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feature
52 Quebec’s golden pockets Exploration is stagnant around most of the world, but Quebec’s gold camps in the Abitibi and James Bay regions offer a ray of light in an otherwise dark tunnel By Virginia Heffernan
58 A brilliant start
63 Precision and power
Gahcho Kué, the Northwest Territories’ newest diamond mine, promises sparkling returns for De Beers Canada
The latest technology outfitted on electric-drive haul trucks offers more precise controls and greater efficiency in a very sturdy package
By Kelsey Rolfe
By Eavan Moore
December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 5
CIM MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2016/JANUARY 2017 | DÉCEMBRE 2016/JANVIER 2017
8 10 12
16
Editor’s letter President’s notes Chatter tools of the trade 14 The best in new technology Compiled by Cecilia Keating developments 16 Market watchers and policy advocates mull over what levers a new, coal-friendly president can pull By Cecilia Keating 18 Briefs 24 Renewable energy generates heat at the Energy and Mines World Congress By Kelsey Rolfe 30 An update on mining law changes around the world By Eavan Moore
columns 34 The power of HR data for diversity and inclusion By Mafalda Arias 38 Deploying drones underground By Ryan Preston and Darren Kennard
new frontiers 40 Atlas Copco feels its way into autonomous loading for LHDs
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By Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco
MIT professor develops liquid metal battery for grid-level energy storage By Ian Ewing 46 Goldcorp and Sandvik partner to deliver all-electric mine at Borden Lake By Christopher Pollon 48 UBC engineering professor has a plan to help miners stop burning money By Cecilia Keating obituaries 67 We remember those who have passed Compiled by Tom DiNardo and Cecilia Keating
40 contenu francophone
technical abstracts 85 CIM Journal 86 Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly mining lore 90 Harry Houdini thought his stunt of surviving being locked in an airtight coffin may have implications for an unlikely group: underground miners By Kate Sheridan
70 71 72 75
Table des matières Lettre de l’éditeur | Mot du président Le point sur les modifications aux lois minières dans le monde entier Par Eavan Moore La Cour supérieure du Québec statue sur les revendications territoriales des Innus Par Joel Barde
article de fond
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Le Québec et ses trésors inexplorés Aux quatre coins du monde, l'exploration est stagnante, mais les campements des mines d'or du Québec dans les régions de l'Abitibi et de la baie James offrent une lueur d'espoir au bout d'un tunnel autrement bien sombre Par Virginia Heffernan Un démarrage brillant Gahcho Kué, la mine de diamants la plus récente des Territoires du Nord-Ouest, promet à De Beers Canada un avenir étincelant Par Kelsey Rolfe
La version française intégrale du CIM Magazine est disponible en ligne : magazine.CIM.org/fr-CA
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ISSN 1718-4177. Publications Mail No. 09786. Postage paid at CPA Saint-Laurent, QC. Dépôt légal: Bibliothèque nationale du Québec. 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.
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8 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Be st
This issue’s cover Illustration by Kelly Hume
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held out until just after midnight on election night before finally turning off the TV and the befuddled commentators who were struggling to articulate the how and why of what was unfolding in the United States as swing states broke Donald Trump’s way. While nothing in life is certain, the next few years seem especially fraught as we wait and watch to learn which of this protest-candidate-now-president’s bold declarations find expression in actual policy and what effects they may have. That a political candidate will not follow through on much of what he promises should calm certain concerns. The recklessness of some of his statements, now harnessed to the power of the American presidency, however, has a lot people holding their breath. His promise, for example, to revive the U.S. coal industry translated into a bump for coal company share prices following his election, but as Cecilia Keating reports in her post-election story, “Campaign promises and economic pressures” (pg.16), market watchers are skeptical Trump’s presidential heft can change the direction of the domestic coal industry. The appointment of Scott Pruitt to head the country’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does, however, make it clear that coal miners now have someone well aligned with their stated interests. The National Mining Association argues that EPA rules have done far more damage to the fortunes of the coal industry than has cheap natural gas. Pruitt, as Oklahoma’s attorney general, has been a relentless antagonist of the EPA with a lawsuit against the federal government for regulatory overreach in the courts right now. What will the consequences be if the world’s second largest emitter of carbon dioxide opts out of the coordinated global effort to reduce emissions? Like the election night pundits, I am at a bit of a loss, but, since it is the eve of the new year, I will risk this prediction: If such international agreements are put aside and those in charge of the EPA dedicate themselves to pulling it apart, the recent standoff over the Dakota Access Pipeline will be just the first in a litany of drawn out public confrontations over resource projects. Whose interests will that serve?
ia ed
Interesting times
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 Cecilia Keating Digitization technician Marie-Ève Lapierre, melapierre@cim.org Contributors Mafalda Arias, Joel Barde, Ian Ewing, Sahar Fatima, Virginia Heffernan, Darren Kennard, Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco, Eavan Moore, Christopher Pollon, Ryan Preston, Kate Sheridan, Kylie Williams, Don Worth Editorial advisory board Alicia Ferdinand, Garth Kirkham, Vic Pakalnis, Steve Rusk, Nathan Stubina Translations CNW, Karen Rolland
adian Busines sM Can in
editor’s letter
president’s notes
Destroying our cathedrals
The headframe at the Con mine was Yellowknife's most recognizable landmark before it was demolished this fall.
10 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Scott Lough/Flickr
Michael Winship CIM President @CIMPrez
In June 1985 I was part of the team at Con mine in Yellowknife, which bottomed out the Robertson shaft at a depth of 6,240 feet (1,840 m). Con mine started up in 1938 and the shaft deepening allowed mining to continue until 2003. Ultimately the mine produced over five million ounces of gold and provided jobs over the course of four generations. The Robertson headframe, capped in orange steel, “We Canadians seem was the tallest structure in the Northwest to be intent on Territories at 76 metres, and an impordestroying our mining tant beacon for pilots and boaters around Great Slave Lake. On Oct. 31, 2016, the heritage by tearing headframe was blasted to the ground down our headframes.” despite efforts of many local Yellowknifers to preserve the landmark. From coast to coast, mining helped build Canada into the great nation we are today. Around the world, Canadians are reputed to be some of the best miners out there. Yet, while other countries preserve their history through the protection of their castles, cathedrals and pyramids, we Canadians seem to be intent on destroying our mining heritage by tearing down our headframes. What is the harm in leaving some of our mining cathedrals standing? Headframes lining the roads in Timmins? Golden Eagle in Red Lake? Thompson Lundmark in Yellowknife? When some of our great current mines like Creighton, Dome and Kidd finally end, after decades or even a century of contribution to Canadian society, will we have to rip down those mighty headframes too? Thanks to the efforts of CIM and historians such as Michael Barnes, Hans Brasch and D.F. Parrot, Canadians have access to written and photographic documentation of our mines. These, however, cannot replace the power of actually seeing the unique architectural marvels of a headframe. I challenge our mining companies, stakeholders and government regulators to work together to find ways to protect our mining history captured in the headframes. Does it have to be more complicated than capping off the shafts and putting a sturdy fence around the headframe? My colleagues in Sudbury and other jurisdictions will remember my vision of “New headframes on the horizon,” a call to build new mines. Now please join me in my appeal: “Protect our headframes!”
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chatter
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RE: THE GENESIS OF A DISASTER (NOV ‘16)
The dearth of real-time monitoring once issues were noted years ago.....is unfortunate indeed.... – GEOTOOLS, @AppTechMon
RE: THE SOLUTION OF A SORT (NOV ‘16)
@Ryan_CIM_Mag #innovation in #mining doesn't have to be groundbreaking to make an improvement – Ros Lund, @RosLund1
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Interesting #mining read. Makes me wonder too, if planned heat exchange will be a big #innovation soon in deeper underground mines. – Jim Holt, @DeltaWatershed
RYAN BERGEN @Ryan_CIM_Mag
RE: HOPE FOR THE FUTURE (NOV ‘16)
ANGELA HAMLYN @AngelaH_CIM
It is disappointing that CIM Magazine continues to quote reserves and resources in terms of ounces at a grade; for example “3.5 million ounces grading 7.7 g/t.” Ounces are not reserves or resources. They have no grade that is relevant in this context. Quoting ounces at a grade is in direct conflict with the CIM guidelines and best practice on mineral reserves and resources. The same can be said of “contained ounces.” CIM Magazine should be showing leadership in this area. – Brian Buss, Sudbury, Ontario
ANDREA NICHIPORUK @Andrea_CIM_Mag
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER ANNOUNCED
TOM DiNARDO @Tom_CIM_Mag
After a difficult selection process, CIM Magazine editors have selected Angela Olaguera’s photo of the Falun Mine as our photo contest winner. Also referred to as the “Treasure Chest of Sweden,” the Falun Mine, which operated for a millennium, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001. A sampling of the top entries can be found on our Instagram page. Thanks to everyone who participated; we look forward to seeing more of your mining photos in 2017!
SHOW US YOUR HEADFRAMES In CIM President Michael Winship’s notes this issue, he laments the levelling of the iconic Robertson headframe in the Northwest Territories, calling it a destruction of mining history. Do you have a photo of one of mining’s “cathedrals”? Send it to editor@cim.org and you could be featured in the magazine and on our Instagram. 12 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
KELSEY ROLFE @kelseyarolfe
MARIA OLAGUERA @Maria_CIM_Mag
LET’S TALK 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.
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Smarter loading
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Courtesy of Hexagon Mining
Poorly loaded trucks can have a serious impact on a mining operation. Overloading can accelerate wear and tear on the shovel and truck, and underloading cuts into production. BMT WBM’s new Pulse TerraMatrix shovel monitoring system will have a “tremendous impact on the productivity of a mine and on maintenance costs,” according to Charles Constancon, director of BMT WBM Canada. The system provides real-time, accurate payload data to the machine operator when a load is still in the shovel so it can be immediately adjusted before it is dumped in the truck. It is calculated by a load cell installed on the bucket, together with a sophisticated measurement of the inertial movement of the dipper, which allows the system to provide accurate payload measurement even in the most dynamic loading conditions. A touch screen display conveys the information to the shovel’s operator. The system also takes into account any sticky material or “carry back” left on the shovel. An advanced data analytics package compares data on an operator-by-operator, shift or machine basis, allowing the mine to identify areas where productivity can be improved. Finally, the system also calculates a material’s “diggability,” how well-blasted the rock is and how easy it is to dig. This allows the mine to ensure the material is well fragmented and optimize future blasting.
Lasting layers Extreme heat, abrasive minerals and repetitive high-impact work can exhaust and ultimately destroy mining equipment in surface and underground environments. Steel manufacturer SSAB believes its new Duroxite overlay will reduce downtime on a mine and radically extend the lifespan of the equipment it protects. The chromium carbide overlay is welded on top of a piece of equipment’s metal casing, creating an extremely hard and wear-resistant material. The overlay can be applied to a wide range of mining products, including coal discharge chutes, fan blades, backhoe buckets and electric shovel steel plates. According to Ross Wylie, head of wear services for North America, the product will allow mines to “be more productive and make more money, with less shutdowns and breakdowns.” SSAB launched four types of Duroxite overlay in September at Minexpo to target different types of wear, including abrasion, impact, heat, metalto-metal and erosion. Duroxite 101 and 211 must be paired with SSAB’s Hardox base plate, while Duroxite 100 and 210 can be layered on any mild steel plate. SSAB provides a personalized service to mines, where specialists complete an on-site “wear audit,” evaluating the wear issues a mine is experiencing and taking exact measurements of the equipment that is suffering, before parts are cut and delivered ready for installation. “We understand that not one steel fits all,” said Wylie. He estimated that the overlay will provide equipment with a service life of up to five times longer than standard abrasion-resistant steel. 14 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Safety assist Large equipment, operator fatigue, poor visibility and gaping blind spots all contribute to vehicle collisions and potentially-fatal accidents on mine sites. Hexagon Mining’s new Vehicle Intervention System (VIS) adds an extra layer of protection to its advanced collision avoidance technology, which dates back to 2008. The new system provides an alert to the operator about a potential collision and takes corrective action on the truck if the operator does not react, slowing down the vehicle or bringing it to a halt. VIS product manager Fabien Kritter said the cost of the system “pays off really rapidly. It can pay off in one single incident.” Mines will have less down-time due to damaged or destroyed equipment, and most importantly the system will prevent injury and loss of life. Each vehicle on the site, whether a light vehicle, loader or shovel, is equipped with a combined global navigation satellite system (GNSS), radio frequency, and WiFi antenna and the threat of collision is communicated to the operator on a small screen mounted in his or her field of vision. The system is also equipped with radar, which picks up on people and infrastructure. Crucially, the operator is able to override the system and take control of the vehicle. Compiled by Cecilia Keating
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Federal government announces plan to phase out traditional coal power by 2030
Mining wastewater research project among Genome Canada funding winners
Renewable energy generates heat at the Energy and Mines World Congress
An update on mining law changes around the world
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Developments Campaign promises and economic pressures Market watchers and policy advocates mull over what levers a new, coal-friendly president can pull
“You are going to be proud again to be miners,” said U.S. president-elect Donald Trump in his victory speech at the Indiana primary in May, discussing his next campaign pit-stop in West Virginia coal country and echoing a campaign-long commitment to end President Barack Obama’s “war on coal.” His campaign posters read “Trump digs coal” and coal boosters dug him right back: the top four coal-producing states – Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, and typically-Democratic leaning Pennsylvania – went Republican during the United States presidential election on Nov. 8. The overall sentiment in the industry, according to Liam Fitzgerald, national mining leader for PwC Canada, is “positive.” In the short term, leading U.S. coal miner Peabody Energy saw its stock soar by 49 per cent after Trump was named president-elect, despite filing for bankruptcy in April. “The question will be, how far will he go with his deregulation mandate? There’s still a lot of wait-and-see,” Fitzgerald said. According to Stephen Schork, editor of The Schork Report, which provides analysis of the energy markets, Trump’s commitment to spend US$1 trillion on infrastructure upgrades will specifically benefit the metallurgical coal industry. “We are talking about major infrastruc16 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Courtesy of Gage Skidmore
By Cecilia Keating
Many economists believe Trump will be unable to revive the coal industry, which has been in decline for decades.
ture projects,” Schork said. “We are talking about manufacturing a lot of concrete and steel to go into these projects.” Many economists believe Trump will be unable to revive the beleaguered coal industry, which has been in decline for decades on account of environmental concerns, cheaper natural gas, and automation in mining. U.S. coal exports fell 24 per cent overall in 2015 and fell another 32 per cent in the first half of 2016. Canada is traditionally the fifth largest importer of U.S. coal, and
the government’s recent decision to phase out coal by 2030 (see story pg. 18) will contribute to the industry’s downturn. Fitzgerald said that while Trump’s mandate of deregulation and commitment to infrastructure may reinvigorate the coal industry, he acknowledges that “[Trump] can only deregulate, he can’t create demand.” Moreover, Trump’s commitment to coal has puzzled analysts given that it is at odds with his pledge to allow the
developments “market to decide” which energy succeeds, and his simultaneous support of other fossil fuels, like natural gas, that are directly responsible for coal’s demise. John Coequyt, director of federal and international climate campaigns at the Sierra Club was quoted in an S&P Platt pre-election energy report saying “the biggest lie in [Trump’s] talking points is this notion that he’s going to bring back the coal industry while he simultaneously promotes natural gas, renewable energy and nuclear.” Fitzgerald called Trump’s promise to let the market decide “confusing,” asking, “given that [the U.S.] has so much natural gas, is there really any need to go back to thermal coal, apart from reinvigorating an industry that is suffering?” As well, state policies play a large role in such decisions. “He doesn’t have all the power to choose one source of energy over another.” Nevertheless, Schork is “cautiously optimistic” about the future of energy
markets. He said he thinks allowing the market to choose will encourage innovation and “the potential for other technologies,” in particular carbon capture and storage. The president-elect has historically supported the oil and gas sector, albeit less vociferously on the campaign trail. His official website states that “rather than continuing the current path to undermine and block America’s fossil fuel producers, the Trump administration will encourage the production of these resources by opening onshore and offshore leasing on federal lands and waters.” According to Schork, Trump’s promises for infrastructure will inevitably result in “increased potential demand for natural gas, for diesel fuel for heavy industry, and also for asphalt,” on top of coal. Trump’s affiliation with pipeline projects is another positive sign for oil and gas industry. His federal disclo-
sure forms, published in May, revealed that he held stock in the Dakota Access Pipeline’s parent company, Energy Transfer Partners, a potential conflict of interest as the pipeline has been the focus of much protest at the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota. Trump’s spokeperson Hope Hicks has told media outlets that the shares were sold in mid-2016 but did not clarify whether he still holds shares in Phillips 66, a company affiliated with the controversial pipeline project. The president-elect has also said he would approve the Keystone XL Pipeline, scrapped by President Barack Obama after mass environmental demonstrations in November 2015. Environmental regulations and renewable energy adoption are expected to be set back significantly during Trump’s time in office, as he has promised to end incentives for alternative energy development and wants to
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December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 17
dismantle a number of environmental protections currently in place. He has suggested that he will abolish the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); perhaps unsurprising given he tweeted that global warming was a “Chinese hoax,” and has since appointed climate change denier Myron Ebell to head the agency’s transition team. Although Schork does not believe abolishing the EPA is possible, he is hopeful for the relaxation of government regulations on the oil and gas and coal sectors.
Regardless of whether or not Trump follows through with his other environmental promises, which include killing Obama’s Clean Power Plan alongside the EPA, and backing out of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, which included greenhouse gas reduction targets, Fitzgerald does not believe it will affect operations for the majority of global miners. “Whether he changes U.S. policy or not, it won’t change the policies [of global miners] who have to operate in multiple jurisdictions.” Global companies are liable to other
countries’ laws and existing CSR agreements. Only the handful of U.S. domestic miners will be influenced by any form of environmental policy change. Fitzgerald said he believes the price of the U.S. dollar, commodities and foreign exchange will all be unpredictable in a Trump presidency. Miners operating in multiple jurisdictions are exposed to all three. “Volatility is going to be the new normal,” he said, adding that miners should be wary “because [volatility] is just as hard to deal with as a slump in prices.” CIM
Canada will accelerate its transition from traditional coal power to clean energy by 2030, joining nearly 200 countries setting national targets to cut carbon emissions by that year or sooner under the Paris Agreement. Environment Minister Catherine McKenna announced regulatory actions to speed up the changeover in late November. “Taking traditional coal power out of our energy mix and replacing it with cleaner technologies will significantly reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, improve the health of Canadians, and benefit generations for years to come,” McKenna said in a news release on Nov. 21. Saskatchewan, Alberta, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia use coal for power-generation and will be most affected by the changes. Their collective coal power use makes up 10 per cent of Canada’s GHG emissions. Closing the traditional coal plants in these provinces will prevent five megatonnes in GHG emissions in 2030, but, according to the Coal Association of Canada (CAC), it will also result in job losses and increased electricity costs for Canadians. “We feel that investment in the coal industry will do much more to reduce global emissions than to turn our 18 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Courtesy of Walter Energy Canada via the Coal Association of Canada
Federal government announces plan to phase out traditional coal power by 2030
Collectively coal power use from Saskatchewan, Alberta, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia makes up 10 per cent of Canada’s GHG emissions.
backs on a form of power generation that supplies 40 per cent of the world’s electricity,” said CAC president Robin Campbell in a statement expressing disappointment at the decision. By 2030, non-emitting sources, such as hydro, wind and solar, will generate 90 per cent of Canada’s power, up from 80 per cent currently. CAC supports reduced emissions and increased efficiency in the sector but would prefer to see investment in cleaner coal technologies rather than an accelerated phase-out. However, CAC does support the federal government’s decision to not include units that are employing carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the phase-out, citing
Saskatchewan’s Boundary Dam project as a great example of how far CCS technology has come and the potential to utilize it around the world. In the days after the announcement, both Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan negotiated agreements with the federal government to continue using coalfired power plants after 2030. Nova Scotia, in turn, must cut 4.5 megatonnes of CO2 emissions after 2030. Saskatchewan’s in-principle equivalency agreement allows the province to meet federal emission requirements through CCS and other renewable electricity and lower-emissions electricity sources, rather than the regulation of every coal-fired plant.
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Courtesy of Rio Tinto
“Saskatchewan can also continue to use coal in a responsible manner beyond 2030 as long as equivalent emissionreduction outcomes are achieved,” said Scott Moe, Saskatchewan’s environment minister in a statement on Nov. 28. – Kylie Williams
Rio Tinto executive fired in wake of Simandou bribery allegations Rio Tinto fired a top executive over a questionable multimillion-dollar payment made to a consultant in connection with the company’s stake in the Simandou iron ore project in Guinea. The U.K.-based mining giant terminated the contract of energy and minerals chief executive Alan Davies in November after conducting an internal investigation into US$10.5 million paid to François de Combret in 2011 for his “advisory services” on
20 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Rio Tinto sold its 46.6 per cent stake in Simandou in October 2016 to Chinese company Chinalco for up to US$1.3 billion.
what is considered one of the largest undeveloped high-grade iron ore deposits in the world. That was the year Rio Tinto signed a major agree-
ment with the Guinean government securing its claim to the southern portion of Simandou, a project it has since abandoned.
developments Rio Tinto’s legal and regulatory affairs group executive Debra Valentine, who had planned to retire next May, also stepped down in connection with the scandal. The company stated in November it had handed the case over to authorities in the U.K., U.S., and Australia, after finding email evidence of the payment last August. “The board concluded that the executives failed to maintain the standards expected of them under our global code of conduct,” Rio Tinto said. Davies, who had accountability over the Simandou project in 2011, released his own statement vowing to take “the strongest possible legal action” and saying his dismissal was groundless. “Rio Tinto has made no effort to abide by due process or to respect my rights as an employee and it has given me no opportunity to answer any allegations,” he said, adding that he was not aware of Rio Tinto’s internal investigation report and had not been given evidence of why he was fired. The Financial Times reported that lawyers working for Rio Tinto found the emails more than a year ago, and that the correspondence involved Davies discussing the payment to De Combret with then-CEO Tom Albanese and Sam Walsh, then the head of the iron ore group, who succeeded Albanese as CEO in 2013. De Combret, a high-ranking French banker formerly with the asset management firm Lazard, was reportedly “close” with Guinean President Alpha Condé, according to the controversial emails seen by the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. Simandou’s contentious history goes back to 2008, when the Guinean government transferred rights of the northern portion of the project from Rio Tinto to BSG Resources (BSGR), a natural resources and power company based in Guernsey, Channel Islands. BSGR was subsequently stripped of those rights by a new government under Condé, who alleged they were obtained fraudulently. Rio Tinto then launched a racketeering lawsuit against
BSGR and its Simandou partner Vale in 2014, alleging the companies conspired to steal the resource from Rio Tinto. A judge threw out the case for passing the statute of limitations, and BSGR and Vale have always maintained their innocence. Rio Tinto sold its 46.6 per cent stake in Simandou in October 2016 to
Chinese company Chinalco for up to US$1.3 billion. After this latest controversy over Simandou, Bloomberg obtained an internal memo sent to company employees by CEO Jean-Sebastien Jacques. “Many people across Rio Tinto are still shell-shocked,” he wrote. “The day I was made aware of a potential
December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 21
Steelmaking coal price surge reinvigorates Canadian mines Metallurgical coal prices took a wild ride in 2016. Following the Chinese government’s decision to close coal mines and decrease domestic production at the beginning of the year, prices rocketed from US$84 per tonne in the spring to over US$200 per tonne by the fall. Coal has not approached such heights since a record-breaking US$330 per tonne in 2011. China subsequently reversed its decision and increased coal production again, but not before the price rally reinvigorated coal mines along the border between British Columbia and Alberta. Favourable economic conditions, and the right type of coal, inspired newcomer Conuma Coal Resources to buy the Brule, Wolverine and Willow Creek coal mines near Tumbler Ridge, B.C. from Walter Energy Canada on Sept. 9. Less than two weeks later, Conuma brought the Brule mine out of two and a half years of care and maintenance, hired 170 local workers and loaded its first shipment of coal. “After the first two months of production, we’ve already mined over 160,000 tonnes of coal,” said Conuma president Mark Bartkoski. “We’ve sent four trains to the port, 22 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Courtesy of Walter Energy Canada via the Coal Association of Canada
issue we launched an investigation. It wasn’t a decision we took lightly. We will fully cooperate with the authorities. Their investigations may take several years.” Davies has been replaced by Bold Bataar, who has held senior roles after joining Rio Tinto in 2013. CFO Chris Lynch is taking over Valentine’s job temporarily and Rio Tinto has started recruiting for her replacement. Meanwhile, L.A.-based Goldberg Law PC, which specializes in shareholder rights and class actions, announced it is investigating Rio Tinto for “possible violations of federal securities laws” after its shares fell following news of the scandal. – Sahar Fatima
Conuma brought the Brule mine (pictured) out of two and a half years of care and maintenance less than two weeks after purchasing it and two other coal mines from Walter Energy Canada.
and one partial vessel is on its way to a Japanese steel mill.” Market conditions are so attractive that Conuma, a stand-alone Canadian company created by U.S.-based ERP Compliant Fuels, also plans to accelerate re-opening the Wolverine coal mine by six months. Originally the company was aiming for mid2017 but plans to start mining in January if rail and other infrastructure are ready. Bartkoski said the company will hire 100 people before the end of 2016 and by the end of March 2017 Conuma plans to have around 450 locals back to work at Brule and Wolverine. “We feel like the market’s got a little bit more legs than what was originally estimated,” said Bartkoski. Meanwhile, Teck Resources set alltime quarterly and year-to-date production records at both the Elkview and Line Creek Operations in B.C. between July and September 2016, and produced seven million tonnes of steelmaking coal across all six of its coal mines, also a quarterly record for the business unit. “As a result of record third quarter and year-to-date production performance, we now expect our steelmaking coal production for the year to be
between 27 and 27.5 million tonnes,” said Teck spokesman Chris Stannell. In its 2015 year-end report, Teck estimated that steelmaking coal output would be between 25 and 26 million tonnes for the year. Analysts expect prices to level out around US$100 per tonne as China loosens restrictions and ramps-up production over the winter. “While the price rally provides long-awaited relief to the metallurgical coal producers, which have endured rock-bottom prices for over 18 months, we believe that the market will normalise in the first half of 2017, bringing price levels in the range of $90 per tonne to $120 per tonne, based on our understanding of global cost structures and supply/demand fundamentals,” stated Moody’s vicepresident and senior analyst Anna Zubets-Anderson in mid-November. – K. Williams
Mining wastewater research project among Genome Canada funding winners An international team of researchers from Ontario, Quebec, the United
developments States, and Australia will receive $3.7 million over four years to characterize bacteria in mining wastewaters as part of a Genome Canada funding competition. The results of the competition, which officially began in 2015, were announced on Dec. 8. The project, spearheaded by University of Toronto researcher Lesley Warren, was one of four miningrelated finalists. Genome Canada awarded a total of $110 million to 13 projects across the country, all related to natural resources and the environment, through the competition. The team’s study of the combined microbial and geochemical characteristics of wastewater at multiple mines has never been done before, Warren said. Not only will they try to determine what bacteria may be capable of doing by studying their genetic makeup, but the team will also evaluate how a wastewater’s population of bacteria
changes throughout the year and how it differs from wastewater in other climates. Warren said mine operators could potentially request a profile of their own site’s wastewater from a lab, based on the team’s work, in five years. Warren said she hopes the work will help miners anticipate bacteriallydriven wastewater management problems before they arise. About 70 per cent of all operating mines may be at risk of acid mine drainage, she said. “Right now, the industry knows that issues that start to arise [with wastewaters] are often bacterially linked” and are especially linked to bacteria that feed on sulfur, she said. “The current problem is that if there is a microbial problem, it is a black-box issue. There really is a big question mark as to why it happens.” The researchers must periodically update a Genome Canada oversight panel on their progress over the next
four years to receive additional installments of their funding. In addition to funding from the federal and Ontario governments, Glencore, Hudbay and Rambler Metals and Mining are contributing support to Warren’s project. (All three companies comply with existing wastewater regulations, Warren said.) “For this project to do so well and to be funded – really, it’s a sign that the industry is interested in the technology and can see the value,” said Karen Dewar, the director of genomics programs at Genome Canada. A team of assessors reviewed proposals submitted to Genome Canada based on the quality of the research question, the potential social and economic benefits and the financing and management structure. Warren’s proposal scored well in all areas, Dewar said. “The science was absolutely thought to be internationally competitive.” – Kate Sheridan
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An alternative atmosphere Renewable energy generates heat at the Energy and Mines World Congress
Mining companies are increasingly turning to alternative energy methods to keep fuel costs and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions down at their sites and gain social licence, coinciding with a record year for renewable energy adoption and an increase in political will to fight climate change, delegates at the Energy and Mines World Congress heard in late November. “What a great time for renewables for mines,” said Energy and Mines director Adrienne Baker in her opening address. “With 943 megawatts of wind and solar in terms of installed capacity now powering mines all over the world, we are getting closer to sustainable, low carbon energy for mines.” The conference, held Nov. 21-22 in Toronto, highlighted successful renewable projects at mine sites and ones on their way to being built, took a look at the state of renewable energy adoption worldwide and focused on the key challenges to wide-scale application in the mining sector. Renewables had a “record year” in 2015, said Heymi Bahar, renewable energy markets analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA) in his presentation on global energy trends. Renewable energy capacities installed in 2015 surpassed installed fossil fuel capacity for the first time ever. “In the future [renewables] may surpass [coal in] generation as well,” Bahar said. The IEA also updated its forecasts on investments in renewable energy by country, predicting that between 2015 and 2021, United States investments would surpass investments made by the European Union, which would be another first-ever, though Bahar conceded a coal-friendly Trump administration was not factored into the agency’s forecasts. Trump was on the minds of presenters and delegates at the congress, held just two weeks after the U.S. election, with many wondering how his energy policies will affect renewable energy 24 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
David Irvine, Energy and Mines
By Kelsey Rolfe
Heymi Bahar, renewable energy markets analyst at the International Energy Agency, said there is “incredible momentum” for renewables.
adoption and climate change mitigation initiatives like carbon pricing. The energy projects highlighted during the conference indicated just how drastically attitudes have changed since the first Energy and Mines in 2013. While at that time there was skepticism expressed about whether solar and wind could be successfully applied at mine sites, this year presenters had far more ambitious goals. Goldcorp’s Musselwhite mine in northern Ontario has eliminated the need for supplementary diesel generation over two years and reduced its grid usage, cutting GHG emissions by 20,000 tonnes of CO2 per year and making the mine more energy-efficient. According to Howard Boland, Musselwhite’s electrical coordinator, the site is now working toward electrifying its fleet to eliminate diesel use completely. At Avalon Advanced Materials’ Nechalacho rare earths project in the Northwest Territories, CEO Donald Bubar said the company has installed two 170-watt (W) solar modules that
make up 20 per cent of the camp’s energy mix, making it likely the first exploration-stage miner to do so. Iamgold CEO Stephen Letwin discussed the company’s plans for a 15megawatt (MW) solar plant at its Essakane mine in Burkina Faso, to power the mine in conjunction with its 57-MW thermal plant. The site’s power needs have increased over the past four years as the majority of the soft rock has been mined and the proportion of hard rock is approaching 100 per cent. The solar plant would account for between eight and nine per cent of the site’s total generated power, and save six million litres of fuel a year. While Iamgold constructed the 5MW solar plant at its Rosebel mine in Suriname internally, taking on something three times that size has required working with a partner, who will build, own, operate and finance the project. Iamgold will buy the power from the plant for 15 years, with an opportunity to terminate the power purchase agreement (PPA) in nine.
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The plant will have an automated energy management system that will help maximize the solar usage, and the company is looking at batteries for energy storage. “The ability to store solar power will be a game changer,” Letwin said. Storage technology was mentioned as a persistent challenge to wide-scale application of renewable energy at mine sites, with presenters noting it is still relatively new and in most cases prohibitively expensive. “There are ongoing concerns about how real the ‘falling costs’ are and when those will come,” said Cosmin Laslau, an analyst with Lux Research covering energy storage, distributed generation and solar. “It’s easy to still pay $1,000 or more per kilowatt hour (kWh) for storage.” Laslau said he expects battery projects to start making economic
FROM THE WIRE
FLSmidth picked up a Top 100 R&D award from the R&D 100 Conference on Nov. 3 in Washington, D.C. The company won for its “rapid oxidative leach process,” which allows copper producers with low- to mid-grade copper ore to bypass smelting. The mechano-chemical process leaches more than 98 per cent of copper from concentrates containing as low as eight per cent copper in less than six hours, a faster and much simpler process than smelting. The R&D 100 is an annual international competition that recognizes the year’s 100 most innovative technologies and services. Often referred to as the “Oscars of Invention,” finalists are selected by an independent panel of more than 50 judges. Hatch clinched a top award from the Quebec Association of Professionals in Project Management’s (PMI) Montreal Chapter on Nov. 9 for its work at the Gahcho Kué diamond mine, a joint venture between De Beers and Mountain Province Diamonds. The firm won in the Private Project Construction and Engineering category, one of three main award categories that recognize excellence in project management in Quebec. Profiled in this issue of CIM Magazine (pg. 58), Gahcho Kué is the world’s largest and richest new diamond mine, located 280 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. Stornoway Diamond Corporation was also nominated for its work on Renard, Quebec’s first diamond mine.
26 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Courtesy of Rio Tinto
Caterpillar chairman and CEO Doug Oberhelman announced in October that he will retire in 2017 after 41 years at the company. Jim Umpleby, Caterpillar’s group president for its Energy & Transportation Group, who has been with the company for 35 years, will take up the top job on Jan. 1. Oberhelman will remain executive chairman until March 31, when Dave Calhoun, senior managing director and head of private equity portfolio operations of The Blackstone Group, will take over.
sense at $500/kWh, around 2020 and later. Often brought up in previous years, another key barrier to miners embracing renewable energy has been the incompatibility between the expected life of a mine and the comparatively longer life of a wind or solar power plant. But that may be changing, with creative short-life PPAs. Nick Boyle, CEO of renewable energy company Lightsource, highlighted the company’s new strategy for mining companies of signing PPAs with a term life as low as five years and developing solar plants that can be uprooted to another project after the company is finished with it. But the longer the PPA term, “the cheaper the price is going to be,” he added. “If you’re in a position to enter into a 25- to 30-year PPA, the prices you can get are incredible.” CIM
The First Nation is seeking $900 million in damages (the estimated profits from IOC’s facilities since 1954) for grievances including displacement and environmental damage.
Quebec court says First Nations’ territorial boundaries supersede provincial ones A Quebec Superior Court decision may have set legal precedent by allowing a provincial Innu group to proceed with its lawsuit against Rio Tinto’s Iron
Ore Company of Canada (IOC) despite the area under dispute crossing provincial boundaries. The Innu of Uashat mak Maniutenam and Matimekush-Lac John allege that IOC’s operations – including mines in Schefferville, Quebec, and Labrador City; a 600-kilometre railway that cuts through northeastern Quebec and Labrador; and a deep-water port
developments on the St. Lawrence River – fall within their traditional territory. The First Nation is seeking $900 million in damages (the estimated profits from the company’s facilities since 1954) for grievances including displacement and environmental damage. Rio Tinto wanted the courts to remove portions of the lawsuit relating to operations outside of Quebec. But in his Oct. 19 ruling, Justice Thomas M. Davis dismissed the motion. Citing the Supreme Court’s 2014 Tsilhqot’in decision, which accorded the First Nation title to a vast parcel of land in central British Columbia, Davis wrote that “Aboriginal rights were exercised and are exercised to date without regard to provincial boundaries.” In an e-mail statement, Rio Tinto spokesperson Claudine Gagnon said that IOC “has decided not to bring a motion for leave to appeal.” The province of Newfoundland and Labrador, which intervened in the case, has, however, indicated it will appeal the decision. The Innu have also named the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway Co. Inc. in their lawsuit. According to James O’Reilly, a prominent aboriginal rights lawyer whose firm O’Reilly and Associates is representing the Innu, the decision could have major repercussions across the country. “First Nations won’t have to have two different lawsuits which are essentially duplications of each other,” said O’Reilly, noting that many First Nations’ territory straddles provincial boundaries. The lawsuit has already set an important benchmark for the courts. Traditionally, First Nations needed to establish title before launching a lawsuit against a miner, which requires expensive litigation against provincial and federal governments. The Innu lawsuit, and a similar case brought by a B.C. First Nation against a different Rio Tinto subsidiary, turned that on its head; in October 2015, the Supreme Court ruled that the Nations could sue Rio Tinto directly.
Taken together, the decisions send a “visible message” that First Nations can affirm their rights through the court system, said Queen’s University Law professor Justin Connidis. For O’Reilly – who fought landmark battles against Hydro-Quebec in the 1960s and 70s alongside the Cree – the Innu lawsuit underlines the importance of rock solid business impact agreements with First Nations. “The Supreme Court has talked about coexistence, saying ‘we’re all here to stay and live together.’ And that’s fine – provided the First Nations aren’t kicked aside when it comes to resource devel– Joel Barde opment.”
World Mining Congress tackles innovation and tailings management Digital technology, innovation and tailings management were key topics of discussion at the World Mining Congress in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 18-21. The conference theme of “Mining in the World of Innovation” provided a framework for mining executives from around the world to examine where the industry is headed and how it can adapt. Gillian Davidson, head of mining and metals for the World Economic Forum, said she sees three emerging trends in the industry: the headwinds facing the sector as demand weakens, prices plunge and trade friction increases; the beginning of the greatest age of a global development agenda with the adoption of the Paris Agreement on climate change last year; and the start of a new technological and digital revolution. “When we took a deep dive in the mining and metals sector, conservatively we estimated nearly $200 billion of value locked up in the next 10 years in digital transformation,” she said. Benedikt Sobotka, CEO of Eurasian Resources Group, pointed out that despite the lip service innovation gets at conferences, not much changes year to year. “Everyone loves to talk about innovation,” he said, “but it actually
FROM THE WIRE Seabridge Gold received a licence from the federal government to construct a water storage facility at its KSM project in northern British Columbia on Nov. 21. The development came just two weeks after the company filed its technical report for KSM, which showed the project to have Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves of 2.2 million tonnes grading at 0.55 grams per tonne gold, 0.21 per cent copper and 2.6 grams per tonne silver. In other positive news for the Toronto-based miner, a large untested target was discovered at its Iskut project in late October. The target is a prospective porphyry lithocap, a geological feature that often acts as a cover obscuring gold and silver systems. Centerra Gold and Premier Gold announced the results of the feasibility study for their joint Hardrock project in Geraldton, Ontario, in mid-November, which showed the project to have a 14.5-year mine life with a projected production of 4.2 million ounces of gold over that time. The mine has Probable Mineral Reserves of 141.7 million tonnes at an average grade of 1.02 grams per tonne gold. Both Centerra and Premier own a 50 per cent stake in Hardrock. Stornoway Diamond Corporation sold the first cluster of diamonds from its recently opened Renard mine in Quebec’s James Bay region for a total of 38,913 carats at an average price of US$195 per carat (C$262) for proceeds of US$7.9 million. The gems were sold between Nov. 14 and 23 in Antwerp, Belgium. Luxembourg will invest €12 million (C$17.1 million) in asteroid mining company Planetary Resources, with another €13 million coming from SNCI, the country’s public investment bank, according to an agreement signed in early November. The funding will go towards technical advancements needed to launch a commercial asteroid prospecting mission in 2020. The Washington-based miner will establish a European headquarters in Luxembourg.
– Cecilia Keating
December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 27
doesn’t happen.” The problem, according to Sobotka, is that new technology is met with hard resistance at the mine site level from employees who see these innovations as a threat to their pay cheque. Rather than trying to alter existing mines, Sobotka said he believes the solution is to design new projects from the beginning using new technology. Given the Samarco tailings dam failure in Brazil in November 2015, tailings management was a theme that dominated the conference and the chosen topic of the panel session organized by the mining association of Brazil – the Instituto Brasiliero de Mineração (IBRAM) – and the Mining Association of Canada (MAC). During the panel, Michel Julien, vice-president of environment for Agnico Eagle, said the industry needs to develop thresholds for tailings risk. “In health and safety, it’s easy to define a point where we need to stop operation,” he said. “For environmental management, we need to develop the same concept.” As part of the panel, Ben Chalmers, vice-president of sustainable development at MAC, discussed the association’s Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) program, which includes a section on tailings management. “[IBRAM] came to us asking to organize the panel and help show what they’re thinking about in terms of advancing tailings management practices in Brazil,” Chalmers told CIM Magazine. He said MAC had worked with IBRAM in the lead up to the World Mining Congress to translate the TSM material on tailings management into Portuguese in order to provide guidance to miners in Brazil. The next World Mining Congress will be held in Astana, – Tom DiNardo Kazakhstan, in 2018.
Solid prospects for PDAC 2017 Water, access to capital and operating in a “carbon-constrained world” will be key focuses at PDAC 2017, taking place at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre March 5-8. Lukas Lundin, chairman of Lundin Mining; Mark Bristow, CEO of Randgold Resources; and Roque Benavides Ganoza, president of Compañia de Minas Buenaventura, will share insights into how to adapt to market changes and overcome geopolitical risk in the conference’s keynote session on what drives success in the industry. PDAC COO Lisa McDonald said she has seen the conference evolve “not just in size, but in programming and content” over the 18 years she has been involved. The conference’s popular aboriginal program and CSR event series are both growing, with the latter stretching over four days instead of its usual two for the first time. While attendance figures have dwindled in line with the industry’s downturn, McDonald is confident that turnout will not dip from last year’s attendance of 22,000. “All of our early indicators at this point have been positive,” she said. More than 900 exhibitors are expected. Smaller attendance figures in recent years have not bruised PDAC’s significance on the international stage. Last year’s event drew representatives from 125 countries, and a similar figure is expected this year. “It’s a must-attend event 28 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Courtesy of PDAC
developments
PDAC 2017 AWARD WINNERS Bill Dennis Award Val d’Or Exploration Team, Agnico Eagle Mines Limited
Distinguished Service Award Neil Gow
Environmental & Social Responsibility Award Teranga Gold Corporation
Skookum Jim Award Peter Moses PDAC COO Lisa McDonald is confident that this year’s turnout will not dip from last year’s attendance of 22,000.
for countries looking to promote their jurisdictions,” said McDonald. The show’s International Mines Ministers’ Summit, now in its second year, provides a crucial platform for government leaders from across the world to collaborate. “Where else can you meet with the ministers of mines or an offi-
cial delegation from Chile, Greenland, and Mongolia on the same day?” said McDonald. Following the success of last year’s exhibition, The Royal Ontario Museum’s Kirwin minerals collection will return to the trade floor.
Special Achievement Award Women’s Association of the Mining Industry of Canada (WAMIC)
Thayer Lindsley Award Peter Megaw, Mag Silver
Viola R. MacMillan Award De Beers Group of Companies & Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. for the Gahcho Kué Diamond Mine
– C. Keating
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The year in legislation An update on mining law changes around the world
Although 2016 continued to be a tough year for the mining industry, legal changes were not generally among its greatest challenges. Most provincial and national governments took steps to encourage mining activity with lower taxes or more favourable laws. Other jurisdictions focused on environmental protection or social uplift, with more mixed receptions from industry. In Bolivia, conflict deepened between President Evo Morales’ administration and the subsector of self-managed, minimally taxed and regulated mining groups known as cooperatives. During August protests over the government’s perceived unhelpfulness in a difficult economic climate, several miners were killed by police and a deputy minister was kidnapped and beaten to death by protesters. Morales responded by imposing further controls. Cooperatives must distribute profit equally among members; anyone working for a cooperative has the right to unionize and receive benefits; and inactive mining concessions and joint ventures with private companies revert to the state. “The cooperatives have had it pretty easy compared to the rest of the sector,” said Arthur Dhont, senior analyst at IHS, a financial services company based in London, England. “Now that that relationship is damaged, the government is less likely to favour cooperatives over others in the sector in the future. For foreign mining firms, that should translate to greater opportunity to participate in mining projects.” In several jurisdictions, mining lobbies successfully persuaded governments that lower taxation would be a win-win. Zambia acceded to copper miners’ request for a price-based royalty rate. As of April 2016, a royalty rate of four 30 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Courtesy of the Government of British Columbia
By Eavan Moore
Bill Bennett, British Columbia’s mines minister, announced the province’s amended mining code in July, which improved tailings dam safety and oversight in the wake of the 2014 Mount Polley spill.
per cent applies when copper prices are below US$4,500 per tonne, six per cent at prices above US$6,000 per tonne, and five per cent in the range between these price triggers. Royalty rates for other base metals were fixed at five per cent and precious metals and gems were set at six per cent. Zambia’s parliament also removed a variable profit tax and suspended a 10 per cent export duty on ores and concentrates that cannot be processed in Zambia. Argentina’s new president, Mauricio Macri, lifted a five per cent export tax on mining products in February. According to Brent Bergeron, executive vice-president of corporate affairs and sustainability at Goldcorp, the new administration has started collaboration between ministries and put a strong emphasis on communicating transparently with mining companies. Bergeron sees potential for a new public-private financing law
passed in November to benefit infrastructure projects at Goldcorp’s Cerro Negro mine and around the country. He also anticipates a taxation reform in the new year that could potentially link taxes to the price of gold. “They’re taking a look at the models in Chile and Peru so that they can make it more of a progressive taxation system,” he said. Alberta concluded its oil and natural gas royalty review in January with a new regime intended to respond flexibly to industry conditions while growing revenues over time. Royalty rates in early production start at a flat five per cent per well, then, when the wells reach maturity, vary based on revenue minus costs. Aging wells will be subject to lower royalties. The new royalties apply to wells drilled in 2017 and later; existing royalties will still apply to older wells for 10 years. The royalty system for oil sands will remain unchanged. Economists Daria Crisan
developments and Jack Mintz calculated in October that the new regime would lower taxation rates overall and make Alberta more competitive. Canada’s 2016 budget made development expenses fully deductible in the year incurred and extended the mineral exploration tax credit another year to March 2017. A few jurisdictions completely renovated their mining legislation – or created new categories from scratch. In a bid to encourage mining, Kenya replaced its 1940 Mining Act with updated legislation in May. The act creates an online licence application process, a state mining corporation, and a minerals and metals commodity exchange. It applies different terms to large- and small-scale operations and allows corporations to have prospecting rights, which were previously limited to individuals. Work is now underway to develop corresponding regulations. Previ-
ously-issued mineral rights will continue under existing terms and conditions. “This provision sends a strong message that Kenya is serious about investment stability and security of tenure,” said Tim Carstens, managing director of Base Resources, which operates the Kwale mineral sands project. He said another important provision shares royalty revenue with the county and community levels of government where mineral extraction takes place. Nova Scotia also overhauled its Mineral Resources Act in May. The new act extends exploration licences to two years, up from one; extends the deadline for starting production on a lease to five years (previously two); requires a reclamation plan and stakeholder engagement plan; and makes royalty rates easier to adjust by moving them out of the act and into regulations. “We have had extensive discussions with the government
about the regulations and we are pleased with the direction the government is taking,” said Sean Kirby, executive director of the Mining Association of Nova Scotia. Luxembourg passed a law in November regulating space resource exploration and guaranteeing that private companies exploring near-earth objects can keep resources they discover as long as they obey international law and receive authorization for their work. The government also invested €25 million in U.S.-based Planetary Resources as part of an asteroid mining initiative intended to go prospecting by 2020. Black empowerment motivated proposed reforms in Africa. The Ministry of Mines and Energy in Namibia added terms and conditions for new and renewed licences. Among other requirements, the licence holder must be five per cent owned by Namibian entities and at
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least 50 per cent of its management must be “previously disadvantaged Namibians” (that is, not able-bodied white men). Brandon Munro, chief executive officer of Bannerman Resources, which has a uranium project in the country, said the requirements are drawn from a voluntary Mining Charter implemented by the Chamber of Mines in 2014 and are therefore uncontroversial. The move is part of a broader poverty-eradication effort; draft legislation released by the Prime Minister’s office in February would promote participation by disadvantaged Namibians across industries. The bill is targeted for spring 2017 passage after a long public consultation process. In South Africa, efforts by the Department of Mineral Resources to incorporate new black empowerment measures into the Mining Charter continued to encounter opposition from the South African Chamber of
Safety, ventilation the focus of MEMO 2016 Electric vehicles, health and safety, and reducing ventilation demands as mines go deeper were the talk of the town in Sudbury, Ontario, during the 2016 Maintenance, Engineering and Reliability/Mine Operators Conference (MEMO), held from Oct. 16 to 18. The theme of the annual conference was “Leading and Managing in a Volatile Economy,” and delegates used it to discuss how new technologies could improve both health and safety at the mine and a company’s bottom line. Craig Harris, a senior electrical engineer at Glencore, said in a presentation that the company’s future fleet of 80 electric vehicles at its Onaping Depth project would create $41 million in capex savings and $7.7 million in opex savings, and pointed to ventilation savings as being “by far” the biggest gain for the site. “Mining has the most to benefit from electric vehicles,” Harris said. “It’s almost a no-brainer.” 32 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Mines, which criticized a draft released in April for imposing additional tax burdens, raising procurement targets for black-owned businesses and requiring miners and suppliers to pay into a Mining Transformation and Development Agency. “We have explained that this will take away critical funding for skills programs and tertiary and community education currently undertaken by the companies, and will place these funds directly with a new government agency whose mandate and governance structure has not been rationalized or explained to the industry,” said Memory Johnstone, spokesperson for the Chamber of Mines. The draft retains a provision proposed in 2015 – which is potentially being challenged in court – that would require mining projects not only to start off with 26 per cent black ownership, but also to maintain that minimum continuously.
Environmental concerns drove actions elsewhere. In Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in October plans for a nationwide carbon pricing benchmark to be put in place by 2018, with implementation delegated to provinces and territories. British Columbia amended its mining code in July to improve tailings dam safety and oversight in the wake of the 2014 Mount Polley spill to positive industry reception. The Department of Energy and Natural Resources of the Philippines suspended 10 of the country’s 40 metal mines and recommended the suspension of 20 more. Newly elected president Rodrigo Duterte and Regina Lopez, his appointee for Environment and Natural Resources Secretary, have indicated a tough approach to pursuing high environmental standards. Lopez has said she wishes to continue a now fouryear moratorium on new projects. CIM
John Gravelle, CFO of Artisan Vehicle Systems – which has its electric motors in equipment at Kirkland Lake Gold – said he sees underground mine expansions like Onaping Depth as a big opportunity for adoption of battery-powered vehicles. “As you expand, ventilation problems creep in,” he said. He also pointed out that, although companies have held off from replacing their fleets during the commodities rout, “now is a good time to look at batteries.” Gravelle acknowledged in his presentation on the increasing use of battery technology that there are still hurdles to overcome. “Mining companies are looking for more comprehensive offerings, and a common charging platform,” he said. “The main concerns are the cost and the uncertainty around battery life.” Safety was also a popular topic among delegates and presenters. Rod Steele, the founder of mining advisory firm TesMan, presented on a new technology, soon to be commercially applied at Vale’s Coleman
mine, that allows tunnel cleaning and loading to be done from a safe distance, keeping miners away from the face. Kirk Rodgers, vice-president of mine productivity at the Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI), discussed a “mine development canopy system” the centre is working on, which will protect the face drills and drill carriers from falling rock, as well as ground support equipment and operators working behind the drilling equipment. The conference also hosted a Diversity and Inclusion panel at Sudbury’s Science North museum, where Vale Canada CEO Jennifer Maki, indigenous employment counsellor Ron Sarazin and Anna Tudela, Goldcorp’s vice-president of diversity and regulatory affairs, discussed inclusion efforts around women, immigrants and visible minorities, Indigenous People, and disabled people. MEMO 2017 will be held in Saskatoon from Sept. 24 to 27. – Kelsey Rolfe
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The power of HR data for diversity and inclusion By Mafalda Arias
he use of human resource data for making business decisions related to employee benefits, salaries and promotions is a regular practice in many organizations; these numbers have an impact and tell stories about managing an organization’s personnel. But this kind of data has even more potential. Human resource information can be harnessed to develop strategies to improve diversity and inclusion (D&I) within a company’s workforce. Unless it is a large company in Canada, it is likely that an organization does not know specific demographic statistics about its employees, such as how many indigenous people, minori-
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ties and immigrants work there. Thus, the human resource data collected from employees cannot be used for D&I initiatives or hiring targets. An exception to this would be an Impact and Benefit Agreement or similar type of agreement with an indigenous group that requires a company to track and report its indigenous hiring targets. What precludes the private sector in Canada from doing this is the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), which governs how this sector collects, uses and discloses personal information in the course of its business, consequently limiting the information and knowledge
an organization has about its employees. A Crown corporation or a federally regulated organization, like a bank, is responsible for reporting on employment equity data, so they have access to this valuable information and can use it to report on their D&I progress. In contrast, private organizations just check a protected group box. If a private organization does collect D&I information, it is pulled individually (with no larger system tracking the numbers companywide), voluntarily disclosed, and it requires the permission of the employee to obtain and keep specific information. But because it is not necessary information to run a business, most private
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column organizations do not collect and record this information. In the United States, The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act requires institutions, including publicly traded companies and their vendors, to diversify their workforces and include women and minorities to the maximum extent possible. Most organizations start such initiatives with a committee formed by D&I champions in the office who set goals and start various activities to understand the diversity range in their organization, locate the sources of misunderstandings, build multicultural work teams and integrate D&I into the DNA of the organization. Considering that current regulations in Canada do not make it easy for private organizations to track D&I information and its progress, if a more diverse, inclusive workplace is something company leaders believe in and support, perhaps it is time to think differently about human resource data and consider what infor-
mation is needed for a D&I baseline and how to collect it. This is valuable historical information about the human fabric of an organization because what gets measured gets done. There are several strategies a company can use to move toward being a diverse and inclusive work place. The first is to take the time to understand the problem. Make leaders aware of the underlying consequences PIPEDA poses for obtaining demographic information and its impact on accountability, leadership pathways, and planning for workforce shortages. A D&I champion can also suggest a census or inventory of the organization, like a self-reporting initiative. This will require internal stakeholder engagement and communication strategies to inform and engage everybody. It is equally important to know the numbers. Baseline data plus a subsequent voluntary census will inform the leader of the organization of what percentage of employees are female, how
many are in executive roles, the portion of existing employees who are indigenous or the progress toward D&I goals. Another strategy is to advocate for the creation of the special interest groups that the census has identified, and promote what I like to call “developmental meetings” that offer guided activities, lectures and visits for everybody to participate in. This will help your personnel become aware, inform, and get to know people from different backgrounds, and create an inclusive work environment in the organization. An inclusive workplace provides a competitive business advantage. Harness that potential by examining HR data with different eyes. CIM Mafalda Arias, M.A., is the president and founder of Mafalda Arias and Associates, an organization that equips organizations and people to interact, communicate and manage across differences. The company’s innovative training programs help built trust, reduce misunderstandings, leverage differences effectively and introduce the invisible power of culture. Visit www.mafaldaarias.com, follow us on twitter @MafaldaArias.
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Deploying drones underground By Ryan Preston and Darren Kennard
ccurately developing remediation plans for abandoned mines can be challenging as maps and records are sometimes spares, if they exist at all. This is the case with the Giant mine in the Northwest Territories, which once provided a solid economic base for the local community. The mine site, however, has become a major concern since the federal government took it over when its owner, Royal Oak Mines, went into receivership in 1999. Physical stability issues, along with environmental risks, have necessitated the rehabilitation of the site. Physical stability assessment started with the examination of historic 2D plans converted into a 3D model and validated by mine records, where possible, and by underground inspections and drilling. This model helped plan stabilization activities, including backfilling. One major problem during this assessment, however, was the lack of accurate and complete maps of the underground workings. To make matters worse, much of the mine was unsafe for anyone to enter in order to complete the mapping. Situations like this are common worldwide. Due partly to the expansion of communities into areas affected by historic mine sites, there is a growing need to manage the threat of ground subsidence and tunnel collapse. However, because of this danger, many abandoned mines are only safe to enter after a significant investment has been made in infrastructure, including ventilation and ground support rehabilitation. Cavity monitoring survey systems can scan inside a void and help build a better understanding of the subsurface geometry, but these are limited in
A
range as they need line of sight and require a borehole access. A safer and more reliable way to map abandoned mines, which was used to plan remediation work at the Giant mine, is to use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones. These drones can be equipped with cameras to provide visual information to the operator, lights to assist the operator navigate the dark underground tunnels, and monitoring equipment. So, for mining companies needing to get a better handle on their mine closure liabilities, what are some of the advantages of using drones? For one, they are safer. The drone operator remains either outside the mine entirely, or in a section that has been determined to be safe to enter and work in. Several years of consumer device development has made them easy to use with intuitive navigation and mapping software that has been thoroughly debugged. There are effective add-ons for mining purposes as well, such as extra-bright lights, and propeller guards and sonar systems to avoid collisions. A complete setup including drone, camera, light and monitoring equipment can be developed for the modest sum of about $3,000. Even if the flying unit itself does get lost in a drift, it is a minor cost (drones with laser systems cost significantly more – in the area of tens of thousands of dollars). The operator can easily gather closeup detail by flying the drone close to a rock wall to determine its condition, examine backfill to see what it is made of and in other ways provide information needed to rehabilitate the site. Of course, all technologies have their limitations. The drone cannot be operated more than about 200 metres Send comments to editor@cim.org
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away, partly because of battery life and attenuation of the navigation radio signal over distance. While drones can be operated around corners in the mine, the ability to do so is limited depending on the mine, and losing the signal may mean losing the unit. It might be that a drone could be operated out of line of sight in a room-and-pillar mine because the signal can bounce off the walls giving it multiple paths, compared to a situation where signal paths are limited. Electrical equipment in the mine can also cause signal interference. Current research is looking at fully autonomous drones that can move around the underground environment without operator guidance, creating a map as they go. Batteries with longer life and more practical laser units are also in development. Underground drone application is still in its infancy. During the 2016 Giant mine investigation project, surveying drones were useful for filling in some of the gaps in the mine map, supplemented with laser scanning and data gained through boreholes from surface, and proved to be a valuable new tool for underground surveying. Like any tool, however, underground drones need to be used with a clear understanding of what works and what does not. CIM For a video showing underground mine assessment using a drone, with information on the technology’s strengths and limitations, visit this column on our website at magazine.cim.org. Ryan Preston, P.Eng., is a geological engineer with Golder Associates, in the Vancouver office; ryan_preston@golder.com. Darren Kennard, P. Eng., is a principal with Golder Associates, based in the company’s Vancouver office; darren_kennard@golder.com.
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Courtesy of Atlas Copco
Atlas Copco tests autonomous loading technology on its 14-tonne ST14 LHD in Kvarntorp, Sweden.
Fully loaded Atlas Copco feels its way into autonomous loading for LHDs By Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco
oad-haul-dump (LHD) machines today are capable of performing two of their eponymous functions autonomously. But until now, no one has figured out a system for LHDs to effectively and consistently load without human direction. The primary reason for this is frustratingly simple: with every dig to load a bucket, the rock pile moves and changes. And in dark and dusty underground conditions where it is difficult to employ video cameras, autonomous loading is particularly challenging. “Digging is something that uses a lot of human judgment,” said Joshua Marshall, an associate professor with Queen’s University’s Mining Systems Laboratory. “Trying to get a machine to do something a human does very well is hard.” For years, researchers have looked for solutions, with most taking a traditional intelligence approach. In essence, they collected data to try to replicate human judgement and train the machine to load. “For example, you can have an operator dig a whole bunch of times and try to use fancy learning networks
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to teach the machine to dig well,” said Marshall, “but at the end of the day no one came up with a system that was commercially viable.”
One giant leap for autonomous loading In early 2017, Atlas Copco plans to launch a new loading system for underground LHDs. The technology originated from a research project by Andrew Dobson – a post-graduate student at Queen’s University at the time – based on a 2008 research paper by Marshall, his advisor. “When you’re controlling a digging robot on the Moon from the Earth, the time it takes your commands to reach the robot are just too long to dig effectively,” said Dobson, who now works for Clearpath Robotics. “So if you can automate the high frequency commands necessary for digging, you can dig on other planets more effectively and dig on Earth more efficiently.” The new system is based on Marshall’s radical new approach to autonomous loading using admittance control,
new frontiers which “views the problem in a reverse way to how most robotics people have thought about it,” said Marshall. “Admittance control views robotic loading from the perspective that we have to modulate the admittance – the force/velocity relationship between the loader and the muck pile.” The goal is to ensure that there is just enough bucket/rock interaction for the bucket to be filled. “You don’t want to provide too much or it gets stuck,” said Marshall. “And you don’t want to provide too little force or you are not going to fill the bucket well enough. So you have to maintain a certain level of bucket/rock interaction as you are digging. It turns out that if you try to maintain this level of bucket/rock interaction, you can get a nice dig every time.” Rather than try to replicate complex human intelligence, Marshall’s solution empowers the machine working in a dark, dusty environment with another human quality. “It’s very tactile, kind of like you trying to use a spoon to dig through a jar of Smarties with your eyes closed and you have to feel your way in with your hand,” said Marshall. “That is what we do. The feeling is done by the existing sensors in the machine’s hydraulic cylinders. As the bucket moves in, forces push on it and the pressures change on the cylinders and we use those pressure signals to tell us about the level of bucket/rock interaction.” In 2012, with the help of Clearpath Robotics, the team at Queen’s retrofitted a Kubota R520S one-tonne loader to enable automation and added its new software solution. They brought in a pile of rocks to the university’s Mining Systems Laboratory, where they conducted successful field studies. It was around that time that Marshall bumped into someone from Atlas Copco at a conference and told them about the project.
added to any loader. We think this would be especially good when you run your loader with a radio remote controller.” Today, for safety, operators in an underground mine using LHDs have to fill the buckets remotely, often without a good view of what they are doing. “Our load-assist function for manual machines being remotely operated can help you fill the bucket efficiently and safely autonomously, and then you can run the machine manually,” said Pettersson. “As long as you have your hand on the joystick and [command it to dig], then it digs autonomously. As soon as you drop your hand off the joystick, it stops digging. That’s why we call it load-assist. You never give authority to the system. We don’t need to add any new sensors or a safety system because it’s basically the same as remote.” In addition to a consistently good auto-dig, the Atlas Copco system, which will be available as a software upgrade for all of the company’s LHDs, will include the capability to collect data on each dig so operators can compare the difference between manual and autonomous digging. “I think they need facts before they buy into fully autonomous machines. This is what we have seen with autonomous surface drills as well,” said Pettersson. “When they have the data, they are pretty quick to jump into business and say, ‘Yeah we want this and we want it now.’ But it takes time to convince them.” CIM
From the university lab to commercialization Atlas Copco sent Ola Pettersson, the company’s group manager for LHD applications based in Sweden, to Kingston, Ontario, to see what all the excitement was about. He was impressed with Marshall and the project. “When I got home, I said we must have a research project together with these guys,” said Pettersson. In late 2013, Dobson travelled to Sweden to work with Atlas Copco on adjusting the code for a full-scale 14-tonne Atlas Copco ST14 LHD. Marshall followed a short while later to help with fine-tuning. Within a few months, the research project was completed and Atlas Copco acquired the intellectual property from Queen’s University. With the software to build an LHD machine that could finally haul, dump and load autonomously, Atlas Copco began discussing commercialization – and that is when the project hit a common glitch in mining: resistance to change. “When you look at the business case, it seems that very few totally autonomous machines are sold,” said Pettersson. “It is often difficult to convince clients to go for autonomous equipment. So we actually tweaked the project and decided a better path for us was to do something different and make it a load-assist function that can be December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 41
Courtesy of Ambri
MIT professor Don Sadoway’s liquid metal battery uses widely available elements in the hopes of bringing down the cost of storing electricity.
A layered approach MIT professor develops liquid metal battery for grid-level energy storage By Ian Ewing
enewable sources of electricity are enjoying rapidly increasing levels of adoption in North America as their cost has plummeted. In the U.S., 11 states generated over 15 per cent of their power from nonhydroelectric renewable sources in 2015, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Wind energy alone accounts for 41 per cent of all new generation capacity installed since 2014. But two hurdles loom large: intermittent generation from sources like wind and solar, and peaking power when daily electricity demand reaches its highest point. Large-scale electricity storage would solve these problems, but so far no technology has found widespread market acceptance. Donald Sadoway, the John F. Elliott Professor of Materials Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), explained the problem during a 2012 TED Talk. “Today,” he said, “there is simply no battery technology capable of meeting the demanding performance requirements of the grid: namely, uncommonly high power, long service lifetime and super low cost.” So Sadoway developed one himself. By creating a battery using elements that are both abundant and widespread in the
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earth, he hoped to bring the cost of storing electricity down to an economically viable price point, and mute the biggest criticism facing renewable energy.
Enabling technology “There are really two major problem areas, and they’re both associated with the electricity on the grid,” Sadoway told CIM Magazine, speaking from his office at MIT in Cambridge, MA. “The problem that’s more obvious to people is the intermittency that accompanies renewable sources of energy.” With storage, he said, utilities could generate electricity from these sources when they are available, store it on a large scale and then release it to the grid when it is needed. But even a conventional grid would benefit from storage capacity by making it more resilient to demand-related issues like brownouts and blackouts. Currently, utilities meet everincreasing demand by adding peaking capacity at the power plant and performing costly upgrades to transmission lines. With storage, Sadoway said, “when the demand is low, you can ship the surplus electricity over the lines and store it close to the demand center. Then, when the demand is high,
new frontiers
Courtesy of Ambri
you have a combinasalt electrolyte separates tion of what’s comthe two liquid metal electrodes. ing through the To discharge the batlines, plus what you tery, the metal in the top have stored in your layer ionizes and disbasement or at the substation.” solves in the salt, travelIf the need is so ling to the bottom layer obvious and the bento alloy with that metal, efits so widespread, while the freed electrons why has no one else travel through the extermanaged to build a nal circuit. To charge the battery for grid-level battery, current is driven storage yet? through the battery in “It’s the worst mix the opposite direction, of really high percausing the metals to formance requiredealloy, allowing the ments and a really Sadoway’s battery uses a low-density liquid metal on top and a high-density liquid metal on the metal from the top layer bottom, seperated by a molten salt electrolyte. low price point,” to go back into solution answered Sadoway. and return to the top. Until now, the alternatives – mainly diesel-powered backup generators and natural gas-powered peaking units – have been Chemistry to commercialization During initial experiments, Sadoway and his graduate stucheaper than any scalable storage options. “In the U.S., something like 50 per cent of the natural gas peaking units are used dent, David Bradwell, used magnesium as the top layer and less than two per cent of the time,” Sadoway said. “The rest of antimony as the bottom layer. Despite early difficulties manuthe time they’re sitting idle. But it’s still cheaper than any bat- facturing the cells in the lab, Bradwell, Sadoway and a growing tery we’ve got right now. It’s just a really, really tough problem.” team eventually learned to make a reliable, rechargeable liquid A battery would surpass the most widely used grid-level metal battery. By 2010, the group had outgrown the labs at storage solution – pumped hydroelectric storage – on price, MIT, so Sadoway and Bradwell, who had by then finished his and would be irresistible in a marketplace that could be as PhD, founded a company, Ambri, to commercialize the techlarge as US$400 billion by 2020, according to the Boston Con- nology. Six years on, Bradwell, now CTO of Ambri, said he still sulting Group. But getting there requires rethinking batteries does not know of any other companies pursuing liquid metal entirely. batteries. Part of the reason may be that a commercial battery A powerful solution requires more than just operating cells on the lab bench. In Sadoway’s background is in electrometallurgy, and using particular, each liquid metal battery cell requires a high temelectricity to smelt aluminum relies on much the same knowl- perature seal that is hermetic, electrically insulating, and nonedge of the electrochemical properties of elements as does stor- reactive to oxygen as well as the metal vapours and molten salt ing energy chemically in a battery. Around 2006, he conceived inside the cell. The company spent the last two years developof a cell that would release electricity when two metals alloyed ing the materials and processes to manufacture their own protogether, sort of the reverse of what happens during smelting. prietary seal in-house. This summer, Ambri overcame this And for good measure, he intended to build this battery using challenge and in November, Ambri successfully built and extremely common – and cheap – metals, rather than the more began operating its first in-lab prototype system with 432 cells and seals. exotic ones found in cell phones and electric cars. To simplify things elsewhere, the company designed the To allow the metals to freely alloy and dealloy, they need to battery to be easy to build. Each cell is a deep-drawn stainbe liquid. The two metals need to have high mutual reactivity less steel can, into which a pre-alloyed metal puck is placed. – that is, the ability to gain, lose, or share electrons to undergo The salt is layered on top, then the lid is welded shut. Many a chemical reaction with each other. And they also need to stay of these individual cells are stacked together in a larger conseparated in two distinct electrodes – tricky, when they are liqtainer to make a battery. The company’s plans include bringuid. But working with “extreme” electrochemical processes like this is Sadoway’s bread and butter. ing a modular system with nearly one megawatt hour “The basic layout is, you’ve got a low-density liquid metal (MWh) to market. Two of these units would fit into a transon the top, something like magnesium or sodium,” Sadoway portable, stackable 20-foot shipping container. Several of explained. “On the bottom, you have a high-density liquid these systems could be strung together to store four to eight metal, something that is very different in its chemical proper- hours’ worth of power from a typical two-megawatt (MW) ties, like antimony or bismuth or lead.” In between, a molten wind turbine. December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 43
The liquid metal batteries have a cycle efficiency of around 80 per cent, on par with pumped hydro, said Sadoway. And the losses during the charge and discharge cycles actually help keep the electrodes of the batteries – which operate at nearly 500 C – liquid. Vitally, they also do not degrade over time, promising long service life. In Ambri’s testing, Sadoway said, the oldest batteries have completed over 3,000 charge-discharge cycles over three and a half years, with no measurable change in capacity. “They’re just not fading.” It is this combination of long life and low cost that other modern battery technologies like lithium-ion cannot match for large-scale, price-sensitive applications like grid storage, explained Bradwell. And while the liquid metal batteries are much heavier than the equivalent lithium-ion cell, they have similar volumetric energy densities, meaning they take up no more space. “There are lithium cells that are fairly low cost, but they typically don’t have long cycle life. There are lithium-ion batteries that have pretty long cycle life, but they don’t have low cost. It’s that combination of the two. The per-cycle cost over the lifetime of the deployment is a critical factor,” Bradwell said, and one where Ambri’s cells should win out. Although Ambri will not disclose the cost of its prototype systems or what it expects the market entry price to be, Bradwell is confident the fully installed cost will be competitive. “We anticipate pricing it at just a little bit less expensive than the next best alternative,” he said. In selecting their materials – Ambri has developed a new formulation for the cell – more was at stake than just performance. “We looked at the supply chains for the various metals and salts,” said Sadoway. “If we were to go to some very high level of adoption, what would that do [to the market]? We need to be smart about this, because if a big rise in demand causes a rise in the price, then all of your work is for nothing. If the price isn’t right, you won’t get the adoption.”
Commercially relevant For now, Ambri is focused on getting the technology, including battery and controls, into a commercially relevant, easy-to-adopt system – “A box that says ‘1 MWh’ and has a plus sign and a minus sign on it,” according to Sadoway. Ambri’s first prototype commercial system should be done by the end of 2017, according to Bradwell, with commercial deployments in 2018. Within two or three years, Sadoway said he hopes his invention will be deployed commercially at “the highest pain points” – islands and other remote locations without access to wider grids. “Even at $1,000 per kWh [of storage], some geographies would be very happy to have batteries,” he said. After that, he expects that achieving economies of scale will help bring down the price. “For widespread deployment, it’s got to get down below $500 per kWh,” Sadoway said. “And the lower it goes, the greater the number of applications it will be able to address.” CIM 44 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
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Courtesy of Sandvik
Power couple Goldcorp and Sandvik partner to deliver all-electric mine at Borden Lake By Christopher Pollon
Goldcorp’s Borden Lake operation will use Sandvik’s new battery-powered jumbo, the DD422iE.
lectric fleets are working their way into the mining industry. Kirkland Lake has been using electric LHDs and haul trucks at its Macassa and South Mine Complex since 2012 and Glencore plans to operate only electric vehicles at its Onaping Depth nickel-copper deposit in Sudbury. Goldcorp is the latest company to plug into this trend. In September, Sandvik announced it had partnered with Goldcorp to design the Borden Lake project in Chapleau, Ontario, as an all-electric mine. “The whole mobile fleet would either operate on battery or tethered electric equipment,” said Marc Lauzier, mine general manager at Porcupine Gold Mines (PGM), a joint venture between Goldcorp Canada Ltd. and Goldcorp Inc. that will operate Borden Lake. “That would include scoops, trucks, any auxiliary equipment such as jumbos, bolters, as well as boom trucks, even down to the man carriers.” Borden Lake, which is still in the advanced exploration stage, is expected to have a mine life of about seven years, boosting the local economy of an area depressed by the slowdown of the forestry industry. Goldcorp acquired the project from Probe Mines in 2015. As far as Lauzier knows, the all-electric underground mine they plan to build here will be a first in Ontario, and possibly the world. “We’ve been using electric gear on and off in mining for some time; usually you get a mish-mash of some diesel and some electric,” he said. “But the battery technology is new and allows us to run a mine that will have no diesel engines whatsoever.” The big technological improvement in the past 10 years that makes this vision possible is the advent of quick-charge equipment. “What you want are high-voltage outlets where you can plug in the equipment, like drills and bolters, and they recharge usually on a 30- to 40-minute cycle,” explained
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46 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Lauzier. “So while an employee is having his lunch, say, the equipment can recharge and the battery is ready to go for another half shift or more.” Once in full production, PGM estimates there will eventually be 35 pieces of mobile electric equipment operating on the site, most using on-board chargers. The mine will use two types of electric equipment underground: ones that are tethered while operating, and others with electric motors that derive their power from stored energy in batteries. The former (e.g., drills and bolters) will be permanently connected to the grid via a typical electric cable extension, which recharges the battery as needed. The drills plug in while drilling and use batteries when moving between levels and faces. The latter, for example a grader or boom truck, will have an onboard charger that is plugged in only when a charge is necessary. This will rely on quick-charge technology, which can provide full duty cycle from less than an hour of charging. Equipping a mine with an all-electric fleet has implications for the mine design. The company will have to accommodate the need for many more recharge and, to a lesser degree, battery change-out stations. “We are trying to stay away from swapping batteries, which is being replaced by quick-charge technology,” said Lauzier. Many electric vehicles recharge their batteries when the brakes are applied, which means work passes and systems must be designed to maximize the downhill movement of loaded trucks, such as carrying the muck down ramps to a centralized area. “The more downhill you can do, the more regeneration you can do, and the longer the battery cycle will be,” said Lauzier. As it stands right now, construction of the decline ramp at Borden Lake will begin in 2017, with a bulk sample accessed and analyzed by the second quarter of 2018.
new frontiers To power this all-electric mine, Borden Lake will rely on its partner Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology to provide “the total solution” for the development of drills, trucks, loaders, and jumbos (PGM said man carriers will be supplied by another company). Sandvik marketing manager Kerry Falk said that because battery-powered equipment is a relatively recent development for underground mining, Sandvik does not yet manufacture electric versions of all the equipment PGM will eventually need at Borden Lake. According to Falk, the mine will initially use a combination of tethered electric loaders and trucks that rely on Tier 4 diesel engines. That said, Sandvik has committed to developing battery technology for its bigger scoops, and by the time Borden Lake comes into production, in the second quarter of 2019 if all goes as planned, PGM expects to have at least some battery-powered trucks for use on the site. (Sandvik declined to predict a date for the full electrification of the mine.) Sandvik has already developed a battery-powered jumbo, the first of its kind on the market, according to Falk. The allelectric, two-boom Sandvik DD422iE jumbo was featured (and demonstrated) at Minexpo in Las Vegas in September. By eliminating the diesel that drives such machinery, the company can drive narrower drifts that do not need to account for the additional space ventilation requires. (Due to the shallowness of the ore body, instead of shafts, the gold will be accessed via a ramp, with the levels coming off the ramps.) It also reduces the amount of energy needed to operate the underground mine by about 50 per cent. That is largely because it eliminates the need to ventilate diesel fumes, which produces cost savings that help make an electric mine economically feasible. “One of the risks of electric gear is that it costs you more in the upfront capital, but over the life of a mine, I actually think you’re going to save,” said Lauzier. “You should at least break even or find it cheaper because of the ventilation savings.” Cost savings from ventilation was one of multiple considerations that led the company to commit to an electric mine at Borden Lake. Cutting out diesel will also reduce local exposure to diesel particulates and other air contaminants, not to mention lower noise levels and vibration. And the reduction of liquid fuel will result in less delivery traffic on local roads. Lauzier has family in the Chapleau area and knows first-hand that PGM is bringing mining to a community that does not have a long mining history and is not used to living in close proximity to such an operation. Several First Nations communities also live in the vicinity of what is a large, spring-fed lake, dotted with cottages and fishing lodges. “Chapleau is a pristine area, so we want to have a small footprint [and] minimize any environmental impacts we’re going to have,” he said. Looming regulations provide another incentive. More stringent provincial standards for nitrogen oxide emissions – contaminants created from diesel combustion – are coming, and at the beginning of 2017, Ontario will require a cap and trade program for facilities that generate more than 25,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases (GHG) annually. Meanwhile, a federal price on carbon will impose a minimum cost of $10
per tonne of GHG emissions in 2018, rising to $50 per tonne in 2022. At Goldcorp’s underground mines in Canada, its mobile fleet accounts for about 60 per cent of its total emissions, so the single biggest opportunity to reduce emissions and their cost is through fuel switching, which is why the company is looking at all the opportunities battery and electrical vehicles represent. Once the mine is up and running, ore from Borden Lake will be transported 180 kilometres to Timmins for milling. PGM estimates that going all-electric at just this one mine will eventually eliminate three million litres of diesel, 1 million litres of propane and 30,000 megawatt hours per year that in total cuts at least 7,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent annually. Lauzier said the company’s goal is now to use more of this type of equipment in all mines going forward, including new mines. He added that the plan for the all-electric mine typically gets two types of reactions from other mining companies. There are those who resist because they are unsure whether it is a good idea to stray from traditional technology, and those who want to do the same but just need to see someone else do it first. “Deep down, I think everyone wants to go this way sooner or later,” said Lauzier. “But someone has to take the concept forward and prove it, right?” CIM
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December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 47
Courtesy of Ali G. Madiseh
Harvesting heat from mine water UBC engineering professor has a plan to help miners stop burning money By Cecilia Keating
ining is one of the most energy intensive industries in the world, leaving operators exposed to unpredictable and expensive energy markets. A new study from the Earth/Mine Energy Research Group (EMERG), comprising researchers from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and McGill University, makes the case that mines can reduce their reliance on fossil fuels by sourcing geothermal energy from water that collects on site in active underground mines. Ali G. Madiseh is an assistant professor at the Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering at UBC, and is part of EMERG, which researches energy-efficient technologies in mining. EMERG has spent a decade studying how geothermal energy can be extracted from water in underground mines to serve either nearby communities or the mines themselves. Data collected at over 20 mine sites demonstrate that mines that implement the technology will see considerable economic and environmental benefits.
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CIM: Has geothermal energy been extracted from underground mines before? Madiseh: Canada was the first place in the world to establish geothermal energy using a mine in 1987. An abandoned coal mine in Springhill, Nova Scotia, currently heats a plastics man48 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
ufacturing factory and a couple of other surface buildings. However, the project didn’t grow to its full potential. The best global example of how a community can benefit from geothermal energy from a mine is the town of Heerlen in the Netherlands. There, an abandoned coal mine is being used as a geothermal reservoir, not only to extract heat, but to store energy. Whole clusters of the city are being provided with energy for heating and cooling.
CIM: How does the technology work? Madiseh: Traditionally, water that collects underground in mines is constantly pumped up to the surface by pumps called “sump pumps.” At the surface, the water is treated and returned to the environment. There is a considerable amount of water in some mines, often in the range of 300 to 1,000 litres per minute. Our idea is to install heat pumps or thermal chillers as a step in the dewatering process [of an active mine]. Underground mine water can be as hot as 30 C, and by the time it has reached the surface it is around 15-18 C, depending on how much water the mine has. The heat pump or thermal chiller would remove 4-6 C of heat out of that surface water and “upgrade” the heat to a higher temperature range of 40-60 C using a small amount of electricity. Heat pumps and geothermal chillers are both refrigeration equipment, working in the same way that a kitchen fridge takes
cold air and makes it colder. They contain an evaporator and a condenser. In the evaporator, the low-temperature refrigerant receives the heat from the mine water, resulting in a raise in refrigerant temperature. In the condenser, the higher temperature refrigerant conveys the heat to the circulating fluid of a heating system, in either the form of water or air. This can then be conveyed to the end user. Heat pumps and thermal chillers are very mature technologies and a good number of Canadians have been using geothermal heating in their homes for decades. However, this is the first time that geothermal energy would be extracted from an active mine site for mine ventilation purposes.
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CIM: Where can the geothermal energy be used on a mine site? Madiseh: Canada’s long, cold winters mean mines need a huge amount of pre-heating to function, often for over 160 days of the year. You can’t draw -30 to -40 C air into an underground formation. Humans can’t operate and all the pipes, bearings, openings and shafts will freeze and break. So the air is warmed up using gas-powered heaters before being sent underground. This is currently done at a huge cost, using millions of gallons of natural gas or propane. We are thinking of doing the same with the geothermal energy extracted from the mine water. The geothermal energy can also be used to cool Canada’s ultra-deep mines in the summer months.
CIM: How else can the energy be used? Madiseh: Local communities can also benefit from geothermal energy from mines, like in Heerlen. A community must be near the mine for this to work, as it’s not economically viable to transport heat long distances. Sudbury would be perfect for this. Herleen is a success story, and they only have one mine; in Sudbury, there are more than ten mines, which could power the entire city. There is great public relations value for mining companies in projects that provide a clean source of renewable energy to local communities, especially as the mine will continue to harvest heat long after it has been decommissioned. However, we appreciate that a lot of negotiations between the mining company and local communities are required for this to work. So for the moment we are focusing on how the energy can be used to heat and cool mine sites.
CIM: What types of benefits could mines see from extracting this type of energy? Madiseh: Our study demonstrated that mines can save between $200,000 and $300,000 each year in energy costs. And this is the most conservative scenario; it varies from case to case, depending on how much thermal heat a mine produces and its current energy bill. There are huge environmental benefits. Mines will drastically cut their fossil fuel intake and their carbon emissions. On top of this, in a few years, the federal government is likely to introduce a carbon tax. Mines that develop this technology can save on these taxes, and even make revenue by exchanging credits if the tax involves a cap and trade system.
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Finally, geothermal energy is not dependant on changes in the energy market (beyond the small amount of electricity needed for the geothermal chiller or heat pump). Costs will no longer be bound to the unpredictable cost of fossil fuels. This is what we call “energy independence.”
CIM: Are you proposing that the technology be implemented in both active and abandoned mines? Madiseh: If a mine is abandoned, there are hurdles that need to be resolved before the technology is installed. For example, underground galleries can be blocked and water may not be able to move through these openings. There has to be drilling tests, which increases the cost of the project. But an active mine sidesteps these issues. And unlike any other European or first world countries, Canada has a lot of active mines, which is why the technology is perfect here. Ideally, we are looking at implementing the technology in opening mines so that the company can invest in the geothermal system and cut costs by avoiding the more conventional fossilbased heating system entirely. Installing the technology has some costs and will have some requirements on infrastructure, but it’s not a huge renovation project.
CIM: Given the success in Heerlen, why has geothermal energy not already been adopted in mine sites in Canada? Madiseh: First off, in Europe they have a greater incentive to turn to projects like this. Electricity is more expensive there and they rely on imported natural gas. And while the capital investment involved in installing and maintaining these geothermal projects does pay off, Canada is less inclined to turn to it, as we have relatively cheaper energy. Moreover, the project in the Netherlands wouldn’t have worked without support from the local community, who advocated for the project. Canada needs champions to go to the community, get their interest and backing for such projects, and go back to mining companies with plans of collaboration and support.
CIM: Will we see it adopted by mines soon? Madiseh: We are in the process of talking to mines to entice
Encouraging students since 1898
them to invest in these technologies and we are hoping to have their support in the near future. I can’t mention any names or titles at this point, but hopefully we will have some good news soon. The process takes time because the mining industry has a genetic attitude of only investing in technologies that are already well-proven in other industries. While geothermal energy is not new – it has been used to heat residential buildings for more than 30 years – implementing a geothermal chiller or geothermal heat pump in an active mine is a new concept, which is why miners are wary. We are hoping that they put this attitude to the side and invest in technology especially designed for their application. We need one mine to become our champion project, which will in turn encourage other mines to adopt the technology. CIM
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QUEBEC’S
GOLDEN POCKETS A majority of Quebec’s drilling projects are focused on gold, mirroring a worldwide phenomenon.
Exploration spending is down across the board, but budgets for gold exploration have suffered less than other metals. And in two particular regions of Quebec – the established Abitibi gold belt and the emerging James Bay region – exploration drills are busily biting the rock. By Virginia Heffernan
T
he latest map of exploration drilling in Canada resembles a nighttime satellite image of the country: vast expanses of monochrome punctuated by clusters of brightness. If the clusters represented urban areas, the Abitibi greenstone belt straddling the Quebec-Ontario border would be a bustling metropolis and the James Bay region a small but growing municipality. Despite a global slowdown in exploration spending that S&P Global Market Intelligence expects to continue into 2017, pockets of Quebec could be on the cusp of an upswing. The province’s share of Canadian drilling activity averaged about 30 per cent in the first nine months of 2016, reaching almost 40 per cent in August, according to analysis by S&P Global.
The provincial hotspots are at opposite ends of the exploration spectrum: the James Bay camp on the province’s western limit hosts greenfield projects, whereas the well-established Abitibi belt to the south hosts several producing mines. The latter is benefiting from the perception of safety while the former is attracting investors willing to accept greater risk in exchange for the potential gains associated with discoveries in an emerging mining camp. Silver and specialty metals represent some of the targets, but the majority of Quebec’s drilling projects (11 of the 15 recorded in August 2016) are focused on gold, mirroring a worldwide phenomenon. “Investors understand the gold sector better than any other commodity, so when the gold price goes up, they are ready to contribute to exploration by participating in financings or buying shares on the market,” said Gérald Riverin, president of Yorbeau Resources, which recently raised $1.28 million in flow-through financing for its gold and base metal projects on the Abitibi belt. Gold climbed sharply in the first half of the year, touching a high of US$1,367 per ounce, before retreating to the US$1,300-per-ounce level by the end of the third quarter as
Gold
Other
Source: SNL Financial, an offering of S&P Global Market Intelligence Map credit: Elizabeth Thomas
Drilling activity in eastern Canada between Jan. and Sept. 2016
December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 53
the odds of an interest rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve increased amid stronger economic conditions in the country. Thomson Reuters expects the price to rally further in 2017 as physical demand accelerates, matching the average US$1,420-per-ounce price in 2010. A recent Reuters poll of 35 analysts and traders returned a slightly lower annual average gold price forecast of US$1,331 per ounce if expected interest rate hikes in the U.S. come to pass.
ON SAFE GROUND IN THE ABITIBI
The Abitibi belt is an estimated 2,800 million years old and has produced about 170 million ounces of gold since mining started there more than a century ago. It is one of the largest Archean greenstone belts in the world. Most of the major base metal and gold mining camps on the Quebec side – Malartic, Rouyn-Noranda, and Val-d’Or – fall along the east-west trending Cadillac-Larder fault zone. Other well-known camps, including Casa Berardi and QUEBEC ON THE RISE AGAIN Matagami, occur along the Casa Berardi and Sunday Lake fault After sliding back for a few years amid complaints of red zones in the northern part of the belt. tape and anti-mining sentiment, Quebec appears to be regainAlthough the Abitibi has undergone several cycles of ing its place among the most attractive regions in the world exploration and development since 1901 and may have for mining and exploration. Accordpeaked in terms of gold production, ing to the Fraser Institute’s annual explorers see potential for more ore to survey of the mining industry, Quebe found, especially at depth. “IT IS A MORE MATURE bec and Saskatchewan were the only “A common feature of the Abitibi AREA, BUT WITH Canadian jurisdictions to place in the gold deposits is that they persist at top 10 worldwide for their perceived depth,” said Riverin. “It is a more CONTINUING overall investment attractiveness in mature area, but with continuing 2015. Quebec ranked first in the improvements in mining technology, IMPROVEMENTS IN world from 2007 to 2010, but people can now mine a lot deeper than MINING TECHNOLOGY, slipped to 11th place in 2012. in the past and still make money.” Another positive indicator for the For example, Agnico Eagle Mines, PEOPLE CAN NOW MINE A Quebec’ province is the recent return of a s largest gold producer, is major gold producer to the Abitibi assessing the potential of mining more LOT DEEPER THAN IN THE belt. Kinross Gold is drilling at Yorthan 3.1 km under the surface at its PAST AND STILL MAKE beau’s Rouyn property about four LaRonde mine between Rouynkilometres (km) south of RouynNoranda and Val-d’Or. The company MONEY.” Noranda after signing a deal to earn is infill drilling from the 311 level to a 100-per-cent interest in the project. – G. Riverin the 371 level with a focus on the westRouyn represents a consolidation of ern portion of the deposit and will test several properties covering a 12-km the eastern portion as underground stretch of the Cadillac-Larder break, a major fault zone in the development expands. Abitibi that stretches 250 km from west of Kirkland Lake, Agnico expects annual production from LaRonde to top Ontario, to east of Val-d’Or in Quebec. 300,000 ounces from 2017 on (from about 268,000 in 2015) Kinross has not invested so heavily in the Abitibi since as gold grades increase at depth. 1999, when it suspended operations at its Macassa gold mine Efforts in the Abitibi also appeal to investors reluctant to on the Ontario side of the belt. The major did not respond to fund projects that are perceived to be too risky, said Mark Fera request for an interview about plans for the Rouyn project, guson, head of mining studies for S&P Global. “Investors are but in order to earn full ownership, Kinross must complete a focusing on belts that are more established. We are not seeing resource estimate after spending $12 million on exploration. as much of the more remote drilling.” In the first 18 months, the agreement calls for $3 million in The most active gold projects on the belt, aside from the spending, including at least 12,500 metres (m) of diamond Yorbeau-Kinross joint venture, include: drilling. “Rouyn has good road access, so the drilling costs are rel- Detour Trend, Balmoral Resources Balmoral raised atively low,” said Riverin. “Kinross should be able to mount a $7.1 million in flow-through financing last summer to continue exploration on its Detour Trend and other projects in significant exploration effort for that amount of money.” In the James Bay region, about 600 km north of the the Abitibi. The company is focused on defining a highAbitibi, several juniors are attempting to replicate the success grade gold system on its Martiniere property, where minerof the Éléonore gold discovery by Virginia Gold Mines in 2004 alization occurs along two major structural trends, Bug Lake in metamorphic rocks near the contact between the La Grande and Martiniere West. Together the trends extend for more and Opinaca geological sub-provinces. Goldcorp, which than 1,900 m along strike and to depths of over 400 vertical bought Éléonore in 2005 for US$420 million and achieved metres. Both trends remain open at depth and recent drilling commercial production in 2015, said it expects to ramp up returned an intercept of 4.51 grams per tonne (gpt) gold production at the mine to 7,000 tonnes per day by the first over 26.9 m in veins in the hanging wall of the Bug South deposit. half of 2018. 54 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Courtesy of Eastmain Resources
The Eau Claire deposit outcrop
Odyssey, Agnico Eagle & Yamana Gold The co-
Lamaque South, Integra Gold The Lamaque South
owners of the Canadian Malartic mine west of Val-d’Or, one of Canada’s largest gold mines, completed advanced drilling at the Odyssey deposit to the east of the mine with the goal of reclassifying the mineralization as Inferred Mineral Resources. They continued drilling in the fourth quarter to better define potential high-grade cross cutting structures. Odyssey is envisioned as a bulk tonnage underground deposit that could provide a new source of ore for the Canadian Malartic mill, according to Abitibi Royalties, which holds a three per cent net smelter royalty on the Odyssey North discovery.
project and Sigma-Lamaque mill and mine are located directly east of the city of Val-d’Or. Among other initiatives, Integra is drilling a 2,000-m long “parent” hole to test whether mineralization at the neighbouring Sigma and Lamaque gold mines coalesce at depth. Meanwhile, the company has launched a 2,500-m program to test a new target, the Sigma East Extension, identified by a data compilation exercise and corresponding to a magnetic anomaly located 750 m east and along strike of the Sigma mine.
Douay, Aurvista Gold In early November, Aurvista was expecting to close a $6 million private placement to fund ongoing exploration at Douay, which covers a 20-km segment of the Casa Berardi fault zone. The project contains 2.7 million tonnes of Indicated Resources grading 2.76 gpt gold and Inferred Resources of 115 million tonnes grading 0.75 gpt gold. The company is planning 4,000 m of drilling to delineate additional gold mineralization there.
Gladiator, Bonterra Resources Bonterra is conducting a 25,000-m drill program to expand an Inferred Resource of 905,000 tonnes grading 9.37 gpt gold at the Gladiator project along the Casa Berardi fault zone northeast of Val-d’Or. The company has been successful in extending the high-grade gold zone down plunge and to the east, and added a second rig to the project in November.
BLUE SKIES IN JAMES BAY James Bay, on the other hand, has managed to convince wary investors to give it a shot, thanks to the development of the Éléonore gold discovery just over a decade ago into a producing mine today. The presence of such a long-life, high-grade mine at Éléonore (the main Roberto deposit has Proven and Probable Reserves of 4.57 million ounces of gold grading 5.87 gpt and another three million ounces of Resources) has created a sustainable exploration dynamic in the region, said Jean-Marc Lulin, president of Azimut Exploration, which has been an active explorer in the James Bay region since before the Éléonore discovery on the Opinaca Reservoir. “It’s a large area of attractive geology with several unexplored or underexplored greenstone belts,” he said. “Another benefit is an outstanding (geoscience) database that allows us December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 55
to reduce the exploration risk and develop better targets. When you combine these two factors, the area becomes very attractive.” The Roberto deposit differs from the brecciated and vein-type gold deposits that characterize the Abitibi region in that it consists of stockwork and replacement style mineralization hosted by greywackes and paragneiss, according to a 2010 report on the deposit by the Geological Survey of Canada. James Bay, once too remote and expensive to attract much exploration spending, is also starting to benefit from infrastructure projects under the auspices of Plan Nord, a commitment by the province to spend about $1.3 billion on infrastructure and other projects by 2020 in the hopes of attracting $22 billion in private-sector investment north of the 49th parallel.
Because the Société du Plan Nord acts as more of a coordinator than the lead on projects, its influence is not always obvious, said president and CEO Robert Sauvé. He said Plan Nord’s goal is to try to assist business ventures while supporting the communities in the north through infrastructure building and training. “We’re coordinating the implementation of new infrastructure and the maintenance of existing infrastructure in the north including roads, railway and airports,” he said. “For instance, the James Bay road (which starts in Matagami and ends at Radisson) has become strategic to mining development and we will coordinate all the departments to improve the road within the next few years and reduce the cost of access.” The most active gold exploration projects along the Opinaca-La Grande tectonic boundary in James Bay include:
Éléonore, Goldcorp Armed with
Courtesy of Azimut Exploration Inc.
a better understanding of the mineralizing system at Éléonore, Goldcorp is developing a predictive model that can be applied to exploration elsewhere in the region. The company has identified a northeast-southwest glacial float train within a 10-km radius of the mine that contains mineralized boulders with high-grade gold. Ground geophysics is underway to better define the possible bedrock source of the boulders and to site trenches and/or drill holes planned for the first quarter of 2017.
Éléonore South, Eastmain (36.7%); Goldcorp (36.7%); Azimut Exploration (26.6%)
Channel sampling of the Moni prospect at Eléonore South
For example, Hydro Quebec’s $5-billion Eastmain 1A-Sarcelle Rupert project, completed in 2012, brought both added power and new roads to the region. Plan Nord was also instrumental in extending Route 167 another 240 km north to the new Renard diamond mine, allowing mine owner Stornoway and the region’s explorers to bring in supplies overland instead of by plane and helicopter. “Over the past 20 years, there has been a lot of unique infrastructure spending and we’ve seen a huge improvement in our ability to access the James Bay area,” said Joseph Fazzini, CFO and vice-president of corporate development for Eastmain Resources, another significant claimholder in the region that has an advanced exploration property along the Route 167 extension. “It makes it a lot more compelling to explore if you know you’ll have roads and power lines when you need them.” 56 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
This early-stage project is located about eight km south of the Éléonore mine and is underlain by the same rock formations as those on the mine property. The prospective corridor extends over an area at least three km long by 500 m wide. A 5,000-m drill program returned initial results of 76.1 gpt gold over 1.55 m and 0.62 gpt gold over 79.1 m in November. “The association between mineralized tonalitic and pegmatitic facies over significant widths along the margins of a tonalite intrusion suggests a large-scale hydrothermal-magmatic mineralized system,” said the partners in a joint release.
Cheechoo, Sirios Resources Situated adjacent to the Éléonore mine property, Cheechoo hosts a low grade (0.3-0.8 gpt gold) mineralized envelope which extends for more than one km along strike, is 300 to 450 m wide, and has a vertical depth of more than 340 m. In mid-2016, a 10,000-m program intersected 4.18 gpt gold over 20 m within a tonalitic intrusion near the contact with surrounding metasediments. In October, the Quebec Mineral Exploration Association gave Sirios the Discovery of the Year award for its success at Cheechoo.
Courtesy of Azimut Exploration Inc.
The discovery and development of the Éléonore gold deposit has fueled exploration activity in the James Bay region.
Clearwater, Eastmain Resources Over the past few years, Eastmain has focused on expanding and defining the high-grade Eau Claire gold deposit at the western end of the Clearwater property, where Measured and Indicated Resources stand at 7.23 million tonnes grading 4.1 gpt gold for 951,000 ounces. The current 63,000-m program is focused on infill drilling and testing additional targets along the structural deformation zone that hosts Eau Claire. “We’re looking forward to releasing those results over the next few months and putting them into a new resource update planned for the first half of 2017,” said Fazzini.
Midland-Osisko Joint Venture The two juniors are combining efforts to explore settings favourable for gold deposits in the vicinity of Éléonore. This year they have budgeted $1 million to investigate properties covering a surface area of about 953 square km. Phase one of the land program includes till and lake-bottom sediment sampling.
Sakami, Matamec Explorations & Canada Strategic Metals The partners conducted a $700,000 exploration program to test four separate areas on the property, including a 2,000-m drill campaign on the La Pointe sector where a gold zone (Zone 25) has already been identified. Drilling on the
northwest extension of Zone 25 returned an intersection of 1.87 gpt gold over 27 m.
Azimut Exploration/SOQUEM Strategic Alliance The alliance led to the acquisition of four properties following regional-scale mineral potential modelling over 176,300 square km by Azimut. The properties cover 658 square km and display strong multi-element geochemical footprints for gold in lake-bottom sediments, along with favourable geophysical, geological and structural criteria. “We try to address the exploration risk at the very early stages of the project by outlining the best targets possible through data processing and reduce the business risk by involving good partners,” said Lulin of the company’s strategy. While S&P Global expects worldwide exploration spending to decline another 20-25 per cent in 2016 from a six-year low of US$9.2 billion in 2015, exploration in Quebec – particularly in the Abitibi and James Bay gold camps – appears to be attracting more attention, according to drilling activity monitored by the market analytics group. If the activity translates into discoveries, Quebec may find itself back at the top of the rankings for investment, a position that has eluded la belle province for the past five years. CIM December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 57
Courtesy of De Beers Canada
project profile
A
BRILLIANT START After a rocky year, De Beers Canada is closing out 2016 on
BY KELSEY ROLFE
a positive note with the opening of Gahcho Kué. The mine,
the newest producer in the Northwest Territories, adds more shine to the constellation of diamond operations in the Far North. Allan Rodel can remember the exact time the first diamonds at Gahcho Kué were recovered – likely because it was in the wee hours of the morning. “We were there the night before, hoping to see the first diamonds,” he recalled. Rodel – Gahcho Kué’s project head – and his team stayed up nearly all night on June 29 waiting, but to no avail. On June 30 around 4 a.m., nearly two months after the commissioning phase began, the first diamonds were recovered in the sort house. Later that morning when the whole team had gathered “we had a good look at the stones,” said Rodel. “That was a very special moment for the team.” Just over 20 years in the making, the Gahcho Kué diamond mine in the Northwest Territories, located 280 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife, could not have come of age at a better time. In the months before the mine’s official opening in September, De Beers Canada put its first arctic diamond mine, the unprofitable and technically challenging Snap Lake, up for sale after placing it on care and maintenance at the end of 2015, and announced it would halt the extension project at its Victor diamond mine in Ontario until it got support from the Attawapiskat First Nation, on whose land the mine is located. Gahcho Kué, a joint venture between De Beers Canada (51 per cent) and Mountain Province Diamonds (49 per cent), will help offset its parent company’s lowered diamond production. It is also a headline-maker in its own right; Left: The mining operation will develop three kimberlite pipes, which were first discovered two decades ago.
expected to produce 54 million carats during its life, Gahcho Kué is the largest new diamond mine in the world to be constructed in more than a decade. And with an estimated 4.5 million carats-per-year production, it will account for around three per cent of the world’s diamond market. With three kimberlite pipes to mine over its current 12year lifespan, Gahcho Kué will likely outlast nearby Diavik, and De Beers Canada CEO Kim Truter is hopeful it could even surpass Dominion Diamond’s Ekati, which recently had its mine life extended to 2033 with the Jay Pipe expansion. “At the moment our approved mine plan for Gahcho Kué goes out until 2028 and we think there are options to extend it, maybe until 2035,” he said. “We’re hoping that we can be mining at Gahcho Kué for the next 20 years.” The economic impact for the territory — and for Canada — is likely to be substantial. According to numbers from the De Beers Canada impact report, prepared by Ernst & Young, the mine is expected to inject an estimated $5.7 billion into the territorial economy. A socioeconomic agreement signed with the territorial government has set a target to draw 55 per cent of the mine’s employees from within the Northwest Territories. The mine has also signed Impact Benefit Agreements (IBAs) with six local First Nations, and has set targets for indigenous employment and contract sourcing. Currently the mine has a workforce of 333, excluding contractors; 46 per cent are from N.W.T., 20 per cent are indigenous and 14 per cent are women. By the end of next year there are expected to be around 550 employees and contractors at the site. December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 59
Courtesy of De Beers Canada
The company’s first foray into arctic diamond mining was a struggle; in addition to being plagued by water management issues, Snap Lake’s kimberlite deposit is more like a plate than the carrot-shaped kimberlite deposits common in diamond mining, and thus required a costly and complex underground mining method. But Gahcho Kué is a more conventional mine. All three deposits will be mined from the surface with a truck-and-shovel method at a mining rate of 100,000 tonnes per day and processing plant throughput of three million tonnes per year, and Truter said there is
Project specs Capex $1.02 billion Current mine life 12 years Project commissioning June, 2016
potential to eventually go underground. “[It’s a] much easier mine [than Snap Lake], it’s got a much lower cost structure,” Truter said, “and on the face of it, the mine looks like it will be much more typical of the Diavik and the Ekati-type configuration.” Mined material will be treated at the processing plant by crushing, screening, dense media separation and X-ray sorting. “We use single-particle sorters, which are laser machines and are really unique to De Beers,” Rodel said. The diamondrich concentrate is hand-sorted on site and sent to Yellowknife for cleaning and government evaluation. The mine’s fine tailings (crushed and ground kimberlite) will be stored in what Rodel calls a “processed kimberlite containment facility” on site for the first five years, at which point it will be shut down and both fine and coarse tailings will start being deposited in the mined-out Hearne open pit, along with waste rock. The 5034 pit, when it has been fully mined, will also act as tailings storage, a new approach in the N.W.T diamond mining industry designed to minimize the amount of land disturbed. The plan, Rodel said, is to do “ongoing reclamation” over the life of the mine; both the coarse and fines processed kimberlite facilities will be reclaimed progressively during operations, and the lake will be refilled after the mine has stopped producing.
The icy road to production
Projected commercial production Q1 2017 Throughput 3 Mt/year Probable Mineral Reserve estimate (3/31/2014) Pipe
Tonnes (Mt)
Carats (Mct)
Grade (cpt)
5034
13.4
23.2
1.74
Hearne
5.6
11.7
2.07
Tuzo
16.4
20.6
1.25
Total
35.4
55.5
1.57
Average annual production 4.4 million carats Operating expense for processed ore (estimated avg.) $71.68/tonne Net present value $2 billion Rough diamond price assumption US$182/carat 60 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
The Gahcho Kué project began in 1995 when Mountain Province discovered the first kimberlite pipe, now the 5034 deposit – the first to be mined at the site. Two years later in mid-1997 De Beers Exploration, which had already signed a joint venture agreement with Mountain Province, discovered three additional pipes in the area: the soonto-be-mined Hearne and Tuzo deposits, and the Telsa deposit, which Truter said “didn’t quite make the grade” to be mined, for economic reasons. Like its sister diamond mines in the area, Gahcho Kué’s location presented logistical challenges the team needed to manage, from the arctic environment and remote location to the dewatering of Kennady Lake, under which the three deposits were found.
Courtesy of De Beers Canada
project profile
The results of environmental monitoring are reported to a committee made up of members from local indigenous communities.
The harsh cold of the N.W.T.’s winter – the average temperature during the season’s coldest months is -30 C – meant the company needed to maximize its productivity in the summer months, and made pre-fabricated structures a necessity. Tasks as seemingly simple as pouring cement needed to be completed during small windows of time to keep construction moving smoothly. “There are a whole lot of things you can’t necessarily do in the winter, so that makes the project execution quite tough,” Truter said. “Because you’ve got to identify those windows of opportunity and then make sure you execute very, very well in those windows.” Buildings, delivered in parts on the winter road, were erected and enclosed in the summer, allowing work to continue inside the buildings during the winter. Gahcho Kué’s accommodations facility was made up almost entirely of prefabricated modules, the site’s power plant consisted of five modules and the metallurgical laboratory also had several. Some of the mine’s fleet was also disassembled into smaller pieces in order to be trucked up the ice road to the site and reassembled there. The ice road itself, reaching in excess of 40 inches thick and 120 kilometres long, is a spur off the road to Snap Lake that is only open in February and March each year. De Beers Canada estimates that around 2,100 loads of fuel, construction supplies, mining equipment and other materials are delivered on the road each year. “The way the winter road manifests practically is it means that you’ve got to really think through the long lead times,”
Truter said. It requires the planners to think upwards of a year ahead for what supplies will be needed – and there is no room for deviation or last-minute whims. “Most of the big-ticket items all come up the winter road and you stage them correctly so they get delivered to site in the right sequence,” added Rodel. Bulk supplies like fuel and explosives are also brought up the winter road, and there is enough storage space on site for a full year’s usage. Fuel is one area where De Beers was limited by the constraints of Gahcho Kué’s location. Both the mine and its entire fleet are diesel-powered, requiring the company to bring up around 47 million litres of diesel during the 2017 ice road season. An all-season road to the site may have allowed for a different energy mix, Truter said, but one never came together. However, the company is getting creative by using waste oil burners to generate heat through the burning of used engine oil, and capturing additional waste heat from the site’s five generators, to heat the offices and camp spaces through a glycol system rather than baseboard heating, which also consumes diesel fuel. To get access to the deposits, Kennady Lake needed to be fished out and dewatered. In 2014 and 2015, fish-out teams, made up of community members and biologists, caught 18,400 fish from the lake; the large ones were cleaned, filleted and frozen on site and given to nearby communities for events, stocking communal freezers. The smaller fish were provided to local dog teams. December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 61
The dewatering process is an ongoing one; during the construction phase, Rodel said, the mine was allowed to dewater around 18.6 million cubic metres to lower sectionedoff parts of lakes to expose the kimberlite using a series of dykes. Ten have been constructed so far. During the mine life, 3.45 million cubic metres can be discharged per year if the site meets stringent requirements set by the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board. The process involved installing pumps and de-watering systems in the middle of winter, which Rodel said required “very, very focused” work. A series of 14 dykes will be used to manage the surface water on the mine site. Rodel said the mining pre-strip work has presented some “very unique” challenges, because the team is mining the lake bottom, “pre-strip mining involved using plating and smaller equipment to safely and efficiently remove the surface till material.”
Off on the right foot The company has a full-time environmental monitor on site representing the Ni Hadi Xa monitoring committee, an environmental stewardship committee made up of the six indigenous communities. The monitor reports directly to the committee and ensures the company meets its permit requirements; the program also includes monitors who use traditional
knowledge of the water, land and wildlife to track Gahcho Kué’s environmental impacts on the area. “You can’t have it any more transparent than having somebody at your site working in your team ensuring that you stick to the rules,” Rodel said. The company also has wildlife and habitat management plans for caribou, grizzly bears, wolverines and birds. Gahcho Kué is off to an auspicious start. The mine began ramping up to production two months ahead of schedule within its $1-billion budget, and already has two awards under its belt; the site was named Project of the Year for Hatch’s project management from the Quebec Association of Professionals in Project Management’s (PMI) Montreal Chapter, and won the workplace health and safety award from the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce. And despite the current plateau in the price of diamonds, Truter said he sees a sparkling future for the commodity. “The long-term fundamentals of the diamond industry are very solid,” he said. “When you compare it to other commodities, we’re part of one of the few industries where long term we do not appear to be able to match demand.” And within the industry, Truter said, Gahcho Kué stands out among its peers. “It’s a very high-margin operation...and we’ve got multiple pipes, which is actually really important,” he said. “Gahcho Kué really is the future of the Northwest Territories.” CIM
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62 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
H E AV Y E Q U I P M E N T
| technology
Precision and power Today’s electric-drive heavy haulers, with more precise controls and greater efficiency, are equal parts brawn and brain By Eavan Moore
n the 20-odd years since large electric-drive haul trucks first started appearing on mine sites, the electric design concept has come to dominate the market for trucks of 200 or more tons (181 tonnes). But there is always room for improvement. Recent designs from some major manufacturers make use of improved technology, put existing technology in new configurations, and make the trucks safer and smoother to use. In today’s mine haul truck drives, electric is synonymous with alternating current motors. Komatsu America Corporation switched its last electric truck from direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC) in 2014 with the introduction of the 730E-8. “I doubt you will ever see another DC drive mining truck be released by anybody going forward,” said Tom Stedman, product manager of mining trucks at Komatsu. AC drives are lighter, brushless, easier to maintain and more reliable than their DC counterparts.
Courtesy of Caterpillar
I
Caterpillar expanded its electric drive options with the introduction of the 291-tonne 794AC model.
Fuel and emissions Over time, AC drive technology has seen incremental improvements. Stedman said that faster, smaller microprocessors have promoted better fuel economy. “That advancement over the last five to eight years has allowed us to really finetune the engine output power to the demand from the drive system,” he said. “So there’s very little variation now between what the engine is putting out at any given time and what the drive system needs to optimize its performance.” One of Komatsu’s mining customers, he said, had seen a four-per cent reduction in fuel use as a result. The latest and biggest change to the Komatsu 930E was driven by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Tier 4 Final engine requirements, which come into effect on Jan. 1, 2018. The Cummins engines in the truck’s fifth-generation design reduce particulate matter emissions down to 0.04 grams per kilowatt hour. “Currently our plan is to have the 930E-5 commercially available in the second half of 2017,” said Stedman. As the truck model most popular in the United States and Canada, it will be the first to comply with Tier 4 Final standards. Komatsu is also developing a Tier 4 Final 830E, a 240-ton (217-tonne) truck also heavily used in North America. December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 63
Courtesy of Hitachi
The newest updates on Hitachi’s 221-tonne EH4000AC-3 include enhanced object detection features.
“There’s also talk about Australia implementing emission standards which would be equivalent to the U.S. EPA,” said Stedman. “So you may see in two or three years that trucks going to Australia will have the same requirements for emissions – particularly eastern Australia, where the population base is.” The engine is not the only new feature on the 930E-5. “We have removed the mechanical fan that we had for cooling the wheel motors and control group. We’ve also updated the dynamic retarding cooling fans. All machine cooling requirements are now managed through AC driven cooling fans,” said Stedman. The AC motor is more efficient and reliable, according to Stedman. The other advantage to the AC motor is that it allows the cooling fans to run only when needed. “If you have a fan blade that’s direct drive from something, that fan is going to turn the same all the time,” said Stedman. “It’s a mechanical connection. So let’s say you’re working at night, or maybe you’re working in Canada and it’s winter time, and you really don’t need much cooling air. What you can do with the AC motors is, you can have sensors on the truck that sense the temperature of all the components, and it can tell the computer, ‘This isn’t hot right now, so turn that fan off.’” That removes some of the load from the drive system, which can then use less fuel. “That’s a big upgrade, we think,” said Stedman. “And all the Tier 4 model change products will have that technology.”
Safety and control A recent update at Hitachi Construction & Mining Division looks at things from the operator’s perspective, enhancing its 360-degree object detection immediately around the truck. “The updated system now not only has a peripheral vision, but 64 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
also has an audible alarm and a visual indication on the screen if there are any objects within close range,” said Brian Mace, manager of mining product marketing and applications at Hitachi. When the truck is traveling, an additional system warns the operator and, if needed, acts to avoid any potential collisions. This system appears on the 221-tonne EH4000AC-3 introduced in 2014. Like other AC-3 trucks, it uses a drive system built completely by Hitachi. Free communication between engineers in different departments “allowed us to create some interesting and unique features on the truck,” said Mace. The advantage of any AC drive setup is that each wheel motor can be controlled independently. For example, as Komatsu’s Stedman explained, if one wheel is spinning too fast, the system can reduce power to that wheel alone. Komatsu uses this to enhance traction and prevent brakes locking up in wet conditions. Hitachi’s current assemblage of control features includes something similar, as well as pitch control, which helps limit rebounding when the truck hits a bump or stop, and a sideskid control feature that helps the operator steer the truck while turning. Mace noted that this is helpful not only to smooth out operators’ rides, but also to optimize autonomous haulage, which Hitachi is working on right now.
New sizes Manufacturers have been filling in the size gaps in their lines. In spring 2016, Komatsu introduced a 400-ton (363tonne) truck, the 980E-4. “We got a lot of inquiries from customers about ‘Why don’t you guys do a 400-ton?’” said Stedman. That is the high end of the spectrum for Komatsu, Caterpillar and Liebherr, although the Belarusian company Belaz has been delivering an even larger truck, the 496-tonne Belaz 75710, since 2014. Meanwhile, Liebherr and Caterpillar added smaller sizes. Liebherr’s new 100-tonne T236 comes equipped with an update on the Litronic Plus AC drive system. According to Liebherr, it is, “the first diesel electric truck in class incorporating an oil immersed braking system with four corner retarding capabilities.” With its payload capacity of 291 tonnes, the new Caterpillar 794 AC is smaller than the 795F AC, Caterpillar’s first electric-drive truck, and comparable to the Komatsu 930E. It consists of a chassis originally developed by Unit Rig (since acquired by Cat) and the power train from the 795. Caterpillar has been slower to adopt electric drives than its competitors. Sudhanshu Singh, product manager of large mining trucks, contests the claim that electric drive is inherently superior. “While AC technology, compared to DC, has
Courtesy of Komatsu
Liebherr’s new improved electric drive 100-tonne T236 he said, “the efficiency,” offers the second fact remains that generation of the company’s mechanical drive in a Litronic Plus AC truck application still drive system. delivers the highest system efficiency.” Singh said that the new electric drive truck was introduced to make it easier for customers to switch from similar competitors’ trucks. Caterpillar has other philosophical differences with its competitors. Across manufacturers, new truck models use insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs) to vary the voltage sent to the motor. But the 794 AC uses IGBTs with a comparatively high voltage rating. “In general, the lower the voltage rating of an IGBT, the lower the cost,” said John Ingle, marketing and performance manager of large mining trucks at Caterpillar. But the lower the voltage, the more IGBTs need to be connected to meet a large truck’s power demand. The sentiment at Caterpillar is that the additional power cables and busbars overcomplicate vehicle servicing. More importantly, higher voltage means lower current, which means less heat generation, smaller components and longer component life. Like any well-appointed heavy equipment, all of these trucks come with basic monitoring systems as standard. At Cat, the Vital Information Management System 3G is included in the base machine, as is a cab display and a payload management system that stores payload and productivity data. Other systems, like the offboard software and the more extensive MineStar suite, are optional. On Hitachi’s trucks, said Mace, “There’s always historical information of the operation, alarms, faults, payload historical data. Obviously there’s going to be some GPS information on there. And all that information is stored on the truck.” From there, accessing the data is up to the customer. Mace said that in the last few years, customers have started wirelessly downloading it from the truck. Other options for accessing the data include Hitachi’s telematics services and whatever management system the mine has put in place. Komatsu’s KomTrax Plus uses satellite communications to broadcast web-accessible information from its large mining trucks. Alongside actual heat, pressure and other readings, the system maintains a history of normal operating parameters. The service and support program comes stan-
| technology Courtesy of Liebherr
H E AV Y E Q U I P M E N T
Komatsu’s 930E-5 will dard, as does the payload monitoring be commercially system PLM IV, which stores payload, available later in 2017. cycle times, load count and fault The new model will use AC motor cooling codes. fans rather than Within the last two years, mechanical ones. Komatsu has expanded to big data collection at several mine sites to meet demand for real-time analytics. This is still a niche project, but Stedman considers it the way of the future – in his view, one best suited to electric trucks. “You can do that with a mechanical drive,” said Stedman, “but we feel that the electric drive system provides a better platform to gather a great deal of information and we feel that information is inherently more precise.” The engineers at Caterpillar, which has big data projects of its own, might disagree. But it seems clear, given customer demand and the work to date, that electric drive trucks will continue to provide a platform for innovation. CIM December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 65
An Introduction to Cutoff Grade: Theory and Practice in Open Pit and Underground Mines (with a new section on blending optimization strategy) Cut-off grades are essential in determining the economic feasibility and mine life of a project. The fundamentals of cut-off grade calculation, first established by Ken Lane forty years ago, are revisited. In this course it is shown how direct and indirect costs, opportunity costs imposed by operational constraints, and other factors, such as political risk, legal, environmental and regulatory requirements, must be taken into account. Mathematical equations are developed and graphical analytical methods are displayed, which can be used to solve most cut-off grade estimation problems. It is shown how minimum cut-off grades are estimated and how they must be modified to take into account constraints imposed by mine or mill capacity, or by limits on sales volumes. Multiple practical examples are given, illustrating the role of cut-off grades in mine planning, in allocating material to different processes, in optimizing mill operating conditions, and in poly-metallic deposits.
INSTRUCTOR Jean-Michel Rendu, JMR Consultants, USA • DATE To be determined for 2017 • LOCATION Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Geostatistical Mineral Resource Estimation and Meeting the New Regulatory Environment: Step by Step from Sampling to Grade Control This course is designed according to the latest regulations on public reporting of Mineral Resources. It aims at showing how state-of-the-art statistical and geostatistical techniques help answer the requirements of those regulations in an objective and reproducible manner. A particular emphasis is put on understanding sampling and estimation errors and how to assign levels estimation confidence through the application of resource classification fundamentals. In addition to a solid introduction to mining geostatistics this course provides a comprehensive overview of industry’s best practices in the broader field of Mineral Resource estimation.
INSTRUCTORS Marcelo Godoy, Newmont Mining Corp., Denver; Jean-Michel Rendu, JMR Consultants, USA; Roussos Dimitrakopoulos, McGill University, Canada; and Guy Desharnais, SGS Canada Inc., Canada • DATE September 11-13, 2017 • LOCATION Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Optimization and Risk Management in Strategic Mine Planning: Unearthing Material Value in Mining Complexes Growing volatility and uncertainty in global metal markets highlight the need to focus on new technologies that can unveil significant value and reliability to the performance of mining operations. This three-day course explores the foundations of strategic mine planning and stresses the new generation of applied technologies related to: (a) simultaneous optimization of integrated mining and processing operations, and (b) orebody risk management with new stochastic mine planning optimization developments.
INSTRUCTORS Roussos Dimitrakopoulos and Ryan Goodfellow, McGill University, Canada; and Joe Kraft, Minemax, USA • DATE September 13-15, 2017 • LOCATION Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Quantitative Mineral Resource Assessments: An Integrated Approach to Planning for Exploration Risk Reduction Learn about exploration risk analysis for strategic planning. Understand how to demonstrate how operational mineral deposit models can reduce uncertainties; make estimates of the number of undiscovered deposits; and integrate the information and examine the economic possibilities. INSTRUCTOR Don Singer, USA • DATE October 2017 • LOCATION Montreal, Quebec, Canada
obituaries
Gone but not forgotten Compiled by Tom DiNardo and Cecilia Keating
At the end of each year, we at CIM like to remember those of our members who have passed. Many of the people below were illustrious figures in the mining industry and dedicated to the institute. Our thoughts are with their family and friends as we mourn the loss of these valued members of our community.
Laxman M. Amaratunga, a retired professor of engineering at Laurentian University, passed away May 16, 2016. Known as “Dr. Lucky,” he joined CIM in 1982, two years after immigrating to Canada, and was a CIM Fellow and CIM Life Member. Laxman also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Mineral Processors society (CMP). Clinton D. A. Dahlstrom passed away Jan. 16, 2015. He was a CIM member since 1951 and a CIM Life Member. Alan Lawrence French passed away on Dec. 16, 2015, at the age of 81. Alan operated mining equipment company Canun International, and was president of the Canadian Association of Mining Equipment and Services for Export (CAMESE). He joined CIM in 1985 and became a Life Member in 2011. Robert Gannicott, one of the pioneers and champions of Canada’s diamond industry, passed away at the age of 69 on Aug. 3, 2016, in London, England. He is best known for his work at Dominion Diamond Corp., where he worked from 1992 until his death. He was CEO until 2015, overseeing key deals including the purchase and then sale of the Harry Winston diamond retail business and the acquisition of the Ekati mine near Diavik. (For a full obituary, see “Dominion Diamond co-founder Robert Gannicott dead at 69” in the September/October 2016 issue of CIM Magazine.)
Richard H. Lloyd passed away April 13, 2015. He was a CIM Life Member, having joined CIM in 1965. Albert Roy MacLean, a CIM Life Member, passed away at the age of 88 on Jan. 26, 2016, in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Roy began his career as a mining engineer at Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation and was employed for over 40 years with DEVCO, retiring in 1992. He co-founded the Men of the Deeps, North America’s only coal miners’ chorus. Albert joined CIM in 1951. Jean-Pierre Major passed away in Laval, Quebec, on Dec. 12, 2015, at the age of 75. He was a CIM member since 2010. Robert Gorden McElhanney passed away in Linhaven, Ontario, in his 99th year on Oct. 11, 2015. Robert served as a Flight Lieutenant in the RCAF from 1942 to 1945, before working at Dorr Oliver in Canada and the United States, retiring as a senior vice-present of the international divisions. He was a CIM Life Member, joining CIM in 1940. Hugh James McQueen, CIM Life Member, passed away on Dec. 17, 2015, in Montreal. Born in 1933, he taught engineering at Montreal’s Concordia University for 47 years, where he published hundreds of research papers and initiated a program of courses on the social and ethical aspects of engineering. He joined CIM in 1962.
Peter H. Grimley passed away in Orangeville, Ontario, on June 1, 2016, at the age of 83. He joined CIM in 1970 and was a CIM Life Member.
Ken Meikle, a CIM member since 1982, passed away in August 2016.
Victor F. Harrison, a CIM member since 1954, passed away in Ottawa on March 15, 2015, at the age of 96. He spent his career working for Energy, Mines and Resources Canada (now Natural Resources Canada). Victor was a CIM Life Member.
Lawrence (Larry) Meyer passed away at the age of 58 in Toronto on Sept. 17, 2015. Larry worked at Parts HeadQuarters for over 25 years, eventually becoming both partner and vice-president. He became a member of CIM in 1994.
Walter Arthur Kropp passed away April 17, 2016. He was a CIM member since 2003.
Donald M. Morrison, a CIM member since 1959, passed away on Aug. 14, 2016. He was a CIM Life Member.
Serge Lévesque passed away at the age of 59 on April 9, 2016, in Quebec City. His last role was director of technical services at Stratum Group. Prior to that he worked at Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd and Langlois mine. He joined CIM in 1978.
Terrence (Terry) Mulligan passed away on Nov. 6, 2016, at the age of 83. Terry served as the president and CEO of the Mining Suppliers Association of BC for 22 years. He became a CIM member in 1958 and was a CIM Life Member. December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 67
Frank Petkovich passed away in Sudbury, Ontario, on Oct. 26, 2016. He entered the mining industry as a research metallurgist for Falconbridge Nickel Mines, where he ended up working for 34 years, rising to the level of management. He was a CIM Life Member, first joining in 1956. Anant Prasad, CIM Life Member, passed away on July 6, 2016, at the age of 80. Anant worked with geotechnical engineering firm Terracon for 14 years and retired in 2015 as the company’s vice-president of HSE and HR. He also served in senior technical and managerial roles at Imperial Oil, Kaiser Resources, the province of Alberta, and the Iron Ore Company of Canada. He joined CIM in 1967. Harold E. Rudd, CIM Life Member, passed away at the age of 101 in Toronto on Jan. 31, 2016. After a stint with the Canadian Army in WWII, which took him to England, he worked at Macleod Cockshutt Gold Mines for many years before
working for Patino NV Mines, serving as president from 1976 until 1980. After retirement, Harold worked as a mining consultant for Watts, Griffis and McOuat. He joined CIM in 1948. Arthur Schwartz passed away Nov. 15, 2015. He joined CIM in 1966 and was a CIM Life Member. B. P. Wallace, a CIM member since 1964, passed away on Nov. 14, 2015. He was a CIM Life Member. John Oliver Wheeler passed away on May 24, 2015, in West Vancouver, at the age of 90. John joined CIM in 1966 and was a Life Member. He had a long and rewarding career with the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), mapping mountain ranges in Yukon and British Columbia for 25 years. He served as Deputy Director General of the GSC, and compiled the Geological Map of North America as an emeritus research scientist.
Please send memorial notices of CIM members to membership@cim.org.
David Robertson, a giant of geology By Tom DiNardo
David S. Robertson, a well-respected geologist and CIM Past President (19931994), passed away Oct. 27, 2016, in Toronto. Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on March 3, 1924, David graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1946 with a degree in physical chemistry and geology and went on to receive his PhD in geology from Columbia University in 1949. After graduating, he became an assistant professor at the University of Virginia. David moved to Sudbury, Ontario, in 1951 to run the geological research laboratory of Inco. Then in 1953, he moved to Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he was in charge of a post-WWII Marshall Plan mapping initiative. He returned to Canada in 1955 and joined the consulting firm GMX Corporation, of which he became the president in 1958. During his time with GMX, he led an exploration team that discovered numerous uranium deposits in Elliot Lake, Ontario. In 1965, David founded David Robertson & Associates, a mining consulting practice based in Toronto with offices 68 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
around the world. His firm became well-known for its work in uranium and potash. David retired from the firm in 1987. For the next 20 years, he continued working as an independent consultant and served on the boards of junior and senior mining companies. He was the founding chairman of Ashton Mining of Canada and Meridian Gold. David was a towering figure in the mining industry. In 2014, he was inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame. He was also particularly involved in CIM, serving as CIM President from 1993 to 1994 and eventually becoming a CIM Life Member. “For me, Dr. Robertson was a strong inspiration and also a great source of validation in my early years at CIM,” said executive director Jean Vavrek. “He continued to stay connected and provide feedback and encouragement until recent years.” David is survived by his daughters Jennifer, Joanna (Tony) and Julia (James), and grandchildren Colin, Alexandra, Gemma, Lachlan, AJ and Graeme. He is also leaving behind his younger brother George, nieces Susan (Frank) and Pam (Bruce), and grandniece and grandnephew, Lauren and Thomas. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in David’s memory to the CIM Foundation for the David S. Robertson Scholarship Fund. For more information, please contact Deborah Sauvé at 514-939-2710 ext. 1334 or dsauve@cim.org.
obituaries
Lud Strah, a founding father of CMP By Don Worth, FCIM
Courtesy of the Strah family
Ludwig (Lud) Strah passed away at the Temiskaming Hospital on Oct. 26, 2016, at the age of 83. He was born in 1933 and raised in Rouyn-Noranda, where his father worked for Noranda. Lud prepared himself for a career in mining by graduating from the Haileybury School of Mines (HSM) in 1953 and obtaining his Professional Engineer designation in 1971. He started out as a miner and then as a shift boss at the Quemont mine in Quebec and then moved to Elliot Lake, Ontario, to work as an engineer for Denison Mines. After brief stints with Siscoe mines and Sorel Steel, he took a position with Mine Equipment Ltd. as a sales representative, which provided an opportunity to learn about mining operations countrywide. In the late 1960s he acquired Lecky Machinery and NorLecky Manufacturing, and in 1970 formed Continental Mine Equipment Ltd. Lud always considered involvement in CIM an important element in career development. At the national level, he
assisted Bernard Coulombe on efforts to increase membership and was an active member of the Haileybury CIM branch. He was one of the founders of the Canadian Mineral Processors society (CMP) and was a faithful participant at its annual conference. Lud was also a strong supporter of HSM, where he was a founding member of its alumni association and established a scholarship in the name of Continental Mining Equipment. My last encounter with Lud and his wife Patricia was last year when they came to our home for Christmas dinner. After the meal, I happened to ask if he could name three people who were particularly helpful in establishing his career. Without hesitation he named Alex Ballachey of Quemont, David Rankin of Mine Equipment and Oswald Walli of HSM. Lud will be especially missed by his dear wife Patricia, his lovely children Nancy Gorman and Michael Strah, along with his precious grandchildren Rachel Sillers and Almita Strah, and his brother-in-law Bob Leng.
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SECTION francophone 71 Lettre de l’éditeur | Mot du président 72 Le point sur les modifications aux lois minières 75 La Cour supérieure du Québec statue sur les dans le monde entier Par Eavan Moore
revendications territoriales des Innus
Par Joel Barde
76 Le Québec et ses trésors inexplorés
Aux quatre coins du monde, l'exploration est stagnante, mais les campements des mines d'or du Québec dans les régions de l'Abitibi et de la baie James offrent une lueur d'espoir au bout d'un tunnel autrement bien sombre
81 Un démarrage brillant Gahcho Kué, la mine Par Virginia Heffernan
de diamants la plus récente des Territoires du Nord-Ouest, promet à De Beers Canada un avenir étincelant Par Kelsey Rolfe
La version française intégrale du CIM Magazine est disponible en ligne : magazine.CIM.org/fr-CA
lettre de l’éditeur
mot du président
Une période intéressante La destruction Le soir des élections américaines, j’ai tenu bon jusqu’à un peu après minuit avant de finalement éteindre le téléviseur et d’arrêter d’écouter les commentateurs se démener à tenter d’expliquer le comment et le pourquoi de la situation alors que les États clés basculaient du côté de Donald Trump. Même s’il ne faut jurer de rien, les années à venir semblent particulièrement angoissantes, alors que nous attendons et surveillons quelles affirmations audacieuses de ce candidat de protestation, maintenant élu à la présidence, seront concrétisées dans des politiques et quelles en seront les conséquences. Le fait qu’un candidat politique ne respecte pas la plupart de ses promesses devrait calmer certaines craintes. Beaucoup de gens retiennent leur souffle en raison de l’imprudence de certaines des déclarations de Donald Trump, qui peuvent maintenant trouver un appui au sein du pouvoir de la présidence américaine. Par exemple, sa promesse de ressusciter l’industrie du charbon américaine s’est traduite par une hausse du prix des actions des sociétés de charbon à la suite de son élection. Cependant, comme le souligne Cecilia Keating dans son article postélectoral intitulé Campaign promises and economic pressure, les observateurs du marché ont des doutes quant à savoir si l’influence présidentielle de Donald Trump peut changer l’orientation de l’industrie du charbon nationale (p. 16). Par contre, la nomination de Scott Pruitt à la tête de l’Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) envoie un signal clair aux mineurs de charbon qu’ils peuvent désormais compter sur quelqu’un qui défendra leurs intérêts. La National Mining Association prétend que les règles de l’EPA ont causé beaucoup plus de dommages à la prospérité de l’industrie du charbon que le gaz naturel bon marché. M. Pruitt, procureur général de l’Oklahoma, s’est opposé sans relâche à l’EPA et a intenté une poursuite, actuellement devant les tribunaux, contre le gouvernement fédéral pour réglementations excessives. Si le deuxième émetteur de dioxyde de carbone en importance dans le monde se retire des efforts coordonnés à l’échelle mondiale pour réduire les émissions, quelles seront les conséquences? Tout comme les experts le soir des élections, je suis un peu perplexe, mais puisque nous sommes à la veille du Nouvel An, je vais tenter une prédiction : si de tels accords internationaux sont mis de côté et que les responsables de l’EPA se consacrent à les rompre, l’impasse récente au sujet du Dakota Access Pipeline ne sera que le début d’une suite sans fin de confrontations publiques autour de projets de ressources. Qui peut profiter d’une telle situation?
Ryan Bergen, Rédacteur en chef editor@cim.org @Ryan_CIM_Mag
de nos cathédrales En juin 1985, j’ai intégré l’équipe de la mine Con, à Yellowknife. Elle atteignait une profondeur de 6 240 pieds (1 840 mètres), soit le point le plus bas du puits Robertson. Les activités de la mine Con ont débuté en 1938 et l’approfondissement du puits a permis de poursuivre son exploitation jusqu’en 2003. En définitive, la mine a produit plus de cinq millions d’onces d’or et généré des emplois au fil de quatre générations. Du haut de ses 76 mètres, le chevalement Robertson, couronné d’acier orange, était la plus grande structure des Territoires du Nord-Ouest. Il constituait également un point de repère important pour les pilotes et les plaisanciers qui naviguaient sur le Grand lac des Esclaves. Le 31 octobre 2016, on a dynamité ce monument, malgré les efforts que de nombreux résidents de Yellowknife avaient déployés pour le préserver. D’un océan à l’autre, l’exploitation minière a contribué à faire du Canada la grande nation que nous formons aujourd’hui. Les Canadiens ont la réputation de compter parmi les meilleurs mineurs dans le monde entier. Alors que d’autres pays préservent leur histoire grâce à la protection de leurs châteaux, de leurs cathédrales et de leurs pyramides, nous les Canadiens semblons bien décidés à détruire notre patrimoine minier en rasant nos chevalements. Qu’y a-t-il de mal à épargner quelques-unes de nos cathédrales minières? Et les chevalements qui bordent les routes de Timmins? Et la mine Gold Eagle de Red Lake? Et la mine Thompson Lundmark, près de Yellowknife? Lorsque les activités de nos grands sièges d’extraction prendront fin, notamment les mines Creighton, Dome et Kidd, après des décennies, voire un siècle de contribution à la société canadienne, devrons-nous aussi démolir ces chevalements imposants? Grâce aux efforts de l’ICM et d’historiens comme Michael Barnes, Hans Brasch et D. F. Parrot, les Canadiens ont accès à des documents écrits et photographiques sur nos mines. Cette documentation, cependant, ne peut pas se substituer à l’effet puissant qu’exerce la vue d’un chevalement, merveille architecturale unique. Je mets nos sociétés minières, nos intervenants et nos organismes gouvernementaux de réglementation au défi de travailler ensemble afin de trouver des moyens de protéger ces chevalements qui renferment notre histoire minière. Cela ne devrait pas être plus compliqué que le couronnement d’un puits et l’installation d’une clôture robuste autour d’un chevalement! Mes collègues de Sudbury et d’autres ressorts territoriaux se rappelleront ma vision relative à de « nouveaux chevalements à l’horizon », qui constituait un appel à la construction de nouvelles mines. Maintenant, je vous invite à vous joindre à moi pour lancer un appel à la protection de nos chevalements!
Michael Winship, Président de l’ICM @CIMPrez
December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 71
Les actualités Rétrospective juridique de l’année Le point sur les modifications aux lois minières dans le monde entier
Bien que 2016 se soit révélée une autre année difficile pour l’industrie minière, les changements législatifs n’ont pas compté parmi ses plus grands défis, en général. La plupart des gouvernements provinciaux et nationaux ont pris des mesures pour encourager l’activité minière, grâce à des baisses d’impôt ou à des lois plus clémentes. D’autres ressorts territoriaux se sont consacrés à la protection de l’environnement ou au rehaussement des conditions sociales, qui ont reçu un accueil plus mitigé de l’industrie. En Bolivie, le conflit s’est aggravé entre l’administration du président Evo Morales et le sous-secteur des coopératives, groupes miniers réglementés, autogérés et imposés de façon minimale. L’attitude du gouvernement, considérée comme n’étant d’aucune aide dans un climat économique difficile, a déclenché des manifestations en août. Lors de ces événements, plusieurs mineurs ont été abattus par la police, tandis que d’autres manifestants ont enlevé un sous-ministre avant de le battre à mort. Evo Morales a réagi en imposant des mesures de contrôle supplémentaires. Les coopératives doivent répartir également leurs profits entre les membres. Toute personne travaillant pour une coopérative a le droit de se syndiquer et de bénéficier des avantages prévus. De plus, les concessions minières inactives et les coentreprises établies avec des sociétés fermées reviennent de droit à l’État. « Les coopératives ont plutôt eu la vie facile, si on les compare au reste du secteur », a déclaré Arthur Dhont, analyste principal à IHS, société de services financiers établie à Londres, en Angleterre. « Maintenant que les relations se sont détériorées, le gouvernement aura moins tendance à favoriser 72 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Avec l’aimable autorisation du gouvernement de la Colombie-Britannique
Par Eavan Moore
Bill Bennett, ministre de l'énergie et des mines de la Colombie-Britannique, annonçait en juillet les modifications apportées au code minier de la province qui visent à renforcer la sécurité et la surveillance des digues de retenue des résidus suite à la catastrophe de Mount Polley en 2014.
les coopératives au détriment des autres parties prenantes du secteur. Pour les sociétés minières étrangères, cela pourrait se traduire par une augmentation des possibilités de participation à des projets miniers. » Dans plusieurs ressorts territoriaux, des lobbys miniers ont réussi à persuader les gouvernements du caractère gagnant-gagnant des baisses d’impôt. La Zambie a acquiescé à la demande formulée par les travailleurs des mines de cuivre quant à un taux de redevance fondé sur les prix. Depuis avril 2016, un taux de redevance de 4 % s’applique lorsque les prix du cuivre descendent sous les 4 500 $ US la tonne. Ce même taux s’élève à 6 % lorsque les prix dépassent 6 000 $ US la tonne, et il atteint 5 % lorsque les prix se situent dans un intervalle compris entre ces deux seuils de déclenchement. Les taux de redevance relatifs
aux autres métaux communs se sont fixés à 5 % ; les mêmes taux relatifs aux pierres et aux métaux précieux se sont établis à 6 %. En outre, le parlement a éliminé l’impôt variable sur les bénéfices et suspendu un droit d’exportation de 10 % sur les minerais et les concentrés non transformables en Zambie. Mauricio Macri, nouveau président de l’Argentine, a annulé une taxe d’exportation de 5 % sur les produits miniers en février. Selon Brent Bergeron, vice-président directeur, Affaires corporatives et développement durable à Goldcorp, la nouvelle administration a lancé une collaboration entre les ministères et elle insiste fortement sur la transparence des communications avec les sociétés minières. Brent Bergeron estime que l’adoption d’une loi sur le financement public-privé, en novembre, pourrait profiter aux projets d’infrastructure mis en œuvre partout au pays, et notamment par la mine Cerro Negro de Goldcorp. Il prévoit également que la réforme de l’impôt, qui aura lieu l’an prochain, permettra d’établir un lien entre les taxes et le prix de l’or. « On examine les modèles du Chili et du Pérou à l’heure actuelle, pour donner un caractère plus progressiste au système fiscal », a-t-il indiqué. En janvier, l’Alberta a terminé l’examen de ses redevances sur le pétrole et le gaz naturel en instaurant un régime qui vise l’adaptation aux conditions de l’industrie et l’accroissement des revenus au fil du temps. Les taux de redevances se maintiendront à 5 % par puits à l’étape du démarrage de la production. Lorsque les puits arriveront à maturité, ces taux varieront en fonction du revenu moins les coûts. Les puits vieillissants seront assujettis à des redevances réduites. Les nouvelles rede-
les actualités vances s’appliqueront aux puits forés à partir de 2017 ; les redevances actuelles continueront de s’appliquer aux puits plus âgés pendant 10 ans. Le système de redevances sur les sables bitumineux demeurera inchangé. D’après les calculs réalisés en octobre par les économistes Daria Crisan et Jack Mintz, le nouveau régime devrait réduire les taux d’imposition et rehausser la concurrentialité de l’Alberta. Au Canada, le budget fédéral de 2016 a garanti l’entière déductibilité des frais de mise en valeur au cours de l’exercice, en plus de prolonger le crédit d’impôt à l’exploration minière pour une autre année, jusqu’en mars 2017. Quelques ressorts territoriaux ont complètement réformé leur législation minière, ou créé des catégories à partir de zéro. En mai dernier, dans une tentative visant à encourager l’activité minière, le Kenya a remplacé sa loi sur l’extrac-
tion minière (1940 Mining Act) par une législation actualisée. En vertu de cette nouvelle loi, le Kenya a créé un processus de demande de permis en ligne, une société minière d’État, ainsi qu’une bourse des marchandises spécialisée dans les métaux et les minerais. La loi établit des conditions différentes pour les petites et les grandes exploitations. Elle confère des droits de prospection aux sociétés, alors qu’ils se limitaient auparavant aux particuliers. De plus, on a entrepris des travaux d’élaboration des règlements correspondants. Les droits miniers accordés antérieurement seront maintenus selon les conditions actuelles. « Cette disposition fait clairement savoir que le Kenya prend la stabilité des investissements et la sécurité de son mandat au sérieux », a souligné Tim Carstens, directeur administratif de Base Resources, responsable du projet d’exploitation des sables minéralisés de Kwale. Carstens a ajouté qu’une autre disposition impor-
tante prévoit le partage des revenus de redevances avec ce comté, ainsi que les gouvernements communautaires où les activités d’extraction minière ont lieu. La Nouvelle-Écosse a également remanié sa loi sur les ressources minérales (Mineral Resources Act) en mai. La nouvelle loi prolonge la durée des permis d’exploration, qui s’établit maintenant à deux ans au lieu d’un an. Elle rallonge le délai de production sous bail minier, qui s’établira dorénavant à cinq ans (au lieu de deux ans) à l’étape du démarrage. Par ailleurs, elle exige un plan de remise en état et un plan d’engagement des parties intéressées. Enfin, l’ajustement des taux de redevances, qui étaient régis par la loi, sera facilité par leur intégration aux règlements. « Nous sommes satisfaits de l’orientation que le gouvernement a adoptée par rapport aux règlements, après les longues discussions que nous avons eues à ce sujet », a affirmé Sean Kirby, directeur
December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 73
administratif de la Mining Association of Nova Scotia. En novembre, le Luxembourg a adopté une loi qui réglemente l’exploration des ressources spatiales. Cette loi garantit que les sociétés fermées qui explorent des objets proches de la Terre pourront conserver les ressources dont elles feront la découverte, pourvu qu’elles obéissent aux lois internationales et qu’elles obtiennent une autorisation afin d’accomplir leur travail. Le gouvernement a aussi investi 25 millions d’euros dans Planetary Resources, société établie aux États-Unis, dans le cadre d’une initiative de prospection minière des astéroïdes dont le lancement est prévu d’ici à 2020. L’émancipation des Noirs a motivé la proposition de réformes en Afrique. Le ministère des Mines et de l’Énergie de la Namibie a ajouté des conditions à l’obtention et au renouvellement des permis. Parmi ces exigences, mentionnons que des entités namibiennes doivent détenir une par-
ticipation de 5 % dans chaque entreprise titulaire de permis, et que des « Namibiens auparavant désavantagés » (autres que les Blancs aptes au travail) doivent constituer son personnel de gestion dans une proportion d’au moins 50 %. Brandon Munro, directeur général de Bannerman Resources, qui dirige un projet uranifère dans ce pays, a précisé que ces exigences découlent d’une charte minière instaurée volontairement par la Chambre des mines en 2014, et qu’elles sont donc indiscutables. Ce mouvement s’inscrit dans un effort général d’éradication de la pauvreté. À ce titre, le projet de loi publié en février par le bureau du premier ministre encourage la participation des Namibiens désavantagés à tous les secteurs d’activité. L’adoption du projet de loi est prévue pour le printemps 2017, après un long processus de consultation publique. En Afrique du Sud, les efforts déployés par le département des Res-
sources minérales pour intégrer de nouvelles mesures d’émancipation des Noirs à la Charte minière ont continué de rencontrer l’opposition de la Chambre des mines, qui a critiqué sa version préliminaire publiée en avril. En plus d’imposer un alourdissement du fardeau fiscal, la nouvelle Charte minière élève les objectifs d’approvisionnement établis pour les sociétés appartenant à des Noirs. Elle exige également que les mineurs et les fournisseurs cotisent à une agence de transformation et de développement miniers. « Nous avons expliqué que, dans ce cas, on retirerait le financement essentiel à des programmes d’acquisition des compétences, d’éducation communautaire et de formation tertiaire, qui sont mis en œuvre par les entreprises, pour injecter directement ces fonds dans une nouvelle agence gouvernementale dont on n’a pas justifié le mandat ni la structure de gouvernance auprès de l’industrie », a déclaré Memory Johns-
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les actualités tone, porte-parole de la Chambre des mines d’Afrique du Sud. La version préliminaire renferme une disposition proposée en 2015, qui pourrait d’ailleurs être contestée devant les tribunaux : non seulement elle exigerait que les projets miniers en phase de démarrage appartiennent à des Noirs dans une proportion de 26 %, mais aussi qu’on maintienne continuellement ce pourcentage minimal. Des préoccupations environnementales ont engendré la prise de mesures ailleurs dans le monde.
En octobre, le premier ministre du Canada Justin Trudeau a annoncé un plan national de tarification du carbone, dont la mise en œuvre prévue pour 2018 sera déléguée aux provinces et aux territoires. La Colombie-Britannique a modifié son code minier en juillet afin d’améliorer la sécurité et la surveillance des digues à rejets. L’industrie a réservé un accueil favorable à cette mesure à la suite du déversement de la mine Mount Polley, survenu en 2014. Le département de l’Énergie et des Ressources naturelles des Philippines
a suspendu l’exploitation de 10 des 40 mines métallifères du pays et recommandé l’arrêt des activités de 20 autres mines. Le président nouvellement élu Rodrigo Duterte et Regina Lopez, nommée secrétaire à l’Environnement et aux Ressources naturelles, ont indiqué qu’ils adopteraient une approche sévère en vue de satisfaire à des normes environnementales élevées. Regina Lopez a également exprimé son intention de maintenir un moratoire de quatre ans sur les nouveaux projets. ICM
La Cour supérieure du Québec statue sur les revendications territoriales des Innus
la Cour suprême dans le cadre du jugement Nation Tsilhqot’in contre C.-B., qui accordait à la Première Nation un titre ancestral autochtone sur son territoire traditionnel, le juge Davis écrivait que « les droits des peuples autochtones ont toujours été appliqués et le sont encore aujourd’hui sans égard aux frontières provinciales. » Dans une déclaration envoyée par courriel, Claudine Gagnon, porteparole de Rio Tinto, indiquait que l’IOC « a décidé de ne pas déposer de motion pour autorisation d’appel. » La province de Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador, qui est intervenue dans l’affaire, a quant à elle indiqué qu’elle contesterait cette décision. Les Innus ont également mentionné dans leur poursuite le gouvernement de TerreNeuve-et-Labrador et le Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway Co. Inc. (le chemin de fer de la Côte-Nord et du Labrador). D’après James O’Reilly, avocat éminent spécialisé dans les droits des peuples autochtones, dont le cabinet d’avocats O’Reilly and Associates représente les Innus, cette décision pourrait avoir d’importantes répercussions partout au Canada. « Les Premières Nations ne seront pas tenues d’engager deux poursuites différentes, qui sont essentiellement des duplications », indiquait M. O’Reilly, spécifiant que le territoire de nombreuses Premières Nations chevauche les frontières provinciales. Cette poursuite constitue déjà une référence importante pour les tribu-
naux. Traditionnellement, les Premières Nations devaient établir un titre avant d’engager des poursuites contre une société minière, une procédure judiciaire coûteuse contre les gouvernements provinciaux et fédéraux. La poursuite engagée par les Innus, ainsi qu’un procès identique intenté par une Première Nation de Colombie-Britannique contre une autre filiale de Rio Tinto, ont pris le contre-pied de cette procédure. En octobre 2015, la Cour suprême décidait que les Premières Nations pouvaient désormais directement engager des poursuites contre Rio Tinto. Ensemble, ces décisions lancent un « message clair » montrant que les Premières Nations peuvent faire valoir leurs droits devant le système judiciaire, déclarait Justin Connidis, professeur de droit à l’université Queen’s. Pour M. O’Reilly, qui a mené de longues procédures contre HydroQuébec dans les années 1960 et 1970 aux côtés des Cris, la poursuite engagée par les Innus vient confirmer l’importance de mettre en place des ententes inébranlables avec les Premières Nations sur les répercussions et les avantages. « La Cour suprême a évoqué la coexistence, indiquant que l’on peut tous vivre ensemble et en harmonie. C’est une bonne approche, à partir du moment où les Premières Nations ne sont pas mises à l’écart dès que l’on aborde la question du développement des ressources. »
Une décision de la Cour supérieure du Québec pourrait bien établir un précédent jurisprudentiel en permettant au groupe provincial Innu d’intenter un procès à la Compagnie minière IOC de Rio Tinto et ce, malgré que le territoire à l’origine de ce désaccord franchisse les frontières provinciales. Les Innus d’Uashat Mak ManiUtenam et de Matimekush-Lac John prétendent que certaines activités d’IOC empiètent sur leur territoire ancestral. Ils citent notamment les mines de Schefferville (Québec) et de la ville de Labrador ; une voie ferroviaire de 600 kilomètres qui traverse la partie nord-est du Québec et du Labrador ; ainsi qu’un port en eau profonde sur le fleuve St Laurent. La Première Nation réclame 900 millions $ en dommages et intérêts (l’estimation des profits réalisés par les installations de la société depuis 1954) pour les griefs engendrés, qui incluent le déplacement de population et les dommages causés à l’environnement. Rio Tinto demandait aux tribunaux de soustraire de la poursuite des Innus la partie des activités d’IOC menées hors du Québec. Cependant, en vertu de la décision du 19 octobre, le juge Thomas M. Davis a rejeté la requête. Citant la décision rendue en 2014 par
– Joel Barde
December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 75
Avec l’aimable autorisation de Azimut Exploration Inc.
LE QUÉBEC
ET SES TRÉSORS INEXPLORÉS
La majorité des projets de forage au Québec se concentrent sur l'or, ce qui reflète un phénomène mondial.
L’investissement dans l’exploration est, de manière générale, en déclin ; parmi tous les métaux, ce sont cependant les budgets accordés à l’exploration aurifère qui ont le moins souffert. Dans deux régions du Québec particulièrement, à savoir la ceinture aurifère bien établie de l’Abitibi et la région émergente de la baie James, les forages d’exploration vont bon train. Par Virginia Heffernan 76 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
L
a plus récente carte de forage d’exploration du Canada ressemble à une image satellite du pays la nuit : de vastes étendues en monochrome ponctuées de grappes de lumière. Si ces grappes représentaient des zones urbaines, la ceinture de roches vertes de l’Abitibi à cheval entre la frontière du Québec et de l’Ontario pourrait bien être une métropole animée, et la région de la baie James une petite municipalité en plein essor. Malgré le ralentissement mondial qui affecte les investissements dans l’exploration et qui, selon S&P Global Market Intelligence, se poursuivra en 2017, les poches du Québec pourraient bien être sur le point de regonfler. D’après une analyse menée par S&P Global, les activités de forage menées dans cette province représentaient au début de l’année 2016 environ 30 % de la totalité du forage au Canada, et elles atteignaient près de 40 % au mois d’août. Les points névralgiques de la province se trouvent aux extrémités du spectre de l’exploration. Le campement de la baie James est situé à l’extrémité ouest de la province et renferme des projets de développement de zones vertes ; la ceinture bien établie de l’Abitibi, quant à elle, se trouve au sud et comprend plusieurs mines en exploitation. Si l’Abitibi est synonyme d’une certaine sécurité, la baie James attire
plutôt des investisseurs qui acceptent « Cette zone a été (km) au sud de Rouyn-Noranda. de prendre des risques en échange de Rouyn est la consolidation de pludavantage développée, gains potentiels suite à des décousieurs propriétés couvrant une superdans un campement minier vertes ficie de 12 km le long de la faille de mais étant donné les émergeant. Cadillac-Larder, une zone tectonique L’argent et les métaux spéciaux font importante dans la région de l’Abitibi améliorations partie des cibles des projets de forage, qui s’étend d’ouest en est sur 250 km, importantes en matière de Kirkland Lake en Ontario à Valmais la majorité de ces projets au Québec (11 sur les 15 enregistrés en août d’Or au Québec. de teChnologies 2016) se concentrent sur l’or, ce qui Kinross n’avait pas autant investi reflète un phénomène mondial. minières, nous pouvons dans l’Abitibi depuis 1999, l’année où « Les investisseurs comprennent la la société suspendait les activités à sa maintenant aller bien dynamique du secteur aurifère bien mine d’or Macassa du côté ontarien de mieux que celle de n’importe quelle la ceinture. La grande société minière plus profond qu’il y a autre matière première ; ainsi, lorsque n’a pas donné suite à la demande d’un le prix de l’or est à la hausse, ils sont entretien concernant ses projets pour quelques années en prêts à contribuer à l’exploration en Rouyn ; cependant, afin de prendre arrière, tout en participant au financement ou en possession de l’intégralité de la proachetant des actions sur le marché », priété, Kinross est tenue de mener une réalisant enCore des déclarait Gérald Riverin, président de estimation des ressources après avoir bénéfiCes. » Yorbeau Resources, qui a récemment investi 12 millions $ dans l’explorarecueilli 1,28 million $ au titre d’un tion. Durant les 18 premiers mois, – G. Riverin l’entente envisageait un investissement financement par actions accréditives pour ses projets aurifère et de métaux de 3 millions $, dont un forage au diacommuns dans la ceinture de l’Abitibi. mant de 12 500 mètres. Le prix de l’or a considérablement augmenté en début d’an« L’accès à Rouyn par la route est totalement praticable, née, atteignant 1 367 $ US l’once, avant de redescendre à aussi les coûts de forage sont relativement faibles », déclarait 1 300 $ US l’once à la fin du troisième trimestre dans un M. Riverin. « Avec cette somme, Kinross devrait être en contexte où la probabilité d’une hausse des taux d’intérêt de mesure de consacrer des efforts considérables dans l’explorala réserve fédérale américaine augmentait au cœur de condi- tion. » tions économiques plus clémentes dans le pays. Dans la région de la baie James, à 600 km environ de l’AbiD’après Thomson Reuters, on devrait assister à une hausse tibi, plusieurs petites sociétés minières tentent de reproduire du prix de l’or en 2017 à mesure que la demande physique le succès de la découverte d’or à Éléonore par Virginia Gold s’intensifie, pour atteindre le prix moyen de 2010 à 1 420 Mines en 2004 dans des roches métamorphiques à proximité $ US l’once. Dans un sondage récent réalisé par Reuters auprès du contact entre les sous-provinces géologiques La Grande et de 35 analystes et contrepartistes, les prévisions moyennes Opinaca. Selon Goldcorp, qui a acheté Éléonore en 2005 pour annuelles du prix de l’or retomberont légèrement à 1 331 $ US la somme de 420 millions $ US et a lancé la production coml’once si les taux d’intérêt attendus aux États-Unis se concré- merciale en 2015, la capacité de production à la mine devrait tisent. atteindre 7 000 tonnes par jour (t/j) d’ici la fin du premier semestre 2018.
le québeC remonte la pente Après avoir perdu du terrain pendant quelques années en raison des plaintes liées à une bureaucratie conséquente et d’un sentiment hostile envers l’exploitation minière, le Québec semble reprendre sa place parmi les régions les plus intéressantes au monde pour l’exploitation minière et l’exploration. D’après l’enquête mondiale annuelle de l’institut Fraser sur le secteur minier, le Québec et la Saskatchewan étaient les seules provinces canadiennes en 2015 à faire partie des 10 premières provinces minières au monde les plus intéressantes pour un investissement. Le Québec occupait la première place de 2007 à 2010, mais est passé en 11e position en 2012. Un autre indicateur positif pour la province est le retour d’un grand producteur aurifère dans la ceinture de l’Abitibi. Après avoir conclu un marché lui attribuant une participation de 100 % dans le projet, Kinross Gold effectue le forage de la propriété Rouyn de Yorbeau, située à environ 4 kilomètres
un terrain sûr en abitibi La ceinture de l’Abitibi est apparue il y environ 2 800 millions d’années et elle a produit quelque 170 millions d’onces d’or depuis que l’exploitation minière a commencé au siècle dernier. Il s’agit de l’une des plus grandes ceintures de roches vertes de l’Archéen au monde. La plupart des campements dans les exploitations de métaux communs et d’or du côté du Québec, à savoir Malartic, Rouyn-Noranda et Val-d’Or, se situent le long de la zone de faille de Cadillac-Larder orientée est-ouest. D’autres campements bien connus, dont Casa Berardi et Matagami, se situent le long des zones de faille de Casa Berardi et de Sunday Lake dans la partie nord de la ceinture. L’Abitibi a connu plusieurs cycles d’exploration et de développement depuis 1901 et pourrait avoir atteint son apogée en termes de production aurifère ; pourtant, les explorateurs December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 77
accréditives pour poursuivre l’exploration de Detour Trend et d’autres projets dans la région de l’Abitibi. La société s’est concentrée sur la définition d’un système aurifère à haute teneur dans sa propriété Martinière, où la minéralisation se situe le long de deux corridors structuraux majeurs, Bug Lake et Martinière ouest. Ces corridors s’étendent à eux deux sur plus de 1 900 mètres (m) parallèlement à la direction et à des profondeurs atteignant plus de 400 m à la verticale. Ces corridors restent ouverts en profondeur ; un forage récent a recoupé une intersection de 4,51 grammes par tonne (g/t) d’or sur plus de 26,9 m de filons dans l’éponte supérieure du gisement Bug South.
Odyssey, Agnico Eagle & Yamana Gold Les copropriétaires de la mine Canadian Malartic située à l’ouest de Vald’Or, l’une des plus grandes mines d’or du Canada, ont mené des activités de forage poussées dans le gisement Odyssey à l’est de la mine dans l’objectif de reclasser la minéralisation dans la catégorie ressources minérales présumées. Les équipes ont poursuivi le forage au quatrième trimestre de manière à mieux définir les structures transversales potentielles à haute teneur. D’après Abitibi Royalties, qui détient 3 % des redevances calculées à la sortie de la fonderie sur la découverte d’Odyssey North, l’objectif est de faire d’Odyssey un gisement souterrain exploitable en vrac qui pourrait offrir une nouvelle source de minerai pour le concentrateur de Canadian Malartic. Avec l’aimable autorisation de Azimut Exploration Inc.
pensent encore pouvoir y découvrir du minerai, surtout en profondeur. « L’une des caractéristiques des gisements aurifères de l’Abitibi est qu’ils se prolongent en profondeur », expliquait M. Riverin. « Cette zone a été davantage développée, mais étant donné les améliorations importantes en matière de technologies minières, nous pouvons maintenant aller bien plus profond qu’il y a quelques années en arrière, tout en réalisant encore des bénéfices. » Par exemple, Mines Agnico Eagle, le plus grand producteur d’or du Québec, évalue actuellement le potentiel de l’exploitation minière à une profondeur de plus de 3,1 km sous la surface dans sa mine LaRonde, située entre Rouyn-Noranda et Val-d’Or. La société procède au forage intercalaire du niveau 311 au niveau 371 en se concentrant sur la partie ouest du gisement, et elle testera la partie est à mesure que les aménagements souterrains prennent forme.
Échantillonnage par saignées de la zone productive possible Moni à Éléonore Sud
D’après Agnico, la production annuelle à LaRonde devrait atteindre 300 000 onces à compter de 2017 (par rapport à 268 000 onces en 2015) à mesure que les teneurs en or augmentent en profondeur. Comme l’expliquait Mark Ferguson, responsable des études sur l’exploitation minière chez S&P Global, les efforts déployés dans l’Abitibi intéressent également les investisseurs qui se montrent réticents à financer des projets perçus comme trop risqués. « Les investisseurs se concentrent sur des ceintures qui sont bien plus établies. On observe peu d’activité de forage dans des zones moins connues. » Mis à part l’entreprise commune Yorbeau-Kinross, les projets aurifères les plus actifs sur la ceinture sont les suivants :
Detour Trend, Balmoral Resources L’été dernier, Balmoral a recueilli 7,1 millions $ en financement par actions 78 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Douay, Aurvista Gold
Début novembre, Aurvista s’apprêtait à conclure un placement privé d’une valeur de 6 millions $ pour financer l’exploration continue à Douay, qui s’étend sur 20 km le long de la zone de faille de Casa Berardi. Le projet contient 2,7 millions de tonnes de ressources indiquées titrant 2,76 g/t d’or et des ressources présumées de 115 millions de tonnes titrant 0,75 g/t d’or. La société prévoit également un forage de 4 000 mètres pour définir une minéralisation aurifère supplémentaire.
Gladiator, Bonterra Resources Bonterra mène actuellement un programme de forage de 25 000 mètres en vue de développer des ressources présumées de 905 000 tonnes titrant 9,37 g/t d’or au titre du projet Gladiator, le long de la zone de faille de Casa Berardi au nord-est de Val-d’Or. La société est parvenue à élargir la zone minéralisée à haute teneur en or en profondeur et à l’est, et a ajouté un second engin de forage au projet en novembre.
Avec l’aimable autorisation de Eastmain Resources
Affleurement minéralisé d’Eau Claire
Lamaque Sud, Integra Gold Le projet aurifère Lamaque Sud et le complexe de l’usine et de la mine Sigma-Lamaque sont situés juste à l’est de la ville de Val-d’Or. Entre autres initiatives, Integra fore un trou « d’origine » de 2 000 mètres de long pour vérifier que la minéralisation de la mine aurifère Sigma rejoint bien celle du projet voisin Lamaque en profondeur. Parallèlement, la société a lancé un programme de forage de 2 500 mètres pour tester une nouvelle cible, l’extension à l’est de Sigma, identifiée par compilation de données et correspondant à une anomalie magnétique située à 750 mètres à l’est et parallèlement à la direction de la mine Sigma.
Ciel bleu dans la baie James La baie James, d’autre part, a réussi à convaincre des investisseurs prudents de lui donner sa chance, grâce au développement de la découverte aurifère Éléonore il y a une dizaine d’années en une mine en exploitation aujourd’hui. La présence d’une mine à si longue durée de vie et à si haute teneur à Éléonore (le principal gisement Roberto affiche des réserves prouvées et probables de 4,57 millions d’onces d’or titrant 5,87 g/t et trois millions d’onces supplémentaires en ressources) a engendré une dynamique d’exploration durable dans la région, déclarait Jean-Marc Lulin, président d’Azimut Exploration, une société d’exploration qui était déjà très active dans la région de la baie James avant la découverte d’Éléonore sur le réservoir Opinaca. « La géologie de cette vaste région est très attrayante, en ce qu’elle renferme plusieurs ceintures de roches vertes inexplorées ou sous-explorées », indiquait-il. « La base de données (dédiée aux sciences de la Terre) constitue un autre avantage
qui nous permet de réduire les risques d’exploration et de développer de meilleures cibles. En associant ces deux facteurs, la région devient vraiment intéressante. » D’après un rapport de 2010 sur le gisement (uniquement disponible en anglais) publié par la Commission géologique du Canada, le gisement Roberto s’éloigne des gisements aurifères filoniens et bréchiques caractéristiques de la région de l’Abitibi, en ce que sa minéralisation de stockwerk et de substitution est encaissée dans de la grauwacke et du paragneiss. La baie James, autrefois trop isolée et onéreuse pour attirer des investissements dans l’exploration, commence à profiter de projets d’infrastructure menés sous les auspices du Plan Nord, un engagement de la province à investir d’ici 2020 environ 1,3 milliard $ dans l’infrastructure ainsi que dans d’autres projets dans l’espoir d’attirer des investissements du secteur privé d’une valeur de 22 milliards $ au nord du 49e parallèle. Par exemple, le projet Eastmain 1A-Sarcelle Rupert de 5 milliards $ d’Hydro-Québec, qui a pris fin en 2012, a offert à la région une puissance électrique supplémentaire ainsi que de nouvelles routes. Le Plan Nord est aussi à l’origine de l’ajout d’une section de 240 km à la route 167 vers le nord en direction de la mine de diamants Renard, ce qui a permis à Stornoway, le propriétaire de la mine, ainsi qu’aux sociétés d’exploration de la région d’envoyer le matériel dont elles ont besoin par la route plutôt que par avion ou hélicoptère. « Au cours des 20 dernières années, on a assisté à bon nombre d’investissements uniques dans l’infrastructure et à de grandes améliorations pour accéder à la région de la baie James », indiquait Joseph Fazzini, directeur financier et viceprésident du développement des activités chez Eastmain Resources, un autre titulaire important de concessions dans December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 79
la région qui possède une propriété d’exploration avancée le long de l’extension de la route 167. « Il est bien plus intéressant d’explorer si l’on sait que les routes et les lignes électriques dont on aura besoin existent déjà. » La société du Plan Nord est davantage l’instance de coordination que le dirigeant des projets, aussi son influence n’est pas toujours évidente, expliquait son président et directeur général Robert Sauvé. L’objectif du Plan Nord, indiquait-il, est d’aider les entreprises commerciales tout en soutenant les communautés du nord en construisant des infrastructures et en dispensant des formations. « Nous coordonnons la mise en œuvre de toute nouvelle infrastructure et l’entretien de celle existante dans le nord, dont les routes, les voies ferrées et les aéroports », déclaraitil. « Par exemple, la route menant à la baie James (qui commence à Matagami et se termine à Radisson) est devenue essentielle au développement minier, et nous continuerons à coordonner tous les ministères gouvernementaux de manière à améliorer cette route dans les années à venir et à réduire le coût de l’accès. » Les projets d’exploration aurifère les plus actifs le long de la limite tectonique Opinaca-La Grande dans la baie James sont les suivants :
Éléonore, Goldcorp Grâce à une meilleure appréhension du système de minéralisation à Éléonore, Goldcorp développe un modèle prédictif qui pourra être appliqué à l’exploration ailleurs dans la région. Dans un rayon de 10 km de la mine, la société a identifié un groupe de roches orienté nord-est/sudouest transporté vers sa situation géographique actuelle par les glaciers, lequel contient des blocs minéralisés à haute teneur en or. Des études géophysiques au sol sont en cours afin de mieux définir la source possible de substrat rocheux des blocs et de situer les tranchées et/ou les trous de forage prévus au premier trimestre 2017.
Éléonore Sud, Eastmain (36,7 %) ; Goldcorp (36,7 %) ; Azimut Exploration (26,6 %) Ce projet, qui en est à ses premières étapes de développement, est situé à environ 8 km au sud de la mine Éléonore et repose sur les mêmes formations rocheuses que celles de la propriété minière. Le corridor en perspective s’étend sur une zone de 3 km de long et 500 mètres de large. Dans le cadre d’un programme de forage sur 5 000 m, les premiers résultats ont donné des teneurs de 76,1 g/t d’or sur 1,55 m et de 0,62 g/t d’or sur 79,1 m en novembre. « L’association entre les faciès tonalitique et pegmatitique minéralisés sur des largeurs importantes le long des marges d’une intrusion tonalitique vient suggérer la présence d’un système minéralisé hydrothermal-magmatique à grande échelle », déclaraient les partenaires dans un communiqué de presse.
Cheechoo, Sirios Resources Située à côté de la propriété minière Éléonore, Cheechoo abrite une enveloppe minéralisée à faible teneur en or (de 0,3 à 0,8 g/t) qui s’étend sur plus d’un kilomètre parallèlement à la direction, mesure entre 300 et 450 mètres de large et affiche une hauteur verticale de plus de 340 m. Au second semestre 2016, un programme de 10 000 m de forage a recoupé une intersection de 4,18 g/t d’or sur 20 m au 80 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
sein d’une intrusion tonalitique près du point de contact avec les métasédiments environnants. En octobre, l’association de l’exploration minière du Québec (AEMQ) a octroyé à Cheechoo le prix de la découverte de l’année pour sa réussite.
Clearwater, Eastmain Resources Au cours des dernières années, Eastmain s’est concentrée sur le développement et la définition du gisement aurifère Eau Claire à haute teneur à l’extrémité ouest de la propriété Clearwater, qui affiche des ressources mesurées et indiquées de 7,23 millions de tonnes titrant 4,1 g/t d’or pour 951 000 onces. Le programme actuel de 63 000 mètres porte sur le forage intercalaire et la mise à l’essai de cibles supplémentaires le long de la zone de déformation structurelle qui abrite Eau Claire. « Nous sommes impatients de publier nos résultats dans les mois à venir, et de les intégrer à une mise à jour des ressources prévue pour le premier semestre 2017 », indiquait M. Fazzini.
Entreprise commune Midland-Osisko Ces deux petites sociétés minières unissent leurs forces pour explorer le cadre favorable à des gisements aurifères à proximité d’Éléonore. Cette année, elles prévoient de consacrer 1 million $ à l’étude des propriétés couvrant une surface d’environ 953 km². La première étape du programme d’étude des terres portera sur l’échantillonnage de till et de sédiments de fond de lac.
Sakami, Matamec Explorations & Canada Strategic Metals Les partenaires ont mené un programme d’exploration de 700 000 $ afin de tester quatre zones distinctes de la propriété, dont une campagne de forage à 2 000 mètres dans le secteur La Pointe où une zone aurifère (la zone 25) a déjà été identifiée. Le forage de l’extension nord-ouest de la zone 25 a recoupé une intersection de 1,87 g/t d’or sur 27 m.
Alliance stratégique entre Azimut Exploration et SOQUEM Cette alliance a mené à l’acquisition de quatre propriétés suite à la modélisation par Azimut du potentiel minier à l’échelle régionale de plus de 176 300 km². Ces propriétés occupent 658 km² et affichent de fortes empreintes géochimiques à éléments multiples pour l’or dans les sédiments de fond de lac, ainsi que des critères géophysique, géologique et structurel favorables. « Nous tentons de régler les problèmes des risques liés à l’exploration dès les premières étapes du projet en présentant les meilleures cibles possibles à l’aide du traitement de données, et nous réduisons les risques professionnels en collaborant avec les partenaires les plus fiables », déclarait M. Lulin en parlant de la stratégie de la société. S&P Global s’attend à un déclin à l’échelle mondiale de 20 à 25 % en 2016 des investissements dans l’exploration, lesquels ont atteint en 2015 leur niveau le plus bas en six ans à 9,2 milliards $ US. Cependant, l’exploration au Québec, et particulièrement dans les campements miniers des régions de l’Abitibi et de la baie James, semble beaucoup attirer l’attention, comme le confirme le groupe d’analytique du marché qui contrôle l’activité de forage. Si cette activité se traduit par des découvertes, le Québec pourrait bien retrouver sa place en tête de liste pour l’investissement, une place qui a échappé à la belle province ces cinq dernières années. ICM
Avec l'autorisation de De Beers Canada
profil de projet
UN
DÉMARRAGE BRILLIANT
Après une année difficile, De Beers Canada clôture son exercice 2016 sur une note positive avec l’ouverture de Gahcho Kué. Cette mine, la plus récente en production dans les Territoires du Nord-Ouest, vient redorer le blason du groupe d’exploitations de diamants dans le grand Nord. Allan Rodel ne se souvient pas de l’heure exacte à laquelle ont été extraits les premiers diamants à Gahcho Kué – probablement car c’était tôt le matin. « Nous étions sur place la nuit précédente et espérions voir nos premiers diamants », se rappelait-il. M. Rodel, directeur du projet Gahcho Kué, et son équipe sont restés éveillés toute la nuit du 29 juin à attendre, mais en vain. Le 30 juin vers 4 h du matin, près de deux mois après le lancement de la phase de mise en service, les premiers diamants ont été récupérés dans l’installation de tri. Plus tard dans la matinée, lorsque toute l’équipe s’était
PAR KELSEY ROLFE
réunie, « nous avons attentivement observé les pierres », déclarait M. Rodel. « C’était un moment très spécial pour l’équipe. » Fruit d’un travail de construction de plus de 20 ans, l’avènement de la mine de diamants Gahcho Kué, située dans les Territoires du Nord-Ouest (T.N.-O.) à 280 kilomètres (km) au nord-est de Yellowknife, n’aurait pu arriver à un meilleur moment. Dans les mois qui ont précédé son ouverture officielle en septembre dernier, De Beers Canada a mis en vente sa preDecember 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 81
Avec l'autorisation de De Beers Canada
L’exploitation minière développera trois cheminées de kimberlite, qui ont été découvertes il y a une dizaine d’années.
mière mine de diamants dans l’Arctique, la mine non rentable et techniquement complexe de Snap Lake, après l’avoir placée en mode de soins et maintenance à la fin de l’année 2015. La société a ensuite annoncé qu’elle suspendait son projet de développement de la mine de diamants Victor en Ontario jusqu’à ce qu’elle obtienne le soutien de la Première Nation Attawapiskat, qui est propriétaire des terres sur lesquelles se trouve la mine. Gahcho Kué, une entreprise commune entre De Beers Canada (51 %) et Mountain Province Diamonds (49 %), aidera à compenser la production réduite de diamants de la société-mère. Elle fait aussi souvent les gros titres ; Gahcho Kué, qui est censée produire 54 millions de carats sur toute sa durée de vie, est la plus grande nouvelle mine de diamants au monde construite ces dix dernières années. Sa production, estimée à 4,5 millions de carats par an, représentera près de 3 % du marché mondial des diamants. Durant les 12 années de vie actuellement prévues pour la mine Gahcho Kué, trois cheminées de kimberlite seront exploitées, ce qui lui permettra sans doute de dépasser la durée de vie de la mine Diavik, située à proximité. Kim Truter, président et chef de la direction de De Beers Canada, est même convaincu qu’elle pourrait dépasser la durée de vie de la mine Ekati de Dominion Diamond, qui a récemment été prolongée jusqu’en 2033 avec le développement de la cheminée du projet Jay. « À l’heure actuelle, notre plan de mine approuvé pour Gahcho Kué s’étend jusqu’en 2028, et il existe selon nous d’autres options pour pouvoir éventuellement le prolonger jusqu’en 2035 », indiquait-il. « Nous espérons pouvoir exploiter la mine Gahcho Kué au cours des vingt prochaines années. » Les répercussions économiques pour le territoire, et pour le Canada, devraient être considérables. D’après les données communiquées dans le rapport d’impact de De Beers Canada élaboré par Ernst & Young, la mine prévoit d’injecter environ 5,7 milliards $ dans l’économie territoriale. Dans le cadre d’une entente socio-économique signée avec le gouvernement territorial, l’objectif est d’embaucher 55 % des employés de la mine au sein des T.N.-O. La mine a également signé des ententes sur les répercussions et les avantages (ERA) avec six Premières Nations de la région, et s’est fixée des objectifs en matière d’embauche des Autochtones et de choix contractuels d’approvisionnement. La mine dispose actuellement d’une main-d’œuvre de 333 personnes, sans compter les agents contractuels ; 46 % sont originaires des T.N.-O., 20 % sont des Autochtones et 14 % sont des femmes. D’ici la fin de l’année, la mine devrait compter environ 550 employés et agents contractuels sur le site. La première incursion de la société dans le domaine de l’extraction des diamants en Arctique n’a pas été simple. Outre les graves problèmes liés à la gestion de l’eau, le gisement de kimberlite de Snap Lake ressemble davantage à une plaque qu’aux gisements de kimberlite en forme de carotte que l’on trouve couramment dans l’extraction des diamants ; il a donc fallu recourir à une méthode complexe et coûteuse d’exploitation minière souterraine. Gahcho Kué est cepen82 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
dant une mine plus conventionnelle. Les trois gisements seront exploités de la surface à l’aide de la méthode par camion et pelle mécanique, à un taux d’exploitation de 100 000 tonnes par jour (t/j), et la capacité du concentrateur atteindra les trois millions de tonnes par an (Mt/an). M. Truter indiquait par ailleurs qu’il sera peut-être possible à l’avenir de procéder à l’exploitation minière souterraine. « [Cette] mine est bien moins complexe [que Snap Lake], sa structure de coûts est bien plus avantageuse », indiquait M. Truter. « À première vue, cette mine s’inscrira davantage dans la lignée de la configuration des mines de type Diavik ou Ekati. » Les matériaux extraits seront traités au concentrateur par concassage, criblage, séparation (ou concentration) par milieu dense et triage par rayons X. « Nous utilisons des trieuses de particules isolées, qui sont des machines de taille au laser dont De Beers a vraiment l’exclusivité », indiquait M. Rodel. Le concentré riche en diamants est trié à la main sur place et envoyé à Yellowknife pour le nettoyage et l’évaluation par le gouvernement. Pendant les cinq premières années, les résidus fins de la mine (de la kimberlite concassée et broyée) seront stockés sur le site dans ce que M. Rodel appelle une « installation de confinement de la kimberlite traitée », à la suite de quoi cette installation sera définitivement fermée et les résidus fins et grossiers ainsi que les stériles commenceront à être déposés dans la cheminée Hearne exploitée à ciel ouvert. Une fois qu’elle aura été entièrement exploitée, la cheminée 5034 servira également au stockage des résidus, une nouvelle approche dans l’industrie de l’extraction des diamants dans les T.N.-O. qui vise à réduire au minimum la superficie totale des terres perturbées. Le projet, expliquait M. Rodel, est de mener une « réhabilitation continue » tout au long de la durée de vie de la mine ; les installations de confinement de la kimberlite traitée en fractions fines et grossières seront réhabilitées progressivement pendant les opérations, et le lac sera rerempli une fois la production à la mine terminée.
Sur la voie glacée de la production Le projet Gahcho Kué a commencé en 1995 lorsque Mountain Province découvrait la première cheminée de kimberlite, qui est maintenant devenue le gisement 5034, le premier à avoir été exploité sur le site. Deux années plus tard, mi-1997, De Beers Exploration, qui avait déjà signé une entente de coentreprise avec Mountain Province, découvrait trois autres cheminées dans cette zone, à savoir les gisements Hearne et Tuzo qui seraient bientôt exploités, ainsi que le gisement Telsa qui, selon M. Truter, « n’était pas totalement à la hauteur » pour être exploité, pour des raisons économiques. Comme les autres mines de diamants de la région, la situation géographique de Gahcho Kué comportait son lot de difficultés logistiques pour l’équipe, notamment en raison du milieu arctique, de l’isolement des lieux ainsi que de l’assèchement nécessaire du lac Kennady, sous lequel les trois gisements ont été découverts. Étant donné le froid cinglant des hivers dans les T.N.-O. (la température moyenne pendant les mois les plus froids de
Avec l'autorisation de De Beers Canada
profil de projet
En septembre, les représentants officiels et dirigeants locaux de De Beers ont célébré l’ouverture de la mine dans la tradition avec une cérémonie du feu.
cette saison avoisine les -30°C), la société devait optimiser la productivité pendant l’été, ce qui rendait obligatoires les structures préfabriquées. Des tâches aussi simples que de couler du ciment devaient être effectuées sur de courtes périodes afin de ne pas perturber le calendrier de la construction. « Un grand nombre de choses ne peuvent être effectuées en hiver, ce qui rend difficile l’exécution du projet », expliquait M. Truter. « Il faut identifier ces moments opportuns et s’assurer que l’on est très efficace pendant ces périodes. » Les bâtiments, livrés en plusieurs parties en empruntant la route d’hiver, étaient assemblés puis fermés hermétiquement pendant l’été, ce qui permettait de poursuivre les travaux à l’intérieur des bâtiments en hiver. Le local d’hébergement de Gahcho Kué était presque entièrement composé de modules préfabriqués, la centrale électrique du site comportait cinq modules et le laboratoire métallurgique en comportait également plusieurs. Certains équipements de la flotte de la mine étaient également démontés en plus petites pièces de manière à pouvoir être transportés par camion sur la route de glace menant au site, puis reconstitués sur place. Même la route de glace, qui fait plus d’un mètre d’épaisseur et 120 km de long, est une voie latérale à la route menant à Snap Lake qui est seulement ouverte en février et mars chaque année. D’après De Beers Canada, quelque 2 100
chargements de carburant, de matériel de construction, d’équipement minier et d’autres matériaux sont livrés chaque année par cette route. « Concrètement, avec cette route, il faut vraiment bien réfléchir aux longs délais d’approvisionnement », déclarait M. Truter. Les planificateurs doivent penser à l’année suivante et déterminer les matériaux dont ils auront besoin ; les changements ou caprices de dernière minute n’ont pas leur place dans ce projet. « La plupart des articles de prix unitaire élevé sont envoyés sur le site par le biais de la route d’hiver et il faut les organiser intelligemment de manière à ce qu’ils soient livrés dans le bon ordre », ajoutait M. Rodel. Les marchandises livrées en vrac comme le carburant et les explosifs sont également transportées par la route d’hiver, et il y a suffisamment d’espace de stockage sur le site pour une utilisation sur une année complète. En ce qui concerne le carburant, De Beers était soumis à des contraintes liées à la situation géographique de Gahcho Kué. La mine et sa flotte entière sont alimentées au diesel, ce qui oblige la société à amener sur le site environ 47 millions de litres de diesel pour la saison hivernale de 2017. Une route praticable en toute saison aurait pu permettre d’utiliser un bouquet énergétique différent, mais elle n’a jamais été construite. December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 83
Avec l'autorisation de De Beers Canada
Avec l'autorisation de De Beers Canada
Une fois arrivée à pleine production, la mine, qui utilise la méthode traditionnelle d’exploitation par forage, coup de mine, camion et pelle mécanique, affichera un taux d’exploitation de 100 000 tonnes par jour.
Cependant, la société fait preuve de créativité ; elle utilise des brûleurs à huiles usagées pour produire de la chaleur grâce à la combustion de l’huile de moteur usagée, et récupère la chaleur résiduelle restante des cinq générateurs du site pour chauffer les bureaux et les espaces du campement à l’aide d’un circuit de glycol plutôt qu’avec le chauffage par plinthes, qui consomme également du diesel. Pour accéder aux gisements, il a fallu vider le lac Kennady de ses poissons et l’assécher. En 2014 et 2015, des équipes chargées de vider le lac de ses poissons, composées de membres de la communauté et de biologistes, ont attrapé 18 400 poissons dans le lac ; les plus gros ont été nettoyés, découpés en filets et congelés sur place puis distribués aux communautés environnantes pour des événements, remplissant ainsi les congélateurs communautaires. Les plus petits ont été donnés aux équipes cynophiles locales. La procédure d’assèchement se poursuit ; pendant la phase de construction, expliquait M. Rodel, la mine avait l’autorisation de procéder à l’assèchement d’environ 18,6 millions de mètres cubes (m3) pour abaisser le niveau d’eau dans des sections séparées du lac en vue d’exposer la kimberlite à l’aide d’une série de digues de réservoir. À ce jour, dix ont été construites. Pendant la durée de vie de la mine, 3,45 millions de m3 peuvent être déversés chaque année si le site répond aux exigences très strictes définies par l’office des terres et des eaux de la vallée du Mackenzie. Pour ce faire, il a fallu installer des pompes et des systèmes d’exhaure en plein hiver, ce qui selon M. Rodel était un travail « extrêmement méticuleux. » Une série de 14 digues de réservoir permettra de gérer l’eau de surface sur le site minier. M. Rodel expliquait que les travaux de pré-décapage ont présenté des difficultés « bien spécifiques. » En effet, du fait que l’équipe procède à l’extraction dans le fond du lac, « l’exploitation en pré-découverte impliquait d’utiliser l’électroplacage et de plus petits équipements pour éliminer de façon sûre et efficace la formation morainique de surface. » 84 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
Partir du bon pied Un agent de surveillance de l’environnement se trouve sur place à plein temps et représente le comité de suivi de la Première Nation Ni Hadi Xa, un comité de gérance de l’environnement constitué de six communautés autochtones. Cet agent de surveillance travaille sous l’autorité du comité et s’assure que la société réponde aux critères requis en matière de permis ; le programme prévoit également la présence de contrôleurs qui mettent en application leurs connaissances traditionnelles en matière d’eau, de terres et de faune pour suivre les impacts de la mine Gahcho Kué sur l’environnement de la région. « Il n’existe pas de procédure plus transparente que d’avoir quelqu’un sur le site travaillant au sein de l’équipe et s’assurant que les règles sont respectées », indiquait M. Rodel. La société a également des projets en matière d’aménagements de la faune et des habitats pour les caribous, les grizzlis, les carcajous et les oiseaux. Le lancement de Gahcho Kué s’annonce prometteur. La mine a commencé sa production avec deux mois d’avance sans dépasser son budget de 1 milliard $, et a déjà deux prix à son actif. La section de Montréal de l’association des professionnels en gestion de projet du Québec (PMI) lui a décerné le prix Projet de l’année pour la gestion de projet par Hatch, et la chambre de commerce de Yellowknife lui a attribué le prix de la santé et la sécurité au travail. Malgré le palier actuel du prix des diamants, M. Truter reste très optimiste quant à l’avenir prometteur de cette matière première. « Les bases de l’industrie du diamant sur le long terme sont très solides », indiquait-il. « Par rapport à d’autres matières premières, notre industrie est l’une des rares qui, sur le long terme, aura du mal à satisfaire la demande. » En outre, précisait M. Truter, au sein de l’industrie, Gahcho Kué se démarque de ses pairs. « Il s’agit d’une exploitation à marge élevée, qui présente par ailleurs plusieurs cheminées, ce qui est réellement très important », indiquaitil. « L’avenir des Territoires du Nord-Ouest repose vraiment sur Gahcho Kué. » ICM
technical abstracts
CIM Journal Abstracts from CIM Journal, Vol. 7, No. 4
Regional total radioactivity and uranium distribution in Syria using gamma-ray spectrometric survey techniques J. Asfahani, M. Aissa, and R. Al-Hent, Geology Department, Atomic Energy Commission, Damascus, Syria
This paper presents regional radiometric gamma-ray spectrometry maps of Syria for total radioactivity (Ur) and surficial concentrations of equivalent uranium (eU). The maps were created by merging airborne and ground-based gamma-ray spectrometric survey datasets. On the regional radiometric eU map, eU anomalies are closely related to either phosphate and/or glauconite deposits. The Ur and eU maps delineate the boundaries of three phosphate deposits, close to the Palmyrides ridge, in the northern part of the Coastal Range and Syrian Desert. Scattered occurrences of uranium mineralization in other phosphate formations are attributed to secondary chemical and physical processes, rather than primary accumulation.
Principles of using microdiamonds for resource estimation: 1—The impact of mantle and kimberlite processes J. Stiefenhofer and M. L. Thurston, Technical and Sustainability, De Beers Group Services (Pty) Limited, Southdale, South Africa; D. M. Rose, School of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; I. L. Chinn, De Beers Exploration, De Beers Group Services (Pty) Limited, Southdale, South Africa; and J. J. Ferreira, Johan Ferreira & Associates Ltd, Wokingham, Berkshire, United Kingdom
Concerns about using microdiamonds for resource estimation have been raised by workers because multiple diamond populations exist in many parts of the mantle source region, small diamonds in kimberlite could be exposed to proportionately greater levels of resorption and modification, and euhedral microdiamonds could crystallize immediately prior to kimberlite eruption. This paper addresses these concerns; discusses the geology of the mantle, the principal diamond host rocks, and the impact of mantle processes; compares micro- and macrodiamond properties and features; and outlines steps to identify and mitigate the risk of diamond resorption and its impact on the diamond grade-size relationship.
Mine hoist safety: Regulations and proposed improvements to risk-mitigation strategies B. Galy and L. Giraud, Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail, Montréal, Quebec, Canada
This paper compares Canadian provincial mining safety regulations addressing hoist safety, automatic hoisting, and shaft obstruction. The regulations are quite similar among provinces, with only slight differences. Risk-mitigation strategies used in other industries are discussed, including their applicability to mine hoists. The specific case of software safety is introduced through examples. The mitigation of software failure is based on the use of the software lifecycle as recommended by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61508 standard. Finally, ways to improve hoist safety are proposed.
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technical abstracts
Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly Papers in CMQ, Vol. 54, No. 3
Hydrometallurgical process for rare earth elements recovery from spent Ni-HM batteries A. R. Alonso, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología-Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Azcapotzalco, México D.F., México and Departamento de Energía, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Azcapotzalco, México D.F., México; E. A. Pérez, G. T. Lapidus, Departamento de Ingeniería de Procesos e Hidráulica, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Iztapalapa, México D.F., México; and R. M. Luna-Sánchez, Departamento de Energía, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Azcapotzalco, México D.F., México
Process development for recovery of dysprosium from permanent magnet scraps leach liquor by hydrometallurgical techniques H.-S. Yoon, C.-J. Kim, K. W. Chung, S.-D. Kim, and J. R. Kumar, Extractive Metallurgy Department, Mineral Resources Research Division, Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM), Yuseong-gu, Daejeon, Republic of Korea
Characterization of arc during hardfacing in plasma transfer arc welding T. B. Wolfe and H. Henein, Advanced Materials and Processing Laboratory, Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Influence of TiN on viscosity of CaO–MgO–Al2O3–SiO2–(TiN) suspension system Y-L. Zhen, G-H. Zhang, K-C. Chou, State Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallurgy, University of Science and Technology Beijing, China; and K. Mills, Department of Materials, Imperial College, London, United Kingdom
Exfoliation corrosion of an extruded low-Cu-containing AA7003-T6 profile with a partially recrystallised grain structure C. Krishnan, A. K. Kobylecky, and J. R. Kish, GM Centre for Automotive Materials and Corrosion, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Low-head direct chill slab casting of aluminium alloy AA4045: 3-D coupled turbulent flow and heat transfer study M. Hasan and L. Begum, Department of Mining & Materials Engineering, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly publishes original contributions on all aspects of metallurgy and materials science, including mineral processing, hydrometallurgy, pyrometallurgy, materials processing, physical metallurgy and the service behaviour of materials. An invaluable resource for international researchers and professionals engaged in interdisciplinary research in metallurgy and materials science.
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• Shakers and screens – separating the gangue from the good could mean millions of dollars for a mine
December 2016 /January 2017 • Décembre 2016 /Janvier 2017 | 89
Mining Lore To whom it may concern By Kate Sheridan
A
90 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 11, No. 8
United States Library of Congress, ggbain.50100
fter 90 minutes he saw yellow lights towards locked in an airtight the end of the experiment, coffin at the bottom he wrote, and in each test he of a hotel pool, Harry Houwas irritated and annoyed. dini was annoyed, halluci(“I was going to have them nating and drifting into stop shaking the galvanized unconsciousness. The interiron coffin,” Houdini told nationally-famous illusionist McConnell, as it was irritatand escape artist called his ing him, “but wanted to get assistant on the telephone the benefit of the air action, installed in the coffin and having read some of your asked to be brought to the reports and figured out that surface and set free. by moving the box, the air Shortly after he emerged, would move.”) he sat down at his type“The important thing is writer, put in a piece of to believe that you are safe, paper with his letterhead, don’t breathe too deeply and and began to write a threedon’t make any unnecessary page letter to a scientist with movements,” he told the the United States Bureau of New York Times, adding that Mines. fear was the reason miners Houdini’s stunt at the Shelton Hotel was not his only submersion-based feat; in 1912, “Want to dictate my he escaped from a box dropped into New York’s East River. died when trapped in airexperiences and feeling as tight spaces. soon as possible, while it is fresh in my mind. It is now 5:10 He also sent McConnell temperature readings from his secP.M. Have had one half an hour’s sleep and feel fairly comfort- ond test run, taken every ten minutes from the area around his able,” he wrote. head and feet as well as from the outside. “I know you are doing worthwhile work and as my body Though McConnell appears to have never published an and brain are trained for this particular line, I am at your academic paper based on Houdini’s experiment, mining service.” authorities kept the letter. Houdini’s letter ended up buried in Houdini’s primary motivation for the stunt was to expose the Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration’s (MESA) Rahman Bey, an Egyptian performer who claimed to rely on files until a staff member, June Rodano, discovered it in 1975, supernatural powers to stay alive in a sealed casket. As he pre- according to the administration’s employee newsletter. pared for the stunt, Houdini realized his feat might have other “To [MESA], Houdini’s experiment has special interest as a benefits. Perhaps his experience could help people survive in historic attempt to dramatize that a miner trapped underareas with very little air – like miners trapped underground. ground can survive for a surprisingly long time if he remains He contacted Dr. W.J. McConnell, a physiologist with the calm,” stated the administration’s employee newsletter. Bureau of Mines. McConnell helped supervise one of the two The administration was the predecessor to the Mining practice runs Houdini performed before attempting the stunt Safety and Health Administration, which became part of the in front of the audience at New York City’s Shelton Hotel on U.S. Department of Labor when the U.S. Bureau of Mines disAug. 5, 1926. solved in the 90s. McConnell, a specialist in industrial hygiene, was the The head of the administration, a lawyer named James Day, author of papers on a variety of subjects over the course of his donated the letter to the Library of Congress and it has been career, including volatile solvents, asbestos and ventilation uploaded to the Library’s website, where anyone can see what standards in the workplace. In a letter to his colleague, Houdini had to say. McConnell wrote that he believed Houdini’s stunt “may have The stunt proved to be his last. On Halloween in 1926, some value to us.” Houdini died due to complications from a burst appendix. In Houdini’s letter to McConnell following the stunt, he He was buried in one of the caskets used to prepare for the described the physical sensations he had while in the coffin – stunt. CIM
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