be seasonal – for example an increase in turbidity due to run-off – or can be process-related and result in significant changes to water quality over a short timeframe. Testing should be conducted in the field to get the most applicable results. By testing in the field, changes to water chemistry as a result of shipping samples offsite and sample storage conditions are eliminated. This is particularly important for waters that may be saturated in dissolved salts, where fluctuations in temperature can cause precipitation to occur prior to testing.

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the standard ‘jar test’ method is the go-to for coagulation and flocculation tests. Jar tests are best used to evaluate the perforWWW.CANADIANMININGJOURNAL.COM

2017-04-18 12:14 PM

Water analytics are benefiting from miniaturization as chip-based sensors are becoming smaller and thus more portable. Innovative solutions are also available for measuring very low concentrations of select contaminants using biological-based sensors. mance of a small number of chemicals when precedent exists for treating a particular water stream. Each individual jar test requires one litre of sample, so there are practical limitations to the number of tests that can be performed in a reasonable amount of time for a given water sample.

The volume of raw sample required to run numerous jar tests also limits the number of tests that can be reasonably performed.

At Hatch, we have successfully developed and applied high-throughput methods to test mining waters and tailings.

The methodology involves simultaneous testing of up to 48 treatment conditions using small sample volumes (15 mL or 50 mL). The result is a very efficient method to screen multiple chemicals, oxidants, or pH conditions all while minimizing the amount of raw water sample required and maximizing the number of tests and data collected. This method has proven to be very effective when testing mine waters having complex water chemistry.

Portable batteryoperated instruments for water testing allow for in-field measurements and timely feedback to guide bench-scale tests. Further, water analytics are benefiting from

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miniaturization as chip-based sensors are becoming smaller and thus more portable. Innovative solutions are also available for measuring very low concentrations of select contaminants using biological-based sensors. All of this supports the ability to quickly mobilize water testing equipment and analytical instruments for site-based testing globally.

A case study in reclaim water treatment optimization Hatch recently completed a high-through-

put testing study to evaluate and compare several coagulants and flocculants, and combinations thereof, against the chemical recipe used at an existing tailings reclaim water treatment plant in Ontario.

The testing program was developed to screen the performance of a wide-range of chemicals at various dosages due to the limited data that was available for treating this particular reclaim water. Using a high-throughput testing method, 425 distinct tests using various chemicals at different dosages were conducted in three days. The results of this study were used to guide larger volume tests conducted at the mine site and to evaluate treated water toxicity. The testing demonstrated that more conventional chemicals could be used at reasonable doses, and that switching to the new recipe would result in significant annual operating cost savings.

While not guaranteed to have the same results at other sites, this high-throughput bench-testing method could be used at existing plants to quickly confirm whether dosing levels are optimal, as well as potentially lower costs. CMJ The author is senior water process engineer and technology development lead at Hatch.

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UNEARTHING TRENDS

A digital route towards the future of mining

By Theophile Yameogo

D

espite recent improvements in cost reduction and labour productivity in the mining sector, productivity is still lagging. In order to reduce variability, enable flexibility, improve throughput and optimize cost, companies need to embed sustainable loss elimination practices and an integrated end-to-end approach. That is the pivotal role digital mining will play in the coming years, according to EY’s recent report: How do you prepare for tomorrow’s mine today?

In fact, despite the booms and busts in the industry, the nature of mining has stayed virtually the same for decades. Making real gains in productivity demands rethinking how the sector works.

Rather than just adopting new technologies to improve processes, mining companies should be preparing for the future now by looking to digital mining as a major enabler of productivity and effective loss elimination. Aligning digital investments to productivity outcomes will also improve decision-making and allow variability in the sector to be better managed.

Warming up to technology Until recently, miners have been skeptical of digitization, struggling to connect it meaningfully to their industry’s unique challenges and circumstances. Fortunately, that’s changing. More and more mining leaders are starting to recognize that digital mining can provide opportunities for meaningful data collection, agile analysis to enhance asset management, improve reliability, drive consistency and introduce better predictive capabilities.

From life of mine planning to daily execution of an operator’s tasks, digitization will provide relevant and on-time information to the appropriate decision-maker. Just as digitization has transformed our daily lives, it will trigger metamorphosis in the mining industry when done right: advanced exploration techniques, improved capital project design and execution, real-time mine execution, cost tracking, health and safety monitoring, remote operations, automation and autonomous assets, trading, etc.

Going forward, successful mining companies will be those using digital mining to enhance operation strategies and take advantage of data as quickly as possible. After all, mines are variable but the operating strategies used throughout them often stay consistent. While there is no silver bullet to remove variability entirely, digitization can reduce it to a more manageable level, so companies can truly understand the optimal rate in operating any part of the mining value chain and support processes. It will also equip the companies with flexible and scalable levers to adjust operations in challenging or opportunistic environments such as commodity price uptrend or downtrend.

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Learning from others in asset management Digital mining can substantially improve the way we perform asset management. For example, most mining companies pull trucks off the road periodically for maintenance; in the control environment of the digital future, technologies will provide the data needed to implement predictive strategies that would pre-empt vehicle breakdowns. Not only will this extend the maintenance window for trucks, it will also allow miners to increase throughput while taking less risk around the performance of their fleets.

One potential answer could be to follow the lead of manufacturers who are recognized as leaders in asset productivity. By focusing on the elimination of loss, manufacturing has enhanced output and created value. In a similar way, by moving along a path towards “digital mining,” the mining sector can focus technology on productivity while addressing variability.

Technology is already making it easier to access and analyze reliable data critical to business decision-making. It also has the potential to unlock novel ways of managing variability to boost productivity. For the mining sector, digitization can combine such technology along with capable human resources and an end-to-end process model to disrupt the old ways. By leveraging digital tools and capabilities now, and by prioritizing a digital strategy, mining companies can turn industry challenges into business opportunities.

Watch for EY’s forthcoming report on the potential benefits of digital transformation in the mining sector.

CMJ The author is Mining & Metals Advisory Leader, EY. WWW.CANADIANMININGJOURNAL.COM

2017-04-18 12:17 PM

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CSR & MINING

Dealing with CSR-focused shareholder proposals

By Michael Torrance

P

ublic Canadian companies are increasingly being faced with shareholder proposals focused on corporate social responsibility (CSR) or human rights issues. This is due in part to rising interest in these issues by ethical focused shareholders, proxy voting advisory companies and institutional investors like pension funds. In the minds of many investors, companies that lack robust CSR or human rights programs face reputational and financial risk that can be addressed through better governance.

Many investors (including pension funds and banks) actually report on how they manage their own risk exposure on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in their portfolios. As such, these investors are more likely to care about CSR-related proposals that may affect their own perceived risk profile. This means that management of CSR and human rights risks can affect access to capital and even perceived shareholder value.

Early engagement is beneficial Many companies faced with shareholder proposals of this nature will already have engagement strategies with investors and stakeholders on CSR and human rights topics. This early engagement can allow companies to spot issues before they manifest into a shareholder proposal. It can also allow companies to exchange thinking with interested stakeholders on CSR and human rights topics, explaining the work they are doing and their approach to dealing with future challenges. Open lines of communications (while protecting confidentiality and privilege) can be a good way to head off inflammatory issues early. But where a shareholder proposal is made, the company must be able to transition from a purely engagement mindset. This may necessitate the addition of new players beyond the core CSR team, such as senior executives or legal, as the focus turns to development of an effective response strategy that preserves the company’s CSR goals, reputation, stakeholder relationships and strategic business interest, while minimizing legal risk.

Strategy development is crucial When faced with a CSR or human rights focused shareholder proposal, companies must consider the proposal itself, the stakeholder and public relations context, reputation risks and legal risks to determine the best response strategy. The response can range from direct engagement and negotiation of a withdrawal to a litigation approach. In this regard, there will be an initial question about whether the proposal is legally valid and whether it needs to be included in the management circular to shareholders. A number of legal approaches can be taken to challenge a

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proposal, including resisting inclusion of the proposal in materials sent to other shareholders. The best approach will depend on the context and the legal options on the table.

Ongoing negotiation and engagement In conjunction with development of the legal strategy, ongoing engagement with the shareholder group advancing the proposal will be necessary and useful. Early dialogue can help define the issues, expectations and possible areas of compromise. A variety of approaches can be taken in such negotiations, from a firm strategy to an accommodative approach seeking voluntary withdrawal of the proposal. If an agreement can be reached on the withdrawal of a proposal, the company will need to consider drafting an agreement with the shareholder group. This could include commitments by the company responding to the issues at hand and commitments from the shareholders about how they will communicate publicly on the issues raised and whether they will bring similar proposals again in the future.

Planning public communications In the event that a controversial proposal proceeds, a communications strategy will need to be implemented. This would involve preparation of the company’s written response to the proposal that will be sent in the management circular. There may also be additional targeted communications or engagement with key shareholder groups. The company may seek to persuade other shareholders to vote against the proposal. If the proposal goes to a vote, the company will need to anticipate the questions or other vocal activism that may take place at the annual meeting. Senior executives will need to be briefed on how best to respond to pointed questions relating to the proposal. Demonstrating a knowledgeable understanding of the issues in these exchanges will be important to reassure other stakeholders that the company is on top of these issues.

Implementing human rights governance strategies Whether a proposal is withdrawn, defeated, or never even made, companies should consider how their approach to CSR and human rights governance is responsive to shareholder expectations and as part of the overall business strategy. This can also lead to opportunities for community and stakeholder engagement that can help companies meet their long-term stakeholder CMJ relations goals.

MICHAEL TORRANCE is a lawyer with Norton Rose Fulbright, Toronto.

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