CIM Magazine March-April 2019 by CIM-ICM Publications

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MARCH/APRIL 2019 | MARS/AVRIL 2019

cover story

Return to Bloom The Bloom Lake mine is turning out high-grade ore again in the Labrador Trough, and is on the road to expansion By Matthew Parizot

feature story

60 Social standing Mining companies find themselves answering tough questions around environmental, social and governance concerns from institutional and retail investors

71 The automated underground Machine learning and data analytics mark the evolution of automated haulage underground By Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

By Kelsey Rolfe

March/April 2019 â&#x20AC;˘ Mars/Avril 2019 | 5

CIM MAGAZINE MARCH/APRIL 2019 • MARS/AVRIL 2019

in each issue

8 10 12

Editor’s letter President’s notes Chatter

tools of the trade

The best in new technology Compiled by Kaaria Quash

developments

Barrick and Newmont to joint venture in Nevada By Robert Hiltz

DYNOmine podcast gives the industry a voice

contenu francophone

By Sara King-Abadi

75 75 76 77 78

Industry organizations rally around the tailings challenge By Ashley Joseph

future prospects

Multidisciplinary studies for interdisciplinary solutions By Richard Chuchla

columns

Social and environmental disclosure and the risk of inconsistency

Table des matières Lettre de l’éditeur Mot de la présidente L’actualité Un parcours complexe pour une solution simple Niobec s’est mis en quête de découvrir la source de la variation saisonnière de la récupération dans le processus de flottation Par Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

By Karola Tóth

article de fond

What you need to know before implementing an autonomous haulage fleet

By Aidan Ayres

Front-end strategies to reduce project risks By Steve Rusk

underground mining

Excellon Resources’ dewatering project to double production at its silver mine in Mexico By Kylie Williams

Niobec set out to discover the source of seasonal variation in flotation recovery By Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

BHP turns to a network of suppliers to help it solve operational challenges By Matthew Parizot

6 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

Par Kelsey Rolfe

mining lore

Statut social Les sociétés minières doivent aujourd’hui répondre à des questions difficiles relatives aux préoccupations environnementales, sociales et de gouvernance que leur posent les investisseurs institutionnels et particuliers

Martine Bertereau, the world’s first recorded female mineralogist, had unconventional methods for locating ore deposits By Cecilia Keating

Le nouvel épanouissement de Lac Bloom Déstabilisée par la crise qui a affecté les matières premières, Lac Bloom se retrouve sous une nouvelle direction qui s’engage à transformer une nouvelle fois du minerai à haute teneur dans la fosse du Labrador Par Matthew Parizot

Nous publions progressivement sur notre site Internet les articles du CIM Magazine en version française.

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editor’s letter

A reckoning for all to see

ot long ago, corporate boards just did not have much time for investment funds focused on environmental, social and governance issues, Jamie Bonham told Kelsey Rolfe in our feature story, Social standing (p. 60). Bonham, of the socially responsible investment firm NEI Investments, said those days are over. Once niche and dismissed as irrelevant, “impact investing” is a major growth industry. What changed? To begin with, those raised with the gospel of reduce, reuse and recycle are now grown up. It is a generation that accepts that the industrial age has changed the global climate and its members are at a point in their lives where they have money to invest. The world’s most valuable companies of today came of age at the same time, with a mission to “change the world” and were rewarded with enormous sums of money to bring their techno-utopian ideas into being. While we may be growing more suspicious of what the tech giants’ intentions are, companies such as Facebook and Google have made their names proclaiming themselves as forces of social good and changed the way we talk about commerce. It is in this cultural moment that the Córrego do Feijão tailings dam burst. The exact instant it failed, when the green hillside transformed into a thundering wall of mud, can be viewed by anyone on YouTube. Today companies are being more closely scrutinized, and the tools to conduct such surveillance seem all-seeing. As the article details, the mining industry is aware of its particular exposure to such spectacular failures and has

This issue’s cover Ore heads to port from the Bloom Lake Mine.

been putting in the work to avoid them. Yet at the same time, closure liabilities are mining’s Achilles heel, and all miners are having to account for the failings of one of their peers in a broader marketplace that is demanding more from companies. The best way forward is not mapped out yet. One engineer with decades’ worth of geotechnical and Latin American mining experience warned at the recent SME conference in Denver that an ill-managed rush to deactivate upstream tailings dams in Brazil will likely have its own set of unintended consequences. I am eager to hear the discussion continue at CIM 2019 in Montreal. Finally, this issue marks a big change at the magazine. Ms. Rolfe, the author of this feature and our news editor since 2015, is moving on. The energy and ambition she brought to CIM Magazine has helped shape this publication. We are better for the effort and perspectives she provided and wish her all the best in the next stage of her career.

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

Editor-in-chief Ryan Bergen, rbergen@cim.org Executive editor Angela Hamlyn, ahamlyn@cim.org Managing editor Michele Beacom, mbeacom@cim.org Section editors Tom DiNardo, tdinardo@cim.org; Kelsey Rolfe, krolfe@cim.org Editorial intern Kaaria Quash Contributors Aidan Ayres, Richard Chuchla, Robert Hiltz, Ashley Joseph, Cecilia Keating, Sara King-Abadi, Alexandra LopezPacheco, Matthew Parizot, Steve Rusk, Karola Tóth, Kylie Williams Editorial advisory board Mohammad Babaei Khorzhoughi, Vic Pakalnis, Steve Rusk, Nathan Stubina Translations Karen Rolland, Kaaria Quash and Cision Layout and design Clò Communications Inc., www.clocommunications.com

Photo courtesy of Champion Iron

Published 8 times a year by: Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum 1250 – 3500 de Maisonneuve Blvd. West Westmount, QC H3Z 3C1 Tel.: 514.939.2710; Fax: 514.939.2714 www.cim.org; magazine@cim.org

Advertising sales Dovetail Communications Inc. Tel.: 905.886.6640; Fax: 905.886.6615; www.dvtail.com Senior Account Executives Janet Jeffery, jjeffery@dvtail.com, 905.707.3529 Christopher Forbes, cforbes@dvtail.com, 905.707.3516 Jacquie Rankin, jrankin@dvtail.com, 905.707.3525 Subscriptions Online version included in CIM Membership ($197/yr). Print version for institutions or agencies – Canada: $275/yr (AB, BC, MB, NT, NU, SK, YT add 5% GST; ON add 13% HST; QC add 5% GST + 9.975% PST; NB, NL, NS, PE add 15% HST). Print version for institutions or agencies – USA/International: US$325/yr. Online access to single copy: $50. Copyright©2019. All rights reserved. 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.

Printed in Canada

8 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

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president’s notes

There must be a better way Now is the time to change how we look at tailings. While in places like Japan and Europe, governments have embraced a circular economy, which prioritizes designing waste out of systems, Canada has been slow to adopt such principles. It is time that we started reimagining tailings as a resource that can be repurposed or reprocessed. With ore grades getting lower, discoveries less frequent and the demand for minerals and metals on the rise, the opportunity around legacy waste has never been greater.

The opportunity around “ legacy waste has never been greater.”

espite sophisticated design criteria, ongoing monitoring and detailed guidance documents, tailings dam failures continue to happen. The most recent occurred on Jan. 25, 2019 at the Córrego do Feijão mining complex in Brazil, which released 11.7 million litres of mine waste and may have killed as many as 300 people. My thoughts are with all those impacted by the disaster. The management of reactive, radioactive and non-reactive tailings remains one of the most pressing challenges facing our sector today. While there are countless tailings management strategies available including dry stack, water and dry covers, the management risk remains high. Not only do the liabilities associated with these wastes run in the millions or sometime billions of dollars, in some cases the cost of remediation can exceed the value of the metal extracted. Additionally, financial assurance bonds posted are frequently not sufficient to address the full closure costs. 10 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

Globally, mining generates 3.7 gigatonnes per year of waste rock and tailings. These materials have already been extracted from the earth and, with tailings, ground to size fractions amenable for processing. Couple this with grades sometimes on par or better than new deposits, the case for mining value from waste is compelling. This approach, which would also be an opportunity to repurpose other components of the tailings and render the remaining waste benign, could not only address liabilities but offer increased mill and smelter feed, improve industry reputation and provide a social license to operate. Imagine commodities and materials produced from mine waste following socially conscious and sustainable practices labelled as green commodities or eco-materials. Perhaps it is not possible today, but we must think differently, move away from a “consume and dispose” model and re-examine the commercial and societal potential of all the material we extract from the earth. We must find a better way.

Janice Zinck CIM President

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chatter @CIMorg

CIM – Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum

Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum

Canadian Institute of Mining

@cim_mag

RE: IS CANADA LOSING THE EXPLORATION GAME? (DEC ‘18/JAN ‘19)

Canada has some of the best explorationists in the world, but, due to the high costs of exploration and regulatory costs, are forced to explore outside Canada. – Allan Barry Laboucan, @allanbreports

For those interested in Canadian exploration and what it needs to regain and sustain its competitiveness, here's a good read. Best takeaway, from @KirklandLakeGld's Tony Makuch: “We need clearer rules and a better idea of what communities want.” – Stephen Stewart, @SteveStewartORE

While PDAC continues to work hard on behalf of its members to help Canada regain its title as the most desirable destination for mineral exploration and mining investment, there is still a ways to go! – The Official PDAC, @the_PDAC

RE: KLONDIKE KATE (DEC ‘18/JAN ‘19)

RE: TREND SPOTTING (DEC ‘18/JAN ‘19)

This is finally the most balanced article so far, and surprisingly Robert Henderson was named. Congrats to Kate! – Philip Gold

Clear message from miners at @energyandmines conference was that customers and investors demand more from the supply chain. I think this will be the story to watch in 2019. – David Francis Lyon, @thetestbench

RE: NEWMONT BUYS GOLDCORP FOR US$10 BILLION (FEB ’19)

Another Canadian company goes down. We used to be giants in mining but all companies have sold. – Warren Kells

Not to worry, all is good in Canada’s gold sector. The Barrick head office will now be lean (so now efficient?) and run from Jackson Hole and other places around the world but not in a common area (that is so 2000s), while Goldcorp’s decisions will likely be made in Newmont’s HQ in Colorado. We will be left with mid-size gold miners with no capital and tons of juniors run by greedy idiots that know nothing of mining. Ah well. At least we can now smoke weed to forget about the golden days. – Claude Bisaillon

12 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

RE: LAC DES ILES’ MINE EXPANSION AIMS TO DOUBLE THROUGHPUT (NOV ‘18)

Awesome!!! There is a great future for the north and for the surrounding areas!! NAP is a great company with a tremendous opportunities!! – Allan Byrnes

Great news for this operation. – Jaymie Vendramin

This is excellent news for NAP. – Marcel Cameron, P. Eng.

Courtesy of Hexagon Mining

Courtesy of CMAC-Thyssen

tools of the trade

All-terrain computers Hexagon Mining’s new HxGN MineDiscover industrial computers for mining machinery are designed to withstand the tough conditions of the field while improving mine efficiency and productivity. The computers are able to run multiple applications on one module and feature integrated connectivity options such as dual Wi-Fi modules, cell modem and UHF radio. The computers also contain a 1.9-GHz quad core Intel processor, which Hexagon said will allow “significant scope” for supporting future applications. “The biggest challenge mines face is with integration,” senior product manager Joe Arico said in a statement. “If you look even at our own portfolio, we have a lot of different solutions and technologies…so you really need to have a good hardware architecture to support all those different solutions.” The computers come in two different core models, low-precision and high-precision.

Safer, more efficient shaft sinking CMAC-Thyssen has created a sling-down, fourboom ground support drill for shaft sinking systems. This machine is designed to replace the jack-leg drill. With features such as radio remote operation and proximity detection, the ground support drill is safer for workers to use, CMAC product manager Robert Grenier said. The four booms drill horizontally as they apply ground support bolts to hold the wall of the shaft. CMAC can customize the drill to fit clients’ specific needs, with modifications such as a three-boom drill for wells with narrow diameters. Grenier said the machine will be in operation in the next three months.

Software developer Micromine has created a new machine-learning feature for its Pitram fleet management and mine control software. The solution, which uses computer vision and machine learning, involves placing cameras onto the back of loaders to monitor hauling, loading, dumping and empty travelling time. The information recorded on the cameras is then processed on the vehicle before being sent to Pitram servers for further processing and analysis. “By capturing images and information via video cameras and analyzing that information via comprehensive data models, mine managers can make adjustments to optimize performance and efficiency,” said Micromine’s chief technology officer Ivan Zelina. “It also provides underground mine managers with increased business knowledge, so they have more control over loading and

Courtesy of Micromine

Artificial intelligence for mine control

hauling processes and can make better informed decisions, which, in turn, improves safety in underground mining environments.

Compiled by Kaaria Quash 14 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

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Goldcorp invests $1 million in Andritz at third annual Disrupt Mining event during PDAC

Energy companies cannot abandon oil wells after bankruptcy, Supreme Court rules

Nicole Doucette highlights women’s experiences in mining with the first episode of her new podcast

Industry organizations rally around the tailings challenge

Courtesy of Barrick Gold

Developments

Barrick’s Cortez mine is one of the three “tier one” operations that will be a part of Barrick and Newmont’s Nevada joint venture.

Barrick and Newmont to joint venture in Nevada As Newmont and Barrick combine Nevada operations, industry debates the value of mega M&As By Robert Hiltz, with files from Kelsey Rolfe

Barrick Gold dropped its hostile takeover bid for Newmont Mining after the two companies announced an initial agreement to run their Nevada operations in a joint venture. The two companies said their combined operations will create the largest gold producer in the world after the deal is completed, and will result in an estimated US$500 million in average annual pre-tax synergies, according to a joint press release. The joint venture will also have three tier one operations – Barrick’s Cortez, Newmont’s Carlin

and Turquoise Ridge, the companies’ existing joint venture project. “This is a Rubicon moment, and an illustration of how some of us in this industry are determined to turn our industry around,” Barrick CEO Mark Bristow said on a March 11 conference call. “Our joint venture will allow us to tear down the fences and operate as one mining complex, making the best use of our combined infrastructure.” The projects covered by the joint venture had a combined output of four million ounces in 2018, and will

have 48 million ounces of reserves. After it receives regulatory approval, the deal is expected to be completed by mid-year. Newmont CEO Gary Goldberg said his company’s board approved the joint venture deal unanimously. He pointed to their current joint venture at Turqouise Ridge as a blueprint for the new deal’s potential success. “Our experience at the Turquoise Ridge joint venture has been an excellent demonstration of how our employees can work together to March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 17

capture synergies and create long-term value,” Goldberg said on the conference call. Bristow said if the companies are able to hit the US$500 million in synergies, they expect to be able to lower the cut-off grades for ore within the joint venture’s operations. The CEOs’ chumminess was a departure from the mud-slinging of the weeks prior, which saw Bristow call Newmont’s US$10-billion acquisition of Goldcorp “desperate” and “bizarre,” and Goldberg retort by calling Barrick’s merger bid an “ego-centric proposal… designed to transfer value from Newmont shareholders to Barrick.” The agreement will split the ownership 61.5 per cent for Barrick and the remaining 38.5 per cent for Newmont. Board seats will be allocated in the joint venture based on ownership, according to the press release. Two of those board members will be from Newmont, and three from Barrick.

The management breakdown looks to have been a compromise for Newmont; in shooting down Barrick’s bid, the company put forward the idea of a Nevada joint venture that would see Barrick get a 55 per cent ownership over the companies’ combined assets and Newmont Goldcorp the other 45 per cent, and give the two companies equal representation on the management and technical committees. The deal excludes several development projects as the companies determine whether they are feasible. Barrick’s Fourmile project and Newmont’s Fiberline and Mike deposits are the projects left out of the deal, the press release said. The two companies will form a joint exploration team, which will have a defined scope to the area it can explore. “All I can say is it’s a very large area that’s going to keep us very busy,” Bristow said. “It’s definitely the most prospective [part] of the Nevada geol-

ogy.” He went on to say the exploration area includes all the projects covered in the joint agreement. The companies also signed a standstill agreement to halt Barrick’s acquisition, which would have given Newmont shareholders 2.5694 Barrick shares for each Newmont share they own and created a company worth more than US$40 billion. The details of the standstill were not disclosed, but during the call Bristow addressed the decision to drop the bid. “This was never a sideshow or a Plan B, it was always focused on delivering value for our stakeholders. As we pointed out, this first step, which is focused in Nevada, has been the focus for 20 years,” Bristow said. “I’ve never been a person that goes back. We need to move forward, we got to this point and it’s a very productive point.” Most of the front-line workers will be from their respective companies and assigned to the joint venture, but cor-

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18 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

developments porate employees will be employed directly under the joint venture. Leading up to the announcement, talk of mega mergers and acquisitions dominated conversations at the annual PDAC convention in Toronto in early March. Abitibi Royalties CEO Ian Ball noted the challenges of managing a large company with a high number of operations. “You deal with everything,” he told CIM Magazine, recalling his time as president of McEwen Mining. “When I see these mega mergers, I don’t know how you run a company that big. It seems all your attention [would get] diverted to problems, not the opportunities.” In a presentation on March 3, Agnico Eagle CEO Sean Boyd acknowledged Bristow’s original rationale for the merger with Newmont, that the company needed size and relevance to bring generalists back to the gold sector. “You can say it’s for

liquidity and size, yeah it’s part of the story,” Boyd said. But ultimately, the trend of mega M&As “is just competitive positioning among the biggest players in this business not wanting to be left behind.” Boyd said that in recent years the gold mining industry had seen a move away from building scale. “The industry was populated by empire builders. All they were trying to build was a bigger production base, with a lot less focus on returns,” Boyd said. More recently, as it became more difficult to run a “high-quality profitable gold business,” the players have turned their focus to returns rather than growing output, he said. But the spate of M&A activity and speculation could mean the industry is reverting to that mentality. “Bigger was supposed to be better,” he said. “Maybe we’re returning to that with these mergers.” CIM

Goldcorp invests $1 million in Andritz at third annual Disrupt Mining Andritz came away the winner of Disrupt Mining on March 3, and will get to negotiate a $1-million investment from Goldcorp. Austria-based Andritz, which has an automation group in Vancouver, is using its digital twin technology to train artificial intelligence to operate a mineral processing facility. “We thought, ‘if we have this simulator that can actually train operators, why can’t we train artificial intelligence with it?’” Sohail Nazari, Andritz Automation’s business development manager, told CIM Magazine. The idea is to de-risk the process of introducing AI into a mine site’s operations. Nazari said that in most cases, when AI is introduced to run a plant or

March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 19

Courtesy of Disrupt Mining

FROM THE WIRE The Global Mining Guidelines Group (GMG) announced in March that Kalev Ruberg would be its new vice-chair, effective April 30. According to GMG, Ruberg, Teck Resources’ vice-president of digital systems and chief innovation officer, will bring his extensive experience in information technology and business leadership to the role. Former Barrick Gold chief innovation officer and current GMG chair Michelle Ash joined the advisory board of Berlinbased blockchain start-up Minespider in late January. Minespider is aiming to create a public blockchain platform specifically for “conflict minerals” including gold, tin, tungsten and copper, which will follow their path from mine to consumer. Barrick negotiated a deal in February to end the dispute between its subsidiary Acacia Mining and the Tanzanian government. The deal will see economic benefits from Acacia’s three mines in the country split 50-50 between the company and the government. Acacia will also pay the government US$300 million to resolve its outstanding tax claims, and will create a local operating company to manage its operations. Nemaska Lithium cancelled its lithium carbonate supply contract with lithium technology company Livent. The contract would have supplied Livent with 8,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate per year and was set to begin on April 1. Livent said it has filed for arbitration and “intends to vigorously pursue its claims.” Hudbay Minerals updated its mine plan for its Lalor mine in Manitoba, which is set to double the gold-copper-zinc mine’s annual gold production and give the mine a 10-year life. Hudbay’s updated mine plan for Lalor involves a US$95-million refurbishment of the New Britannia mill, which will allow the company to double gold production at the mine. The company also announced increased mineral reserves and resources for the mine: Lalor now has total Proven and Probable Reserves of 13,675,000 tonnes at 3.78 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 4.46 per cent zinc, 0.7 per cent copper, and 26.11 g/t silver.

20 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

Goldcorp CEO David Garofalo with Arthur Gooch and Sohail Nazari from Andritz, and Rick Mercer.

other parts of a mine site, it will mostly learn what the operators are doing, rather than how to optimize the plant. “The problem with AI implementation is that you have to have an environment so it can learn how to operate,” he said. “You can’t just throw a baby in front of the operation and say ‘learn.’” By giving it a perfect copy of the plant to learn on, it can first understand how the plant works, and then learn how to improve it and begin advising the operator. Andritz was among three finalists that took part in the live “Dragons’ Den-style” finale at the Rebel Entertainment Complex during the annual PDAC convention. Atlantic Canada miner Anaconda Mining pitched its two-stage drilling method for making narrow vein mining more economical, called Sustainable Mining by Drilling. The technology was developed for the company’s Romeo and Juliet narrow vein deposits and was the result of a collaboration with Newfoundland’s Memorial University, which began in June 2017. Voith Turbo, a division of German multinational Voith, presented its IoT

application Beltgenius ERIC, which creates a digital twin of belt conveyors to identify potential risks and inefficiencies to the belt. The technology reduces downtime, improves energy efficiency and allows for predictive maintenance. The proposals were evaluated by Goldcorp chairman Ian Telfer, Sue Paish, the CEO of Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster, University of British Columbia mining engineering student Jacob Yeung, KPMG global head of mining consulting Katie Valentine and venture capital firm Chrysalix founder and CEO Wal van Lierop. During Andritz’s seven-minute question and answer session with the judges, Paish asked why miners should turn to the company for an AI solution, given that it is a crowded field with many established players. Nazari said the company was “very much procollaboration,” and would be open to working with another AI firm if they thought they could improve on the technology. While Andritz took home the prize money, Goldcorp has worked with other finalists in the past so it may not

developments be the end for Anaconda and Voith. According to Goldcorp CEO David Garofalo, the company has invested $10 million across 10 projects since the start of Disrupt Mining in 2017. LlamaZoo Interactive, one of last year’s finalists whose MineLife VR software is in use at a Tech Resources site, is working with Goldcorp to bring data visualization to its operations. Tradewind Markets, a 2017 finalist, also got a boost from Goldcorp when the company placed the inaugural gold on Tradewind’s VaultChain blockchain platform. – Kelsey Rolfe

British Columbia’s 2019 budget invests in mining oversight, makes provincial mining and exploration tax credits permanent British Columbia’s budget will provide $20 million over three years to help the province’s Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (MEM) reduce permitting timelines and establish a new Mines Health, Safety and Enforcement Division with an increased number of mines inspectors and a new auditing function. The budget, delivered Feb. 19, also included multiple recommendations from the mining jobs task force, which both the Mining Association of British Columbia (MABC) and the Association for Mineral Exploration (AME) applauded. Funding for increased ministry staff dedicated to permitting, compliance and enforcement was one such recommendation that made it into the budget, part of a suite of actions suggested to improve regulatory transparency and predictability. “MABC is pleased to see the commitment to address some of the competitiveness challenges facing the mining sector – now is the time to work collaboratively to implement and fund the task force’s recommendations,” said Lindsay Kislock, MABC’s vice-president of corporate affairs, in a release.

Both associations contributed to the task force in 2018 along with other representatives from industry, First Nations, municipal and provincial governments, an environmental NGO, labour, education and the financial sector. The final report was delivered in December 2018. AME president and CEO Edie Thome said in a release that the budget “gives evidence that there is a commitment to moving forward with all of the actions [suggested by the task force].” The budget also included B.C. Premier John Horgan’s promise, announced at the 2019 AME Roundup conference in late January, to make the mining flow-through share tax credit and the B.C. mining exploration tax credit permanent. They had both previously been renewed on an annual basis, and the move to permanence was due to the task force report, which noted that B.C.’s share of investment in the mining sector, both nationally and globally, has declined over the past decade. “I expect now that we’ve got those two [tax credits] permanent that next year for Budget 2020 we’ll see an increase in both of them,” Thome told CIM Magazine at the conclusion of Roundup. “We will be working on some analysis this year to feed into the budget next year to increase them both with the goal to make them the best in Canada.” The provincial government will also invest $902 million over three years in CleanBC, a climate action plan introduced in December 2018. MABC said a portion of this will support large industrial producers like mines to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through targeted incentives. “The B.C. mining industry is a critical partner in moving B.C. and the world towards a lower carbon future,” said Kislock. “MABC looks forward to working with government in the near term to finalize the details of this program to ensure B.C. mines, who are some of the lowest carbon emitting operators in the world, can compete in global markets.” – Kylie Williams

GMG also named Mohammad Babaei co-lead of its artificial intelligence working group. Babaei, Teck’s digital mining innovation lead, will be sharing the helm with Mark O’Brien, CITIC Pacific Mining’s manager of digital transformation. Andrea Freeborough is replacing Tony Giardini as Kinross Gold’s CFO, effective May 1. Since she joined Kinross in 2009 as vice-president, corporate controller, Freeborough has been increasingly instrumental in due diligence and integration of all M&A projects and company financings, Kinross said. Major Drilling Group International appointed Ian Ross its CFO on March 4. He will replace David Balser, who will continue to serve as a senior advisor to the leadership team through a transition period. Ross, who has been with the company since 2011, has a background in finance and an extensive knowledge of the company’s operations, Major Drilling said. Sandvik acquired Artisan Vehicle Systems, a manufacturer of battery powered underground mining equipment, in January, just months after opening a battery electrification innovation and development centre in Finland. Artisan, founded in 2010, will become a business unit of Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology’s load and haul division. The Global Mineral Professionals Alliance (GMPA) – a partnership between mining and minerals professional organizations across the world – is taking on the Global Action on Tailings initiative, which will seek to advance discussions and solutions for tailings management and repurposing, with the goal of eliminating tailings. GMPA organizations will develop working groups to address existing challenges around tailings management. Hudbay Minerals received the water permit for its Rosemont copper project in Arizona from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The mine had already received its final record of decision in June 2017, and Hudbay said it expects that it will receive the project’s mine plan of operations from the U.S. Forest Service in due course. – Compiled by Michele Beacom

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Energy companies cannot abandon oil wells after bankruptcy, Supreme Court rules Energy companies cannot escape their responsibility to clean up old oil wells in the event of bankruptcy, the Supreme Court ruled on Jan. 31 in a decision that will have large implications for resource extraction industries. The court ruled 5-2 to overturn two lower court rulings that sided with the receiver of Alberta junior oil and gas producer Redwater Energy Limited, which went bankrupt in 2015. Redwater owned 84 oil wells, seven facilities and 36 pipelines at the time of its bankruptcy and owed $5.1 million to ATB Financial. The company’s receiver, Grant Thornton – which subsequently became its bankruptcy trustee – wanted to sell its producing oil wells to pay off its debts to ATB, but

the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) argued that the receiver was obligated to fulfill Redwater’s obligation to make its non-producing wells environmentally safe before creditors could see any money. In Alberta, disclaimed wells become the responsibility of the AER, which has rules for how they should be taken care of, and the Orphan Well Association, an industry-funded group tasked with cleaning up these wells. The AER and the association took the case to court, with Grant Thornton filing a cross-application to question the constitutionality of the regulator’s position. Two provincial courts ruled in favour of Redwater’s receiver, which argued that the AER’s use of its statutory powers conflicted with the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act by imposing the obligations of an oil well licensee onto a trustee and circumvented the established procedure for distributing assets laid out in the bankruptcy act.

The Supreme Court said that in cases of “genuine conflict” between provincial law and the bankruptcy act, the latter would prevail. But in this case, it saw no conflict. “Bankruptcy is not a licence to ignore rules, and insolvency professionals are bound by and must comply with valid provincial laws during bankruptcy,” Chief Justice Richard Wagner wrote on behalf of the majority. “Alberta’s regulatory regime can coexist and apply alongside the [bankruptcy act].” Wagner noted that a section of the bankruptcy act specifically protects trustees from liability in the event that provincial law requires the environmental remediation of any of the bankrupt’s assets, which undercut Grant Thornton’s assertion that it had assumed a licensee’s responsibilities. The decision also disagreed with the trustee’s argument that the asset distribution procedure had been violated.

March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 23

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Because the regulator was not set to benefit financially from the cleanup of abandoned wells, it could not be seen as another one of Redwater’s creditors. “A regulator exercising a power to enforce a public duty is not a creditor of the individual or corporation subject to that duty,” Wagner wrote. In the dissenting opinion, Justices Michael Moldaver and Suzanne Côté wrote that Grant Thornton and ATB had demonstrated a “genuine inconsistency” between provincial and federal law, because Alberta’s laws governing oil and gas producers prevent bankruptcy trustees from disclaiming assets while the bankruptcy act would grant them that power. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, which intervened in the case, said in a statement it was “encouraged” by the court decision. “CAPP has argued on behalf of industry that when a company declares bankruptcy, the value of any assets should go to abandonment and reclamation costs first. The Orphan Well Association...should be a last resort and only used after all other sources of funding are exhausted,” the association said. “CAPP believes that this judgment restores the balance between environmental obligations and creditor interests to that which existed for many years before this case.” Several provincial governments were also registered as interveners in the case. – Kaaria Quash and Kelsey Rolfe

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Benefits agreements to become mandatory in Northwest Territories Mining companies in the Northwest Territories will be required to make benefits agreements (BAs) with individual Indigenous governments, if changes to the territory’s Mineral Resources Act are passed. “The territorial government will not be negotiating these benefit agreements on behalf of Indigenous governments — Indigenous governments will have the freedom to do so based on their wants and needs, and proponents can make offers based on their project’s characteristics,” said Mike Westwick, a spokesperson for the Industry, Tourism and Investment department. However, the Act, tabled in February, will provide a mechanism for the territorial government to intervene in BA processes if the parties cannot agree on the terms of the agreement.

developments Westwick said the updated Act would require mining companies to provide proof to the minister that an agreement has been signed. Fortune Minerals COO Glen Koropchuk said he wonders if the mandate is necessary. “Participation agreements with Indigenous communities are already widely accepted by industry today. However, this has been industry directly engaging with Indigenous communities without public government involvement,” he said. “At this point it is likely that both industry and Indigenous governments have the same question — will the proposed law help or hinder the process?” Fortune Minerals and the N.W.T. government recently signed a socioeconomic agreement, which sets out certain local hiring and procurement rates, including promises for Indigenous employment for Fortune’s NICO project, located some 160 kilometres

northwest of Yellowknife. The agreement, different from a BA, was not negotiated with the Tlicho government, on whose territory the proposed mine sits. The Tlicho skipped the document’s signing in protest, and said in a statement they had not been given a copy of the agreement until just before its signing. “The Tlicho should be primary,” Grand Chief George Mackenzie said in a statement posted to the Tlicho government’s website. “We hear this information at the last hour, we are very disappointed with the GNWT and Fortune Minerals and how they conducted their business on this particular issue.” For the Tlicho, the proposed requirement for BAs offers a level of stability they think is important. “We especially welcome the requirement for benefit agreements and engagement with our governments on new claims. These clauses will help Tlicho people and northerners really benefit

from mineral development,” Mackenzie said in a statement. The Tlicho also said they are committed to negotiating an access agreement with Fortune for the construction of an access road to the project. “Fortune made a commitment during the environmental assessment process to negotiate and sign a participation agreement with the Tlicho government, so with or without the proposed law there will be a Participation Agreement for NICO,” Koropchuk said. Also in the proposed changes is the addition of online staking, which would allow prospectors to mark off exploration claims without the burden of physically staking the ground. Westwick said there are different factors to be weighed with the introduction of online staking, but it is the direction the industry is heading. “As far as drawbacks, it’s definitely something we considered. Prospecting

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has a long history here and it has spurred a lot of business opportunity over the years,” he said. “However, we don’t foresee that online map staking would mean no one gets out on the land to evaluate where they want to stake claims.” He said even if the area is staked online, there is plenty of important onthe-ground work to be done.

Koropchuk said online staking was a good addition to the prospecting regime in the territory, with benefits beyond not having to physically stake out the area. “It also reduces the potential for disputes among parties during staking rushes or, in the event of overlapping claims that sometimes occur during

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the periods between physical claim staking and the recording of that claim,” he said. Online map staking would still require prospectors to know what areas they should select as their claim areas on the map. This will be particularly important in the Northwest Territories, where many lands have not yet been explored. Physical sampling would likely still be desirable. One of the things not addressed in the new bill is royalties, but a comprehensive review is underway. Westwick said the current royalty regime will remain while the review takes place. “As far as royalties, we’ve sent a strong message that the conversation should be about revenues, not just a royalty rate. It should be about taxes, royalties, fees, benefit agreements — anything that affects the overall fiscal picture. We’ve indicated that we’re going to give that review the time it deserves in the next government,” he said. For industry, the worry is an increase in rates that could kill competitiveness without taking into account the financial risk miners take on during the exploration and development phase. “The amount that is to be paid should be standardized and identified by governments prior to a proponent investing significant funds toward exploration and development,” Koropchuk said. “It would not be fair to the proponent if the public or Indigenous government were to simply extract the maximum amount possible from a successful mineral discovery after the risk money has already been spent. “We operate in a global economy and Canada’s North is already disadvantaged from much higher costs to identify and develop mines because of physical remoteness, cold climates, a significant infrastructure deficit, long supply lines, and the need to construct facilities that already exist in more developed southern locations,” he said. – Robert Hiltz

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Anne was acting as on-site manager at a mineral exploration site, and went to use the shower. The women’s shower was in use, so Anne decided to use the men’s, something that was fairly common. The camp was basically empty. Towel in hand, Anne had to pass the kitchen, where a male night driller happened to be sitting, to get to the showers. While drying off, Anne remembers hearing a rustling sound. She realized the driller had moved from the kitchen to right outside of her shower stall. Anne left with her head down. “There was no need for him to move,” Anne told Vancouver-based science content creator Nicole Doucette on the first episode of Doucette’s new podcast, DYNOmine. “Why did he move?” Anne is one of five women who spoke with Doucette on her new podcast DYNOmine’s first episode, which focuses on the women’s experiences working in the mining industry. Anne ended up leaving exploration geology, as did two other women interviewed for the episode. The podcast is the former engineer’s effort to create a platform for change in the mining industry. “As well, I just

developments really wanted to put another piece of content into people’s hands in the mining industry so that they can continue to build the business case for diversity and inclusion,” she said. When Doucette was pursuing a degree in mineral engineering at the University of Toronto, she kept hearing stories from her classmates about the conditions women faced in the mining industry. Many of her female classmates have already left the industry after only a couple of years due to harassment or poor experiences on site. Hearing those stories, and deciding to pivot from engineering to storytelling, was the driving force behind creating DYNOmine. “The fact that [some women] have been beaten down to the point where they have to actually leave an industry and take their talent elsewhere, is just – it’s so sad,” said Doucette. “It’s such a disappointment for the whole industry.”

The daughter of a physics professor, 26-year-old Doucette grew up in Aurora, Ontario, surrounded by science experiments, and was drawn to science from a young age. Her extensive rock collection was an early indication that mining and geological formations would appeal to her. Later in life, mining’s ubiquitous nature was part of the draw. “It’s such an essential part of our society,” Doucette explained. “As much as some people may not want there to be mining, there is probably always going to be mining.” Doucette had always wanted to be a science journalist, but her parents encouraged her to start out in engineering, where she would have more chance of gaining secure employment. After five years of internships and work mostly in technical writing in the mining industry, Doucette levelled with herself: “I can be a mediocre engineer for the rest of my

life, or I can be a really good storyteller.” Doucette said she sees the podcast as a place where she can make a difference, but does not want it to be about herself and her own experiences. She had done some work underground but not in remote exploration camps, and most of her experience in the industry had been corporate. For Doucette, marrying her interest in podcasting with mining was a natural fit. “The idea of dynamic, or ‘dyno,’ for me evokes change. That’s really why I wanted to start this podcast,” said Doucette. “I wanted to talk about things that were interesting to me, hopefully interesting to the rest of the mining industry, but also things that I felt needed to be changed or needed to move for us, within the industry.” The Mining Industry Human Resources Council 2016 report

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“Exploring Gender Inclusion” stated that only 17 per cent of the Canadian mining industry is female, the lowest percentage compared to other resourcebased industries, and “well below” the total workforce, at 48 per cent. Different factors could be attributed to the gender disparity in mining. In some cases, it was due to systemic barriers that have only recently been lifted, such as in South Africa where women were allowed to work underground only as recently as 2002, Doucette said. The physicality of the work, combined with the schedules and travel to camps that can make it challenging to start a family – a role that had traditionally fallen on women – are other factors. “We are far behind,” said Doucette. Another part of the problem, Doucette said, is that in some instances women do not feel comfortable within the industry. A prime example is

Jessica, whose name was changed and whose story is voiced by Doucette on the podcast for anonymity. The only woman in an office of 15, Jessica said one of her coworkers would touch her shoulders, or in some other way, whenever he walked past her. It took several months of asking him to stop before he finally did. “Obviously this is not just a mining-specific problem,” Doucette said. However, she wanted to delve into women’s experiences through a mining lens in an effort to look at what can tangibly change to move the industry forward. As a format, Doucette was drawn to the accessibility of podcasts – the ability to listen in the background while doing something else, yet still be able to learn. She also wanted to give her interviewees the chance to speak for themselves. “You’re actually hearing a lot of these stories in people’s own

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30 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

voices, which I think is really, really powerful.” Since the episode came out at the end of January, Doucette said she has had men reach out to tell her they did not know this was still an issue, and women to tell her how the episode resonated with them. One comment on the podcast’s SoundCloud reads: “I’ve definitely had unwanted male attention at remote camps and this issue needs to be addressed!” Going forward, Doucette wants to continue to explore different topics in the mining industry, like the treatment of First Nations groups by the industry, fracking and funny stories that exploration geologists bring back from the camps. “There’re always new things happening within mining, and there’s no limit to the amount of stories available out there,” she said. “It’s just finding the ones you want to follow.” CIM

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Federal government gives $4.2 million to renewables projects at northern mines The federal government is investing $4.2 million in two renewable energy projects in Quebec and Nunavut to reduce reliance on fossil fuels at mines in Canada’s North. Both projects will be managed by Tugliq Energy Corporation, a renewable energy company focused on remote regions. The projects will be funded through Natural Resources Canada’s Energy Innovation Program, said Paul Lefebvre, the parliamentary secretary to Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, at the Association for Mineral Exploration British Columbia’s (AME) Roundup conference in Vancouver on Jan. 28. “Today’s investments will help reduce reliance on diesel fuel and

Mining equipment at Glencore's Raglan nickel mine in northern Quebec. The mine will get a second three-megawatt wind turbine to further displace diesel consumption, thanks to federal government funding.

transform the energy landscape in Canada’s Arctic region,” said Lefebvre. “Nowhere are these investments more important than in the mining sector.” The Raglan II project will receive $3.9 million to install a second three-

megawatt wind turbine and increase battery storage facilities at Glencore’s Raglan nickel mine in northern Quebec. The existing renewable energy infrastructure at the site was installed during the Raglan I project. Raglan I has

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reduced diesel consumption at the mine by approximately 10 million litres, or the equivalent of 30,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases, since it started operation in 2014. Tugliq CEO Laurent Abbatiello said the Raglan II project aims to double renewable energy production capacity

at Raglan and increase energy storage capacity ten-fold. Tugliq’s second project, at TMAC Resources’ Hope Bay gold mine in the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut, will receive $283,000 to complete a frontend engineering and design study to introduce compressed air energy stor-

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age for energy generated by wind turbines. Hope Bay, which is currently in the permitting stage for its Madrid and Boston deposits and aiming for production in 2020, is 100 per cent dieselpowered. Compressed air storage uses a disused mine shaft to store air, which is released as needed via a compressor and used to drive a turbine to generate electricity. It can be used with any energy generation technology but is particularly well suited for wind and solar energy generation, which fluctuate with weather conditions. According to Abbatiello, the compressed air technology is brand new to mining. “It has been used in Germany,” he said. “They are using compressed air energy generation to support the grid and using a salt mine as a reservoir. So, it has been used with mines, but in a different context, not used to power the mine but to sustain the grid.” The demonstration project at Hope Bay will involve construction of wind turbines to generate energy and the compressed air will be stored in tanks above the surface, as underground development has not begun. “Thanks to NRCan’s support, we are now reducing diesel consumption in the Arctic by more than four million litres on an annual basis,” said Abbatiello. “We are planning for further reductions of about 10 million litres annually in the coming years.” – Kylie Williams

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Michel Bourassa, president of Quebec processing and metallurgical consultancy Soutex, was among the winners of the Canadian Mineral Processors Society’s 2019 awards in late January. The awards, given out at the society’s annual conference on Jan. 23 in Ottawa, recognize the exceptional work of CIM members working in mineral processing. Bourassa was recipient of the CMP Lifetime Award, which honours individuals who have been CIM/CMP members for at least 20 years and have

developments made significant contributions to the science of mineral processing. Scott Martin, the sales and marketing manager at Progressive Rubber Industries and the CMP 2017 chair, received the Bill Moore Special Achievement Award for early-career members of CIM/CMP. The award recognizes outstanding mineral processors under the age of 35. Wesley Griffith, a senior technologist for Natural Resources Canada, won the Ray MacDonald Volunteer Award. This award is given to a CIM member who actively participates in CMP society activities. Paul Fournier, a senior metallurgist at Detour Gold, won CMP’s Best Presentation Award, for the best presentation of a paper at the conference. University of Alberta mining and mineral engineering student Nicholas Seniuk received the $5,000 Andre Laplante Memorial Scholarship. University of British Columbia mining and

mineral processing engineering student Nabil Khan received the Byron Knelson Memorial Scholarship, also valued at $5,000. McGill University student Roger Lin received the $3,000 first prize in the Lucky Amaratunga Technical Report Competition, which evaluates students on a mineral processing technical report, thesis, work term or research report. Martin Dionne from Université Laval, Alexandra Bouchard, also from Université Laval, and Evan Houlding from McGill University all received second-place prizes. Neither the Mineral Processor of the Year nor the Art MacPherson Award were awarded this year. – Kaaria Quash

Battery metals top of mind at PDAC 2019 Speakers and attendees of the PDAC 2019 convention in Toronto were enthusiastic about the growing demand

for battery metals such as nickel, copper and cobalt. The annual conference brought 25,843 people from 130 countries to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre from March 3-6. In his annual commodities outlook, CRU director Paul Robinson noted that while prices for cobalt and copper have declined – and cobalt is expected to see another 15 per cent price decrease this year – the firm still believes the growth in electric vehicle popularity will be transformative for several commodities. “We remain absolutely convinced there’s an upside on the EV markets,” Robinson said. “We believe it’s got tremendous upside potential for copper, for nickel, for cobalt, for vanadium. It’s more on the metals side than for lithium.” Mark Ferguson, an associate director and the head of mining studies for S&P Global Market Intelligence’s metals and mining research division, said

March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 35

Courtesy of PDAC

PDAC 2019 brought 25,843 people from 130 countries to Toronto.

that exploration for both lithium and cobalt had steadily increased in 2016 and 2017, and then saw sharp

36 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

increases in 2018 in both dollars spent and the number of companies exploring.

According to S&P’s numbers, almost US$250 million was spent on lithium exploration by nearly 130 companies in 2018, up from US$150 million in 2017 by roughly the same amount of companies. For cobalt, almost 100 companies spent around US$110 million on exploration in 2018, up from less than US$40 million in 2017. Lithium and cobalt have been “quite attractive” to many companies, Ferguson said. “A lot of junior companies are shifting their focus into the battery materials space.” Dave Lawson, the president of mining and minerals at Wood Plc, agreed the battery materials chatter went beyond analyst presentations. “Everyone’s talking about battery materials, lithium and nickel and cobalt, which is to be expected,” he said. Lawson said the company is currently working on a couple of lithium projects in Australia and Chile.

developments “People [seem to be] relatively upbeat about the market,” he said. Despite a rough 2018 for commodities, this year is expected to hold more promise. Robinson said CRU expects “slower, sustainable growth” in 2019. Issues such as the ongoing United States-China trade tensions are fuelling market uncertainty, Robinson said, but “this is still a growth scenario.” He said commodities are expected to see, on average, a 6.4 per cent decline in prices – but putting that drop in perspective, over the past three years commodity spot prices will have still increased more than 40 per cent. Robinson also said that because most miners have spent the last three to four years paying down their debt, the sector as a whole is in a “very good position” to weather a potential weak credit cycle. The sector has seen its funds from operation and capex increase, and dividends return. While free cash flow has fallen, it is expected

to still remain positive into 2020, according to CRU and Fitch Ratings. “We’re expecting an industry that still has free cash flow, is still able to invest capex, and still able to make dividends,” he said. “This is a good place to be.” – Kelsey Rolfe

Social licence to operate becoming make-or-break for miners: Deloitte Tracking the Trends report Miners need to rethink their mining strategy to include growing concerns over consumer awareness, social licence, geographic risk and more in 2019, according to Deloitte’s annual Tracking the Trends report. The report, which analyzes the top 10 issues transforming the future of mining, was released on Feb. 4, and identified the increasing adoption of

analytics and artificial intelligence (AI), managing risk in the digital era, and digitizing the supply chain as other influential trends for the year. “The mining industry is changing faster than ever, resulting in both greater growth potential, as well as more disruption and volatility than in years past,” said Andrew Swart, Deloitte Canada’s global consulting leader of mining and metals. The report noted that as consumers, governments and communities become “more vocal,” they are “irrevocably altering industry dynamics,” making social licence to operate a strategic issue that could either make or break companies. “Mining companies must take an ever-expanding range of issues into account when setting corporate strategy if they hope to create competitive portfolios robust enough to generate value across multiple scenarios,” the report said.

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Deloitte’s top 10 trends for miners in 2019 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Rethinking mining strategy Analytics and artificial intelligence Managing risk in the digital era Supply chain digitization Sustainable shared social outcomes Energy and water management Decoding capital projects Reimagining the workforce and workplace Diversity and inclusion workplace programs Demanding provenance

Shifting industry values, such as increased consumer concerns or government and community intervention, have led to mining companies rethinking their strategies. In a bid to adjust to the changing market demands, miners have resolved to making bold investment decisions. In March 2018, Rio Tinto went completely coal-free,

38 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

instead looking to invest in copper, which is in higher demand by renewable energy industries. Deloitte also anticipates that AI will play a key role in helping companies plan for the future, identify enterpriselevel risks and transform their supply chains. It said most companies are in the beginning stages of engaging with analytics and AI, where machine intelligence requires human assistance and interpretation, and would need to begin identifying root causes of events to advance to the point where AI solutions can become predictive. The firm said mining companies can expect to confront a growing number of risks, including cyber threats, increasing tariffs and sanctions, changing royalty regimes and scrutiny from investors. “Rather than simply defining risks, companies should revisit their approach to risk management to ensure that all lines of defence are

empowered to manage risk on their behalf,” said Sandeep Verma, Deloitte’s US Global Mining and Metals’ risk advisory leader. The report suggested that mining companies should employ a progressive view of risk, such as risk assurance and the anticipation of emerging risks through the use of AI and other cognitive tools. Digitalizing the supply chain “from pit to port” is another trend that is expected to continue, the report said. Unlike the manufacturing and automobile industries, the mining sector is still behind in terms of digitalizing its supply chain, with only discrete pieces of equipment, such as their trucks or trains, being digitalized. Deloitte also expects to see mining companies transition from a mindset of social spending as a “cost of compliance” toward a way to deliver benefits to host countries and communities. “If mining companies hope to drive different social outcomes, that dynamic has

developments to change,” the report said. It noted that companies will have to engage with what stakeholders truly want, and collaborate with other companies in a region, instead of working in isolation.

Other important trends mentioned in the report include addressing energy and water management; learning from past project mistakes; reimagining the nature of workers and the workplace;

designing integrated diversity and inclusion programs; and confronting increasing consumer demand for the provenance of raw materials. – Kaaria Quash

A hard look at mine waste Industry organizations rally around the tailings challenge By Ashley Joseph, with files from Kelsey Rolfe

The collapse of the upstream tailings dam at Vale’s Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine in Brazil has had reverberations across the mining sector, as industry associations have jumped into action to revisit, enhance or create new best practice standards, hazard and risk management protocols and oversight bodies. “Recent failures have reminded the industry of the liabilities that these facilities represent, and the complexity of the engineering required to maintain facilities in good health,” said Chad LePoudre, vice-president of geoscience and materials testing at SNC-Lavalin. Major mining companies have called for an independent global tailings dam review body and the International Council of Metals and Mining (ICMM) answered in late February, announcing it would launch a panel of experts to develop global tailings facilities standards. Meanwhile, in March CIM partnered with its sister societies around the world to lend its support to ICMM’s work on those standards, as well as to organize international events and working groups on tailings management. Also in March, the Mining Association of Canada (MAC) released a second edition of its OMS Guide, a key tailings facility guide for operating, maintaining and surveilling tailings and water management facilities. “With recent events in Brazil underscoring the urgent need for effective tailings management, the revised OMS Guide and the updated Tailings Guide will play an important role in providing an even greater level of assurance of this important aspect of the mining process being done in the most responsible

TAILINGS DAMS ACROSS CANADA YUKON 1 9

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NEW BRUNSWICK 1 NOVA SCOTIA 11 3 8

NUNAVUT 6 ALBERTA 195 dams, including SASK. 21 21 7

Active dams/storage facilities Inactive dams Upstream dams Abandoned dams

ONTARIO 250 dams, including 92

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way,” the organization said in a statement. “Given the critical importance of tailings management, it is essential that guidelines be regularly reviewed and updated to ensure they are effective and reflect current best practices.” The operation, maintenance and surveillance guide was updated to help mining companies effectively implement a tailings management system, meet performance objectives and manage tailings risks. The association also released a new version of its Tailings Guide, with more information on emergency preparedness. The guide had been previously updated in 2017 with input from the industry following the Mount Polley tailings dam collapse in 2014 to provide guidance on tailings management systems and technical components related to facilities’ physical and chemical stability.

“After Mount Polley, MAC had taken that issue seriously and had put forward a lot of measures in terms of governance of tailings management,” said Louise Grondin, Agnico Eagle’s senior vice-president of environment, sustainable development and people, and the former chair of MAC’s Towards Sustainable Mining governance team. “Had this guide been applied at the design, operation…and the closure of the facility that Vale had, I think it would have avoided what happened. We believe that strongly.” The collapse has also prompted a conversation about whether upstream tailings dams can continue to be considered a “best practice” method of tailings storage, after two have failed in a period of four years and Brazil’s National Mining Agency banned their construction and continued use in February. March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 39

Dave Lawson, president of mining and minerals at Wood Plc, said he expects the industry will start to move away from that construction. “I think there will have to be a lot of persuasion done, particularly in the short term, to allow any sort of development of upstream tailings,” he said. “I think we’ll see a move toward downstream for sure, and it’s highly likely that in certain parts of the world we could see dry stack tailings.” Charles Dumaresq, MAC’s vice-president of science and environmental management, said upstream dam construction “may” stop being considered best practice, but that the industry was already starting to see a move away from it. “We’re seeing a trend in jurisdictions now to look not favourably on upstream construction,” he said. “I think it’s pretty safe to say it is something that will become increasingly uncommon.”

But, he noted, the dam or facility construction “doesn’t tell the entire story” about safety. “The construction aspect is just one piece of the puzzle – certainly an important piece to that puzzle, but all [the] aspects are important.” To Dumaresq, it comes down to having a holistic program that ensures careful management at every stage of mine development and operation. “It has to have the proper resources, people, money and surveillance,” he explained. “That’s a huge aspect of being able to manage the risks properly, because you’re going to avoid problems in the first place or be able to identify solutions sooner if you’re doing a lot of those things well.” SNC-Lavalin’s LePoudre agreed that good risk management requires a comprehensive approach to facility construction and management. “When

we discuss risk from a tailings dam design perspective, it is generally calculated as the product of consequence and likelihood for various hazards,” LePoudre said. “There are usually limitations to reducing the consequences of failure, particularly for existing facilities... We can, however, reduce the likelihood of failure, particularly through good design but also with good ongoing management systems.” From Dumaresq’s perspective, the potential for a safer future lies in the hands of those overseeing mining facilities, and implementing policies to ensure proper oversight. “You can take the best designed, best engineered car in the world and destroy it by not operating it properly, by not maintaining it properly and by not keeping an eye on it,” he said. “It’s no different with a tailings facility.” CIM

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Mineral Project Evaluation: Due Diligence, Data, DCF, and Risk This course approaches the evaluation of a mineral project from the point of view of your role as the evaluator. Your task is to create and present a complete picture of the project using a discounted cash flow (DCF). The DCF model provides the means to assess the economics of the project and present the results and risks in a clear and meaningful way. Developing a mineral project evaluation is like putting together a large puzzle where the pieces are held by different participants in different disciplines. While the math is important, what really matters is sourcing and understanding the data, risks, and assumptions that go into the cash flow. INSTRUCTOR Lawrence Devon Smith, Lawrence Devon Smith & Associates, Canada • DATE October 8-9, 2019 • LOCATION Montreal, Quebec, Canada 40 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

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MULTIDISCIPLINARY STUDIES FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY SOLUTIONS Our educational systems need to better prepare students to meet the resource challenges of the future By Richard Chuchla

ll sustainable solutions to Earth’s energy and resource challenges are inherently interdisciplinary. In the context of the graduate program I direct at the University of Texas at Austin, the word “sustainable” means the solution should be lasting and must meet three criteria: • It must be based on sound science and technology. • It must be consistent with policy that contemplates the welfare of society. • It must be financially viable to attract the interest of investors. I view this as solving three simultaneous equations, which, if achieved, will produce enduring solutions that will allow society to prosper well into the future. It follows that students in energy and earth resources must have a sound background in science and technology, public policy, and finance to be effective leaders. It is interesting that of the three criteria, science and technology garner the greatest attention. Indeed, most businesses involved in exploration and development of Earth’s resources like to paint themselves in those colours. My experience has been that technological challenges are invariably surmounted by creative scientists and engineers. The biggest issues exist where technological solutions meet society and financial reality. These considerations by themselves would make for a challenging graduate program. However, there is another dimension of complexity, which I will illustrate with three examples. The first is the energy-climate nexus. A large measure of our prosperity is due to the availability and abundance of energy. Virtually all of our energy needs have been met by cheap, plentiful and reliable fossil fuels. However, extensive measurements and good science provide compelling evidence that the combustion of fossil fuels is also the most fundamental cause of global warming, which is driving the transition to sustainable energy sources.

The second is the energy-water-food nexus. Consider the 2012 drought in northern India. It left farmers in the country’s “bread basket” without enough surface water for irrigation, so they resorted to electric pumps to draw up groundwater. The depleted hydro reservoirs could not meet the increased power March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 43

demand. As a result, three major grids failed and nine per cent of the world’s population was left in the dark. The third is the energy-minerals-water nexus and has been in the recent news. It relates to current concerns about overpumping lithium brines in the Chilean Atacama Desert, which happens to be my birthplace. There, fundamental questions revolve around the ability of nature to replenish produced water in the driest place on earth. These lithium resources are among the largest and most important supplies of a metal central to energy storage. Directly adjacent to the Salar de Atacama, also in the Atacama Desert, are some of the biggest porphyry copper deposits in the world, which require water to produce another energy-critical metal. These examples are neither contrived nor exaggerated. They are intended to convey the tight linkages between what many view as independent problems. As the world’s burgeoning population demands increasing production of Earth’s resources, we will see increasing interdependencies, conflicts and solutions with unintended consequences between seemingly disparate resources, the environment and society. To address these challenges without a multidisciplinary approach is folly. Most of the students enrolled in the Energy and Earth Resources graduate program at the University of Texas have undergraduate degrees in science or engineering and have themselves recognized the inadequacy of just science or engineering to develop viable solutions. Our mission is to offer multidisciplinary studies that engender interdisciplinary solutions. To this end, every student in the program must take a core curriculum of four courses: • Geology of Earth’s resources to understand how Earth controls the distribution of natural resources • Computational data analytics to gather and analyze large data sets and derive useful information

• Decision analysis to make prudent energy and earth resource decisions in the context of risk and uncertainty • Energy/resource finance to determine the commercial viability of a proposed solution In addition to the core courses, every student must take at least one course in the technology, policy and finance concentrations and must undertake research and write a thesis in their chosen area of concentration. The objective of the core is to build knowledge and skills useful for any of the three concentrations. The additional electives ensure further multidisciplinary breadth and the thesis ensures depth in the area of concentration. When I completed my graduate studies in the early 1980s, the oil and gas business was about the only game in town for somebody interested in energy. While it provided me with a wonderful career, the options for future energy practitioners are vast and diverse. Beyond oil and gas, they include renewables, the grid, evolving utility models, managing energy efficiency on the demand side, carbon capture and sequestration, battery technology, the supply chain of strategic metals, water management, optimization of energy options and financial modelling, as well as the policy, law and regulation related to all of the above. This is but a small sampling of the opportunities for curious, innovative and committed students. And it further underscores the need for a multidisciplinary education that prepares students to nimbly navigate the dizzying array of energy and earth resource challenges they may encounter in their careers. CIM Richard Chuchla is currently the Director of the Energy and Earth Resources graduate program at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to assuming his current position, he spent 35 years in the extractive industries (minerals, coal, oil and gas) exploring basins around the world. His experience includes technical and executive positions in research, exploration, development and corporate strategic analysis.

FUTURE PROSPECTS Throughout 2019 CIM Magazine will feature articles on how the mining workplace is changing and the strategies young professionals will need to build themselves a career in the digital mining industry. Do you have an idea for a story in this section? Reach out to tdinardo@cim.org. Proudly sponsored by

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Social and environmental disclosure and the risk of inconsistency By Karola Tóth

n 2013, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) reviewed 50 National Instrument (NI) 43-101 technical reports. Of those, 80 per cent were non-compliant with requirements as indicated in Form 43-101F1 – for example, they included incomplete forms or not enough information – and 32 per cent of the technical reports on advanced properties did not adequately disclose information related to environmental permits or the social or community impacts. Why is this significant? Risk. For at least the past decade, Ernst and Young (EY) has tracked risks facing mine development. Initially, it was technological risks to ore processing or the characterization and identification of resources that hampered success rates. These are much better understood now. Recently, though, there has been a notable shift. The biggest risk today is social licence to operate, which jumped in importance to number one in EY’s 2019 assessment, up from number seven in 2018. For developers and investors, understanding key environmental and social considerations is becoming critical in determining a project’s future. Mining developments probably touch on more environmental and social elements than most other projects. They are complex because a mine’s footprint is not restricted to where the resource is located. The traditional mining elements remain: the resource itself extracted through open-pit or underground mining, an industrial facility for the processing and extraction of ore, and waste storage for tailings or waste rock. Then there are things the average person may not immediately consider: power infrastructure (either through a transmission line or power plant), and transportation infrastructure to move ore to market (road, rail, port or pipeline). New discoveries are often in more remote environments, so infrastructure is particularly challenging as it often raises the cost and expands the footprint of the project. As a project’s breadth increases, the impact of environmental and social licence over time and space has more potential to adversely affect the outcome of that project. A completed mine with a great resource, a stellar recovery rate and reliable power will not impress investors if the road to the mine has been barricaded one morning by local stakeholders whose concerns about the project, whether they are over water quality, labour contracts or just poor communication, were never adequately addressed. This scenario is all too familiar.

Successful projects depend on such risks being understood and addressed, which is why more consistent disclosure practices would help to better understand the investment risks. Since 2016 the Environmental and Social Responsibility Society (ESRS) of CIM has been working to address the deficiency noted by the OSC and develop more consistent disclosure guidelines around social licence. Key stakeholders in this process are project developers, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, the Mining Association of Canada, and the Canadian Securities Administrators, along with the wider services industry and civil society. Through meetings of the working group and dedicated programming at the annual CIM convention, this topic has been explored from multiple angles. It is clear from all this engagement that we do not need to create new disclosure requirements, but we do need to apply the existing requirements consistently. The regulations under NI 43-101 and technical report form requirements already exist, but as demonstrated by the findings of the OSC and the changing development risks to projects, the mining industry needs further guidance to better comply with these rules and reduce the regulatory burden. A key point highlighted by the working group is the need for better integration of the environmental and social aspects of the project with overall project development aspects like engineering, financing and procurement. Investors should ultimately receive a holistic picture of a project’s success during each stage. ESRS hopes to continue the conversation already underway in boardrooms and on jobsites across Canada. We encourage interested parties to participate in the consultation process as we finalize the guidance document. The guidelines will be published by the end of April on the ESRS website. Feedback can be submitted to ESRS directly via the website. ESRS will host a panel discussion on this topic at the upcoming CIM Convention in Montreal (see the convention website for details). CIM

Karola Tóth is past chair of ESRS, and regional manager of environmental impact assessment and management at SNC-Lavalin.

Have a comment on one of our columns? Reach out to us at editor@cim.org March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 47

What you need to know before implementing an autonomous haulage fleet By Aidan Ayres

utonomous vehicles have been under development for decades but their productive use in mining is relatively new. It is now common for new mines and those with sufficient remaining life to consider running an autonomous haulage system (AHS). While their use has been credited with improvements in safety, reductions in wear and increased utilization, there are AHS-specific concerns that need to be considered in order to properly quantify any potential benefit an AHS fleet could deliver to an operation.

Additional infrastructure requirements AHS trucks need to have three basic pieces of information to safely operate: their current location, the route to their destination and the location of other equipment. To

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meet these needs and have a control and communication network, Wi-Fi or LTE coverage must be established throughout the trucks’ operating environment. This network allows the trucks to be controlled from great distances. Trucks also need to be fitted with GPS beacons to transmit their current location. This is costly and complicated, given that autonomous trucks also need LIDAR, radar, vehicle controllers and Wi-Fi. And although there are concepts around AHS-dedicated trucks, current operating models are based on traditional driver-operated machines. Therefore in addition to the standard cost of each machine, there are also retrofitting costs. Routes and boundaries for AHS-enabled vehicles are set by the survey department. These are usually updated on a daily basis and then sent out to the trucks via Wi-Fi. An accurate survey is essential due to the rapid rate at which the layout of a mining operation changes. If, for example, a curve is placed in a previously straight section of road and no updates are made to a truck’s survey data, that truck may run off the road if its radar and LIDAR do not pick up any physical obstructions. The final piece of information is the location of other equipment. Again this requires retrofitting heavy and light vehicles with GPS, network capabilities, and emergency stops, which effectively pause the AHS fleet at the touch of a button. It is important that all these systems are reliable to establish a safe and efficient operating environment. Most AHS control systems will effectively halt operations when other equipment comes within a truck’s operating “bubble.” Inaccurate locations may cause unwarranted interference with haulage operations. Generally, if a heavy or light vehicle’s location is completely lost due to a loss of GPS or Wi-Fi signal, it will result in the trucks stopping until the location can be re-established.

Staff training At this point in time, there are no exclusive autonomous surface mining environments. Driver-operated equipment such as dig units, graders and light vehicles still need to work around AHS trucks. Operators therefore need to be trained in how to properly interact with AHS equipment, and training differs depending on equipment type. For example, dig unit operators need to know how to position their buckets for an AHS truck as it can be used as a target by the truck for spotting. Light vehicle users need to know

columns traffic hierarchy rules and how their behaviour affects the productivity of trucks. Depending on how the rules of the environment are set up, a light vehicle could hold up a truck by being parked in the opposite lane. A clear understanding by staff of the rules that govern an AHS environment is needed for safe and productive mining.

Local climatic conditions The effectiveness of all systems on an AHS-enabled vehicle is impacted by the weather. Radar and LIDAR can be quite sensitive to things like dust or snow. Rio Tinto’s West Angelas mine, for example, is well known for its dusty production environment, which can have a detrimental impact on the AHS fleet’s productivity. It is important that operational delays caused by the weather and setting of an individual site are understood and managed by mine operations, along with being accounted for by mine planning.

Mine design Although improvements are always being made to the capabilities of AHS fleets, they currently require certain considerations when designing infrastructure such as open pits and stockpile/crusher working environments. In general, this applies to working spaces with maximum gradients, minimum turning circles and minimum road widths. If their working environments are not set up to allow for these requirements, you risk unnecessarily triggering their safety systems. This is of utmost importance when introducing AHS to an already producing operation. Pit designs may need to be reviewed, which will impact stripping ratios and ultimately costs.

Once management has confidence in the fleet, AHS can then be integrated into the main operation with driveroperated trucks. The AHS trucks will usually maintain their assignment to waste runs until the stockpile and ROM areas have been properly set up for their use. Following this, the remaining driver-operated trucks can be retrofitted and the fleet can exclusively run autonomous trucks. It is the job of the mine planner to account for these initial requirements for segregation and then make changes to the plan as unforeseen delays occur. Data gathered from the implementation period will also help to predict future performance and create more accurate mine development plans. Now that AHS is being rolled out on a larger scale, it is becoming accepted as a permanent part of a modern mining operations. Although the technology has delivered improvements in equipment utilization, safety and mechanical wear, it is also important to carefully consider the cost and additional care involved in adopting an autonomous haulage fleet. CIM Aidan Ayres is a senior mining consultant at AMC Consultants.

Send comments to editor@cim.org

Road maintenance An AHS system is unforgiving of poor road construction and maintenance. Larger open-pit operations tend not to have the smooth road conditions found in the civil construction industry. If this trend is carried forward when an AHS fleet is implemented, it can result in frequent delays from incidents like tray spillage, which can trigger the radar/LIDAR systems.

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Mine planning Understanding how and to what degree localized conditions affect the AHS fleet usually occurs only after the AHS trucks are on site. There is often an implementation period for the technology to be established and understood, and for staff to be trained. A common method is to use a driveroperated fleet in areas of the mine where ore is being sourced to avoid delays in feeding the crusher and obtaining that important initial revenue stream. The AHS fleet will be set up where pre-stripping of waste is needed. This creates a pit-to-dump AHS-only area where all the fixed and mobile infrastructure required to run AHS trucks can be calibrated to the specific site with minimal impact on the operation. It also serves as a training facility where staff can be cycled through before AHS is rolled out site-wide.

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Front-end strategies to reduce project risks By Steve Rusk

ining is an industry of big projects that require large investments. Although large projects have more financial investment at stake, reducing risk is important for all projects. By adopting strategies to address economic, technical, environmental and social risks – and their increasing impact, if these risks are carried forward – risks can be reduced and project profitability protected.

Understanding the order of magnitude impact When looking at project risks and their implications, it is important to fully understand that mining project risks can have an order of magnitude increase in cost if not addressed. The impact of risk on cost, schedule, quality and project success is exponentially greater in the future than it is today. For example, a change in infrastructure design may cost a few thousand dollars to correct during the project’s conceptual phase. If this change is carried forward to scoping, the

cost will be tens of thousands, to feasibility, hundreds of thousands. If the design change is not made until the construction phase, the cost to correct can increase to millions of dollars. Understanding the order of magnitude increase that risk can have on costs helps project teams establish and align priorities and focus on identifying and addressing uncertainties and risks early.

When cost, schedule, and quality decisions are made in silos Every project decision has an impact on cost, schedule and quality. These three variables extend throughout the project, where technical and commercial issues are commonly managed by separate groups within a project team. However, detailed discussions and decision making related to those issues are not always a shared experience. A strategic

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columns path developed to deal with current and future issues in one group may have unintended consequences in another. For example, a contracting strategy developed to mitigate financial or complexity risk may in fact have a negative impact on technical or execution risk. Decision making needs to be integrated in order to consider the impact of decisions on all three variables.

and the cost-schedule-quality equilibrium is considered as part of the decision-making process, project risk can be successfully managed. CIM Steve Rusk is vice-president of mining at Stantec. With over 30 years of experience, he has worked in production and on projects throughout every stage of a mine’s lifecycle, from exploration to closure. He is also a member of CIM Magazine’s editorial advisory board.

Start with a holistic view of decision outcomes Organizations that take a holistic approach to understanding the outcomes of decisions – and indecisions – have the wide view necessary to implement strategies across groups. Understanding the downstream cost of risk and the value of mitigating it early also contributes to success. There are three strategic approaches that project development teams can implement to reduce risk at the front end of a project: 1. Well understood priorities Along with scope, priorities related to cost, schedule and quality are needed to guide decision making. Project leaders must not only establish but communicate the priorities to the project team. Better informed decisions are made when the entire team is aligned with the priorities and understands why they are in place. 2. Integrated evaluation Project teams can successfully reduce risk and uncertainty when they adopt integrated decision making that considers how options will impact cost, schedule and quality. Since these variables are interdependent, separating them – or making one department responsible for just cost – potentially increases rather than decreases risks. 3. Complete each stage before proceeding Deferring decisions is deferring, not reducing, risk. A decision that is deferred due to uncertainty, ambiguity, indecision or non-decision compromises the scope of the project and carries risk forward at greater cost. Project teams should move to the next stage of the project only when the current stage is complete. Where circumstances require decoupling – i.e., delaying portions of the work – within a project, it is critically important to fully understand the consequences of advancing parts of the project out of sequence. Implementing these strategies requires adopting project management best practices and a project team with a deep understanding of control strategies and processes to manage uncertainties. The project leaders need strong communication skills and the ability to educate the entire team on the scope and priorities to maintain alignment and inform decision making. The project team needs technical expertise and diverse experience to establish scope and priorities. With the right team, scope, priorities and control strategies in place, mitigating risk can and should start at the front end of project development. The right team includes members with diverse experience who understand the value of identifying risk from a holistic point of view. When the project team is aligned on scope, priorities are well understood, March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 51

Courtesy of Excellon Resources

Aerial view of Excellon Resources’ Platosa silver-lead-zinc mine in Mexico

Excellon wins the water war Excellon Resources’ dewatering project to double production at its silver mine in Mexico By Kylie Williams

rior to completing a $6-million dewatering project in 2017, almost half of the people employed at Excellon Resources’ Platosa silver-lead-zinc mine in Mexico were primarily responsible for grout. Of the 250 workers at the underground mine, 116 would haul, pump and install pipes and cement to stem the flow from the hundreds of water-bearing structures that plagued production. Days were lost waiting for grout to dry between blasts, and headings were routinely unavailable for weeks at a time due to excessive water ingress. “There were some areas where we were moving 100 bags of cement per metre of development,” said mining engineer Denis Flood, who joined Excellon in July 2016 as vicepresident of technical services, mid-way through the major dewatering project. Today, a series of deep dewatering wells pump 30,000 gallons per minute (gpm) up and out of the mine, creating a dry mine that is safer and more productive. The water table immediately surrounding the mine has dropped about 65 metres since January 2017, including the ramp up period. “By removing grouting from our development cycle, we can develop five times faster,” said Flood. “All of the equipment is operating in dry conditions now, saving millions in maintenance costs.”

Underground and underwater Platosa is a carbonate-replacement silver-lead-zinc mine in Durango, in north-central Mexico, and has been operating since 2005. At first, mining progressed using a modified room and pillar system due to the flat-lying nature of the orebody. Conditions in the mine were relatively dry for the first 100 metres below the surface but as the mine deepened, the water inflow dramatically increased. Flows as high as 8,000 gpm were encountered in a single heading. The overwhelming water problem could not be handled with cement alone, so at the end of 2013, hydrogeologist Michael Verreault, president of Hydro-Ressources, arrived on site to work out a solution with the Excellon team. “When I got there, the lower workings were completely flooded,” said Verreault. “It was raining everywhere. The miners were wearing life vests! One particular drift had 10,000 gallons per minute pouring out.” Verreault’s first task was to model the locations of the main water-bearing structures. However, the solution processes that formed the ore deposit itself were also responsible for creating numerous caverns in the host limestone formation, and deformation had created some major faults. This combination resulted in spectacular gypsum crystals over two metres long and spaces large enough for a person to crawl inside but, with March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 53

so many voids and broken rock, Verreault concluded that it would be “almost impossible” to map the faults by looking at core and drill cuttings alone. Instead, they used water velocity along drillholes to map the structure. In 2014, Excellon hired on-site drilling contractor Versa Drilling to drill 24 pilot holes below the water table and Hydro-Ressources deployed an electromagnetic flow meter to locate the main southeast fault. The water near the fault flows with the greatest velocity, while farther from the fault the velocity is close to zero. Using this method on over 3,000 metres of drilling, Hydro-Ressources mapped the location of the main faults.

Creating a cone of depression With the location of the main water-bearing feature identified, the team set about creating what Flood described as a “cone of depression.” By pumping water up from below the mine, a cone-shaped, water-less area forms, like the cyclone of water that forms above the drain when the plug is taken out of a bathtub. “We create a cone in the water table around the mine so that conditions in the mine are dry,” said Flood. “Two or three hundred metres away from the mine, the water table elevation is the same.” With this overall plan in mind, Excellon excavated a series of underground galleries specifically for the dewatering wells located directly above the targeted faults at a specific depth. Specialist contractor Master Drilling used a customized raise bore machine to drill the 14-inch diameter dewatering wells, which were sunk vertically to minimize deviation and hit the target. “We had to abandon the first well,” said Verreault. “We hit another fault and a lot of broken rock. It caused a lot of trouble for the drillers.” Through trial and error, the second well was completed, and the first pump installed. The submersible pumps, supplied by Rouyn Noranda-based Technosub, are 250 horsepower and capable of pumping 2,600 gallons of water per minute. Powerful pumps were needed to lift the water over 100 metres. Although larger, more powerful pumps are available, drilling wider-diameter holes capable of hosting them and the more expensive replacement parts was cost-prohibitive. Once installed, Excellon ran preliminary tests on the first operating well. “We observed a drawdown [of the water table] of just 10 centimetres,” said Verreault. “We realized the wells themselves were not causing enough drawdown because there was no head loss. The ground is too permeable. What is going to draw down the water table is the lack of recharge.” More wells were required to drain the groundwater down faster than it could refill. At first, the intention was to drill one well per drilling bay, but Verreault and Excellon decided to drill two per bay to increase the drawdown. A total of 14 submersible pumps from nine drilling bays have been installed to date. The water is pumped to underground booster stations, where larger, more powerful machines pump the water up to the surface via existing discharge raises. 54 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

During construction of the dewatering wells, production continued at a reduced rate. Platosa has a nameplate production capacity of 300 tonnes per day, but historically struggled to produce beyond 180 tonnes per day. During the dewatering project, the mine was producing 110 to 100 tonnes per day while about 80 extra workers were underground installing the new infrastructure. Phases one and two of the dewatering project took 600 days and were completed without injury.

Twice the pumping power, twice the productivity The current pumping rate at Platosa is 30,000 gpm. In 2014, before the project began, the pumping rate was around 14,000 gpm and the mine was crowded with numerous small, less efficient pumps, water pipes and a series of intermediate sumps. The mine consumed a similar amount of energy as it does now to pump less than half the current volume of water. “We consume about 9.5 megawatts of power at the site,” said Flood. “About eight megawatts is just for pumping, but now we’re pumping more than double the gallons per megawatt than we were before.” Production has also increased dramatically. According to Excellon’s most recent quarterly report, production is at 220 tonnes per day. In most production areas, jumbos have replaced jacklegs, and bolters were purchased in 2018 to improve the safety and productivity of installing ground support. According to a 2018 technical report prepared by SRK, the mine was transitioning to a cut and fill mining method during 2018 due to the dry conditions and dipping nature of the ore body. The ultimate goal, said Flood, is to reach 300 tonnes per day.

Surface water overload At the surface, the water pumped out of the mine is distributed to nearby farmers for irrigation. The desert-like area has no surface water and receives less than 200 millimetres of rain per year. Farmers previously relied on individual groundwater wells to maintain crops of alfalfa and corn. From the air today, the region surrounding the mine stands out as lush and green as water from deep below the mine has irrigated 2,580 hectares of farmland. Excellon hired a hydro-agronomist to assist the nearby existing and new farmers to manage the water. Verreault described the water coming from below the mine as “almost drinkable” and said the new problem is water from the surface coming back into the mine from above and recharging the aquifer. “In mid-2017, we noticed that the drawdown trends were changing,” said Verreault, “We investigated the surface water trends, and farmers were building settling ponds because they couldn’t use all the water, and that was causing re-infiltration.” Looking ahead, the mine is planning to discharge the water farther away and across a wider area. Underground, more dewatering wells are under construction as the mine chases the dipping orebody deeper. “The constraint has always been the water,” said Flood. “Now that the mine is totally dry, we have lots of equipment, skilled workers, and access to the mineralization. We can get on with the business of mining.” CIM

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Courtesy of Niobec

Niobec mine site

The complex journey to a simple solution Niobec set out to discover the source of seasonal variation in flotation recovery By Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

or years the Niobec niobium mine in Saint-Honoré, Quebec – the only underground niobium mine and one of three major niobium producers in the world – experienced seasonal variations in its flotation circuits that resulted in an overall drop in niobium recovery during the winter months as well as a dramatic increase in reagent consumption. “We just lived with it without thinking much about why it was happening,” said Jean-Sébastien Marois, Niobec’s chief metallurgist. “Then in the winter of 2014, the seasonal variation increased significantly. It became very clear we had to do something about it.” With close to a four per cent niobium recovery reduction that winter, Marois launched an investigation. A year and half of tests and research followed. In the end, he not only uncovered that there was more than one culprit behind the recovery loss and that seasonal variations in flotation is as poorly understood a problem as it is complex, he and his team had also found a simple and inexpensive fix. “The impressive part is not the actual solution itself,” said Frank Cappuccitti, president of Flottec, who worked with Marois on the project. “It was the process Jean-Sébastien used that was impressive. The logic, the step-by-step going through it, the problem-solving skills, that’s what was the key.” 56 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

The search for the culprit Niobec’s recovery processes include two pre-pyrochlore reverse flotation circuits to remove pyrite and carbonates. The success of the pyrochlore flotation circuit that follows is dependent on the preceding circuits recovering a fixed amount of carbonates. In the winter of 2014-15, Marois and his team began by focusing on the carbonate flotation to solve the detrimental winter season effect after they noted that even adding four times the typical amount of reagent to these circuits did not produce a sufficient carbonate recovery. “Carbonate flotation is pretty widespread so we expected that others must have had a similar problem, but we just couldn’t find anything in the literature,” said Marois. “It was disheartening. But with seasonal variations, the first obvious thing is temperature.” He sought the help of Cappuccitti, an expert in reagent chemistry whose company Flottec develops and provides flotation technologies and services. Cappuccitti did his own bit of problem-solving and quickly surmised the issue was the 4 C fatty acid titer point (the temperature at which fatty acids begin to crystallize) of the reagent used at Niobec. “The fatty acids begin to crystalize and fall out of solution when they cool down,” said Cappuccitti. “So in the summer

underground mining you add this reagent to the flotation circuit and it’s fully soluble and active and has no problems. All of a sudden, the water cools down to 2 C or 3 C and you are throwing in say 100 grams, but it’s already becoming solid and freezing so you’re only utilizing a small fraction of it.” Cappuccitti hypothesized a fatty acid with a lower titer point would solve Niobec’s problems. The reagent used at Niobec – and in fact in many operations in Canada and the United States – was made with a fatty acid derived from trees in the southern U.S. Maybe trees in northern climates have fatty acids with a lower titer point, Cappuccitti thought. After some research with a company from Scandinavia, a formulated fatty acid was developed using northern-based Tall Oil. It had a 1 C titer point.

Back to the drawing board In July 2015, Marois and his team tested the new reagent developed by Flottec, called X200-12, in their lab with process waters cooled in a freezer. It turns out one of the difficulties in studying seasonal variation in flotation is the seasonal temperature changes themselves. “We were trying to do tests in the winter by warming up our water and in the summer, we had to cool the process water,” said Marois. Their tests confirmed that although the new reagent led to some recovery improvements, the winter process water continued to perform worse than the summer’s regardless of the water’s temperature in the lab. “That was really the starting point that there was something else going on,” said Marois. “So we asked ourselves, ‘What do we know can affect how carbonate flotation with fatty acid works?’ We stepped back and thought, ‘Let’s look at everything we have measured and analyzed in our plant and look for variations that correlate with the seasons,’” said Marois. He brought in Niobec’s environmental department and a massive amount of water monitoring data they had collected over years. Marois analyzed the data and zeroed in on phosphates as a possible suspect in the recovery loss since they are known to negatively affect flotation. “The problem was that our phosphate ratios are very, very low. It was about five parts per million (ppm) in the process water, and lab testing showed that flotation was actually affected at concentrations way higher than that,” said Marois. “We have 18,000 ppm of dissolved solids so it seemed very insignificant to us compared to everything that was in the water. It was a very difficult point in the investigation. We couldn’t understand it at all. We felt we were in front of a wall. For weeks, we just didn’t know what to do.”

Finding the phosphates Marois kept studying the data. One day he noticed something peculiar: the phosphates concentrations were different depending on where the water was sampled. Process water taken from the tailings pond returned eight ppm, but close to zero ppm when that same water was taken out of flotation. “When you have small differences in concentrations in two normally identical waters, the first thing you say is ‘OK, this is an analysis error,’” said Marois.

By the end of the winter of 2015-16, the niobium recovery rate had dropped by some six per cent. The team was racing against time, but they stepped back yet again and monitored the water over the next year. “Looking over that data, I realized it was not a coincidence. The concentrations in the carbonate water were consistently lower,” said Marois. “That really was what gave a new kick to the investigation. I said, ‘OK, if I have process water with eight ppm of phosphates but when I take the same process water out of the flotation, the same phosphates are not there anymore, where are the phosphates going? Obviously, they’re going somewhere.’” The phosphates, Marois, concluded after more lab tests, were being absorbed by the carbonates. Baffled as to where the phosphates were coming from, he mentally scanned the mineto-mill big picture. At the plant, significant amounts of process water are added during grinding, desliming and carbonate flotation for pulp density control. It was a moment that pointed to the significance of the number of times the carbonates came into contact with the process water. “We thought we had things right in the lab, using the process water we had in the plant, at the temperature we had in the plant, with the ore we had in the plant, and all the conditions we believed we had in our flotation. We were doing things by the book,” he said. “But we had not considered what was happening beforehand and what else could have had an effect on the flotation. You really have to take your whole process when you try to duplicate what’s happening in your plant.” The team conducted new tests that replicated the addition of process water and confirmed that each time the carbonates came into contact with the water, they absorbed more phosphates. That still left them with a puzzling question. “In the summer, the ponds were green with algae blooms, but there were no phosphates to be seen anywhere in our tailing streams. What were the algae consuming if the plant was not sending any phosphates to the ponds? And where were the phosphates in the process water coming from?” said Marois. Further reasoning and tests led them to find the answer to the last question. They were coming from the leach filter, but only when the amount of apatite to be leached became high, namely during the winter. “The whole thing was a feedback loop,” said Marois. The loop began with the poor winter performance of the high titer point fatty acid, which resulted in phosphates moving through the next steps in the process, hiding in the leach filter and ending up in the tailings ponds. Marois and his team knew they had to find a way to break the loop by preventing phosphates from going to the tailings pond. They switched the plant’s filtered leach to an effluent that was more concentrated in carbonates and used the low titer fatty acid reagent in the carbonate flotation. “We were able to keep the phosphate concentration low and when winter 2017-18 came, we monitored carefully to ensure there were zero phosphates in the pond,” said Marois. “We confirmed we were right. The seasonal effect has not been a problem since. We are now in the middle of January 2019 and everything is very fine.” CIM March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 57

Courtesy of BHP

Susan Lasecki-Coiro, head of commercial innovation at BHP

Innovation by committee BHP turns to a network of suppliers to help it solve operational challenges By Matthew Parizot

usan Lasecki-Coiro has spent her entire career in the business of transformation. Rather than getting stuck on problems that would be difficult to solve in-house, as head of commercial innovation at BHP, she is helping the major miner open its doors to new ideas and collaborative partners. Her latest assignment is BHP’s Supply Innovation Program – a platform the company launched in 2009 that allows suppliers with innovative solutions to mining challenges to access the company’s mining operations.

CIM: What was the career path that led to your current position? Lasecki-Coiro: I have spent most of my career driving major change in large corporations. I have eight years’ experience in manufacturing in the United States and eight years in the oil and gas industry with BP. I joined Anglo American to lead the transformation of their supply chain and then I left corporate, became an entrepreneur and launched a renewable energy company in South Africa called Hope Energy. More recently, I 58 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

returned to corporate to lead BHP’s Supply Innovation Program to see if I could take it to the next level. That’s what I have spent the last two years doing.

CIM: What is the Supply Innovation Program? Lasecki-Coiro: It is a program where we take our business challenges and put them out to the market, not asking for a product or service but for a solution. What we award is a pilot on site. If that pilot is successful, it then transitions to an ongoing operational contract. We’re looking to bring innovation into BHP and we hope that our business challenges become a fuel to create an ecosystem of entrepreneurial innovation in the communities and the countries where we operate.

CIM: Who are the target partners for this program? Lasecki-Coiro: We opened this up to suppliers who could solve a specific problem. We invite small entrepreneurial suppliers within and outside mining. We invite large suppliers,

underground mining we invite local suppliers and we invite international suppliers. It’s who might be able to solve the problem that’s important. We don’t restrict it to just local suppliers for two reasons. One, we need to get the best solution; and two, we found that opening this to international suppliers still can help the local ecosystem to grow.

CIM: When did the program start? Lasecki-Coiro: The program actually started ten years ago. This new approach, applying all the lessons learned over the first eight years, has been a little less than two years. We are now identifying challenges that exist at the bottlenecks in the operations and that are issues the operations are struggling to solve. These challenges are prioritized according to the greatest total value by business case. We have significantly shortened our time to market to 60 days, down from eight to 12 months, delivering solutions in the time frame the business needs them. We are working collaboratively to support the ecosystem in a way that all players are empowered to deliver. We are not trying do everything ourselves. We have our operations team members meet face to face with the suppliers to describe the challenge and in an open forum where all suppliers can ask questions and get clarification. This greatly improves the understanding of the problem, creates ownership in our operations and technology teams for the pilot’s success and is delivering much better solutions.

CIM: What was the inspiration for the original program? Lasecki-Coiro: The inspiration for the original program was to help develop shared value for the community and country, using mining as a lever to create a METS (Mining Equipment, Technology and Services) set of suppliers in Chile. The vision was to be able to create a METS sector similar to what other countries around the world had done previously.

CIM: If I was a company that might have an innovative solution to one of your problems, why would I want to join this program? Lasecki-Coiro: One of the biggest benefits is accessibility. When you look at BHP’s objectives and what we’ve done strategically as a company, we’re very public about the fact that we are investing in large scale assets and leveraging scale. Small to medium suppliers get access to BHP through a transparent, comparative process that allows them to prove the value of their solutions to the company. It’s the way in the door. The other thing that it helps suppliers with is if they’re able to successfully prove their solution in a trial, not only is that success known to BHP, but it’s also known to other mining companies in the ecosystem. That’s a great advantage from an ability to scale up.

CIM: How would a supplier learn about the challenges that need solutions? Lasecki-Coiro: We do a public-private partnership with an open innovation program called Expande that plays two roles:

number one, they connect the players in the ecosystem to support those entrepreneurs to be successful, something that we at BHP are not the right people to be doing. Secondly, it’s a platform that we put our business challenges out through in Chile. One of the best things to do is to make sure that Expande knows who you are as a supplier, so you’re considered for these challenges. The other thing that we do is put the challenge on the website, so that anybody could also raise their hand. But we’re also clear that they have to meet a set of criteria that qualifies them to be invited.

CIM: What kind of criteria? Lasecki-Coiro: They need to be viable financially, they can’t have any challenges as a company, they need to actually have the ability to solve the problem, et cetera. It’s not that they have to be huge – we’ve had some small suppliers deliver us amazing solutions – but they have to be viable.

CIM: What kind of results have you seen? Lasecki-Coiro: We now have a portfolio of over 40 projects, all in Chile. The project pipeline in this fiscal year will result in the awarding of seven operational contracts, which is probably more than we’ve been able to award in the previous eight years. I think that it’s also important to look at how this is changing the acceptance of innovation within the company, and changing our culture and behaviours to accept this.

CIM: Why is it important to have a program like this? Lasecki-Coiro: At BHP, we recognize that the world is changing rapidly. Industries around us are being disrupted and mining is one of those industries that is ripe for disruption. One of the things at the heart of that is getting a company and an industry that has been doing the same thing for almost 100 years to accept innovation. We won’t change if we can’t do that. We realized as an organization that doing things by ourselves in isolation is not going to get us a solution, and we need to work collaboratively with the communities and countries where we operate, with the suppliers and with the other stakeholders. Equally as important is these challenges become a fuel to create innovative companies in the regions where we operate, which helps to transform those areas to be able to deliver in Industry 4.0, to be able to create jobs, to be able to deliver to us the new skills and technology that we need.

CIM: How do you see this evolving in the future? Lasecki-Coiro: We are doing pilots both in Australia and in petroleum this fiscal year to try this methodology in these two areas. If we’re successful, then we will scale that up across the rest of the company. The second way this is evolving is culturally. We are applying a process of being open and always learning. We’re taking risks, we’re learning from our mistakes and we’re applying that learning going forward. So we’re actually changing the way we work. CIM March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 59

MINING IS AN INHERENTLY

The latest tailings dam failure in Brazil is yet another example of why that is. So as investors start demanding more clarity around

ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIAL and GOVERNANCE risks, the industry will have to find a way to respond. By Kelsey Rolfe

he failure of the Córrego do Feijão dam was as sudden as it was devastating. Cracks appeared in the wall and in mere seconds it crumpled. A cloud of brown dust exploded into the air as the wall gave way to a torrent of mud that moved too fast to trigger an alarm and enveloped everything in its path. Videos, released days after the fact, showed buildings and vehicles quickly submerged. The collapse has, at press time, killed at least 186 people and left an additional 122 missing. In the weeks since, the consequences have kept piling up. Vale employees, executives and contractors have been arrested, its operations in Brazil are tied up in courtmandated holds, and fines and lawsuits are multiplying. The disaster – the third major tailings dam failure in five years, after Vale and BHP’s Samarco in 2015 and Imperial Metals’ Mount Polley in 2014 – has large institutional investors demanding change. In late January, for example, a group of influential British, European and Canadian investment firms and pension funds, including the Church of England Pensions Board, Sweden’s Public Pension Funds, BMO Global Asset Management and Robeco, called for an independent and global public classification system for monitoring tailings dam safety and risk. The immediate interest in tailings management, however, is not isolated. It is an expression of a larger trend as institutional and retail investors alike are digging deeper into environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks. “There are lots more questions being asked by the investment community here in Canada and the United States,” said Brent Bergeron, Goldcorp’s executive vicepresident of corporate affairs and sustainability, speaking about the dam collapse. “I don’t see that going away. I see that increasing in terms of overall scrutiny.”

“There are lots more questions being asked by the investment community here.” – B. Bergeron

How the industry will respond is still a work in progress.

Tough talk Agnico Eagle does not often hear from investors about tailings dams. Though Louise Grondin, the company’s senior vice-president of environment, sustainable development and people, noted that Agnico has seen an increase in curious investors probing into the company’s ESG risks in the last two years, especially as it started developing a more generalist investor base, tailings dams were rarely top of mind. But after Córrego do Feijão, one institutional shareholder in particular wanted more information. “They wanted to know how many tailings ponds we had, both active and inactive, what type of infrastructure, because the Vale setup was an upstream raise so they wanted to know how different from Vale’s tailings ponds we were,” she said. “They wanted to know how much money we spend on managing our tailings, and… how often are the inspections, and if we have an emergency action plan. They wanted to know what the risk is, and how we manage that risk.” Agnico is hardly alone. Already, mining companies from around the world are hearing from investors and analysts trying to understand how much of a threat their tailings dams pose. “Prior to Mount Polley even, and [Samarco]…the actual extreme risk was always evident, was always known. It was a big serious issue, but it felt like to a degree it was managed,” said Jamie Bonham, manager of corporate engagement at NEI investments, a Canadian responsible investment firm. “I think that certainty has definitely evaporated.” Omar Jabara, a corporate communications executive at Newmont Mining, said the company has already been asked by investors how it is managing its tailings dams. “When incidents and accidents such as the one in Brazil happen, it shines a spotlight on tailings and naturally

March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 61

generates more questions about how tailings by all mining companies are managed,” he said. Goldcorp’s Bergeron said investors have expressed interest in whether the company is incorporating new technology that would allow it to eliminate the use of traditional wet tailings facilities, and how the company evaluates the choice of tailings storage facilities right from the beginning stages of mine development. The cost of tailings facilities in the closure phase of mining has also become an important point, he said. On BHP’s half-year earnings call with investors and analysts, CEO Andrew MacKenzie fielded a question from a JPMorgan analyst who wanted to understand how the investment community “should think about potential decommissioning and rehab costs.” The questions get to the heart of whether a company is too risky of an investment – but they are also about more than money. Investors know how to ask questions about risks such as carbon emissions and fiscal responsibility, but tailings storage facilities are a different and complicated animal. “I can’t dig into a technical tailings dam review and come up with any sort of critique that’s going to make sense; I’m not a geotechnical engineer,” said Bonham. “It’s very hard from the outside to know what’s adequate, and I think that’s why we push companies toward finding some sort of assurance mechanisms, standards they can follow that give some kind of comfort.”

A broader trend Socially responsible investing,* once a niche investing strategy that, Bonham recalled, could get you “laughed out of [a] boardroom,” is becoming a mainstream way of building portfolio value for institutional and retail investors alike. According to an October 2018 report from the Responsible Investing Association (RIA), there was $2 trillion in Canadian assets invested in various types of responsible investing schemes as of December 2017 – and responsible investing accounted for 50.6 per cent of Canadian assets under management. It marked the

SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE INVESTING Socially responsible investing covers several types of investment strategies, including positive and negative screening, impact investing and investor engagement, that seek to prioritize companies’ and funds’ environmental and social good alongside their financial returns.

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first time that a majority of Canadian assets were managed in some sort of responsible venture. EY also reported in 2017 that, since 2012, funds in sustainable investments have increased 107.4 per cent per year. Those numbers are nothing to laugh at. Major institutional investors such as juggernaut firm Blackrock, the Royal Bank of Canada and the Canadian Pension Plan’s investment arm all have responsible investing strategies, which involve positive screening for strong ESG performers in each sector and engaging with companies to improve their performance. Results from the RIA’s recent survey of investors in October explain why. The top two reasons investors said they were moving toward responsible investment were to help minimize the risk of their investments and improve on their returns over time. “These data suggest that institutional investors increasingly see a clear business case for incorporating environmental, social and governance factors into investment decisions,” the report noted. The growing popularity of responsible investing could also be seen through a different lens: a changing understanding of what constitutes tolerable risk. While ESG metrics do point to a specific genre of risks, some of the biggest ones in mining – such as a tailings dam collapse or a lack of community buy-in to a project – can delay or derail a project, debilitate a company and make it a bad long-term investment. “Something like this dam break, it just crystallizes the fact that ESG investors were talking about something that was quite obviously an investment risk all along. Full stop. You don’t need to put ESG in front of it,” Bonham said. “The market is starting to acknowledge that looking at things from an ESG perspective gives you a different lens into a company’s management.” Investor interest in ESG issues is not just a matter of idle questions. They want to see sector best performers, and are actively engaging with companies to improve performance on certain metrics. “Our CEO Sean Boyd tells us when he meets with investors that they’re coming in with ESG research reports and saying, ‘If you’re not in the top 10, [we’re] not interested in investing in a company that hasn’t reached that plateau,’” said Dale Coffin, Agnico’s corporate director of communications and public affairs.

Bonham said NEI has been actively engaging for over a decade with resource sector companies such as oil sands giant Suncor, with whom it has worked to ensure the company will be able to thrive in a low carbon economy. For mining companies, NEI engages on issues relating to human rights and climate resilience. If the firm feels there is no realistic hope of the company meeting NEI’s expectation, it is willing to divest, Bonham said, but “we think there’s far more ground you can gain through engagement.” Multiple executives said the increasing focus on ESG issues has prompted positive changes at their companies – not in terms of risk-management practices, but around disclosure. “I would say our disclosure has kept pace with the level of interest [in ESG],” said Iamgold CEO Steve Letwin. He said that investors are interested in how the company produces gold in an environmentally friendly way, that its labour force is appropriately trained and that reclamation is being properly planned for. Grondin said Agnico often hears queries about its climate change readiness, community relations and work with First Nations, and the process has been instructive. Investor interest in ESG topics “definitely influences [our] disclosure. What we realized is that we know we do the right thing, but we need to talk about it because otherwise people don’t know,” she said. In 2018, the company held its first-ever ESG-specific conference call and presentation. Jabara noted that Newmont investors are not exclusively asking about ESG issues, but agreed that it has helped improve Newmont’s transparency. “Risks to the business can come from a variety of places, including environmental and social risks,” he said. “We put a lot of effort into [transparency] through our sustainability report and also participating in third-party assurance efforts to let [investors] look under the hood to see that we have the right standards, practices and controls in place.” Bergeron – who said Goldcorp is often asked about its community consultation processes in Canada and at its operations abroad, and has seen a sharp increase in interest about environmental risks like its water usage and the overall footprint of its mines – said an increasing awareness of what investors need to understand has made Goldcorp a better company. “In terms of the difficult situations we’ve had in the past at different mine sites, that ability to be open and transparent with regards to the information we’re providing…has actually increased our ability to perform a lot better in different countries where we’re operating,” he said. But analysts and investors noted that miners already had a jump start on the trend toward disclosure, and in fact are among the strongest sectors in the game. “Industries such as mining [that] have higher exposure, they are actually ahead of companies that have a

“The market is starting to acknowledge that looking at things from an ESG perspective gives you a different lens into a company’s management.” – J. Bonham

lower exposure because they have to be,” said Frances Fairhead, an extractives research analyst at ESG ratings firm Sustainalytics. “They’ve been doing it for longer, they’ve been providing strong sustainability disclosure for a longer time than a lot of other industries, and the big mining companies tend to be quite engaged. We have noticed, however, that we are engaging with individuals higher up in the organization.”

Rating responsibility To understand how investors make decisions about what companies are “responsible” investments, it is important to know how ESG ratings work. The ratings process can be intensive. According to Fairhead, Sustainalytics identifies sector-specific ESG issues, such as community relations, occupational health and safety, and emissions, effluents and waste, and assess the company’s specific exposure, and its management of that risk, against the industry average. The average is based on factors including the sector’s historical record. Some ratings firms stick to analyzing companies’ public documents, and some also provide the companies they evaluate with an exhaustive survey to fill out. “They’re thorough and rigorous processes that require a lot of participation from across the business,” said Jabara. He said the process often covers everything from human resources and labour practices to environmental and operational performance, tax and royalty payments and contributions to local communities. “If you’re going to participate, you have to…be able to demonstrate that you’re delivering results and performing up to the standards you’ve set out.”

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But given that there are numerous ratings firms – both ESG-specific and general, plus investment firms that do their own in-house research – a miner’s scores can vary depending on who did the rating. “Some investors say that’s a source of frustration for them; they just want cold hard facts they can act on,” Fairhead said. “Often companies will have big strengths in one area and big weaknesses in another, and it’s just whether the ESG [ratings] provider in question…thinks one aspect is more important than the other.” And, Grondin noted, sometimes a company’s ESG rating may not tell the whole story. She said that some ratings agencies give companies a failing grade on the employee retention metric if turnover is higher than a certain percentage. But Agnico, which puts a lot of effort into employing Inuit people at its Nunavut operations, sees higher turnover in the territory. “We have a lot of turnover, above 20 per cent, because we’re hiring the same people all the time – it’s their first job, they’ve never worked in an industrial setting before, it’s normal that it will take some time to get used to the idea and we accept that. We rehire them,” she said. “[But] agencies will look at the numbers and say this is a bad employer. Given the context, it’s the opposite.” Just like credit ratings, an ESG score can change in an instant. In the wake of Córrego do Feijão, Vale saw its credit rating put on watch by S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s downgraded Vale to non-investment grade. Sustainalytics also downgraded its rating. Vale’s emissions, effluents and waste “controversy rating” was downgraded to Category 5, from Category 4 previously, “to reflect the exceptionality of the 2015 and 2019 tailings spills, the severe impact that those spills have had on local communities and the environment, and the financially material risk for Vale,” Sustainalytics said in a report. Category 5 denotes the largest possible risk to a company, covering events that have severe environmental and societal impacts and present “serious business risk.” The consequences of a poor ESG score can be substantial. “Some investors have rules about if companies have a certain controversy level, they do not invest in the company,” Fairhead said. “So it could mean that there’s a narrower pool of investors that are willing to invest in the company.”

Full disclosure? BHP CEO MacKenzie started off the company’s Feb. 19 half-year results conference call on a sombre note. “I do want to reflect on the tragic incident at Vale’s Brumhadino iron ore operation in Brazil last month. The collapse of the dam is a tragedy, and we offer our heartfelt sympathies to all those affected,” he said. “At BHP, we are very much committed to learn from this, as we should as an industry, and redouble our efforts to make sure that events like this simply cannot happen.”

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Along with the company’s financial results for the six months ending in December, BHP released an accounting of the tailings dams at all of its operations. Other companies took similar steps. Jabara said Newmont updated its tailings management fact sheet, created in 2014, to “address more thoroughly some of the questions that might come up, and be transparent and provide stakeholders an open look at our approach to tailings management.” Goldcorp’s Bergeron said he expects the company will release more information on its tailings dams now as part of its commitment to the Mining Association of Canada’s (MAC) Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) standards. Australian iron ore company Fortescue Metals Group and mining giant Anglo American also provided an accounting of their tailings storage facilities in their annual or half-year results. A day after BHP, Rio Tinto disclosed details on all its tailings facilities. CEO Jean-Sebastien Jacques also announced the company would review its global standards for tailings and water storage facilities, including how to improve its existing external facilities audits. He also said the company was “committed to play its part in any industry response.” That broader industry change could be afoot. The U.K., European and Canadian pension plans and investment firms that issued a joint call for an independent global safety review system for tailings dams proposed that the new system require annual audits of all tailings dams, which would be made public, and verify that companies are implementing the highest corresponding safety standards. The firms have a combined US$1.3 trillion in assets – a substantial source of funding that could prove particularly motivational now. In the joint statement, Pieter van Stijn, BMO Global Asset Management’s director of responsible investment, said that “as an investor in this sector, we need assurance that there are proper systems in place to manage such risks. We are committed to working with other investors to see the necessary improvements in the sector.” The International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), which in 2016 made a proposal similar to that of the U.K., European, and Canadian firms that was not taken up, pledged in late February to launch an independent expert panel to develop an international standard for tailings facilities. MacKenzie also echoed the call, saying that BHP “would welcome a common international and independent body to oversee the integrity of the construction and operation of all dams, and we certainly endorse the call for increased transparency in tailings dam disclosure.”

But in the meantime, some industry initiatives and standards do exist. MAC has both TSM tailings guidelines, which offer performance indicators of a responsible tailings management system, and a manual that offers best practices for operating, maintaining and surveilling tailings and water management facilities. In the wake of Mount Polley in 2014, the association reviewed its tailings guidelines and implemented all 29 recommendations that resulted. The Canadian Dam Association’s guidelines for dam safety reviews are also used across the country and widely regarded as some of the most rigorous standards in the industry. While Córrego do Feijão may herald a significant industry change in disclosing tailings risk to investors and the public, some companies have already counted themselves out. Speaking to S&P Global Platts on Feb. 20, Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves said the company did not feel a need to participate in forming an independent public body, and said MacKenzie’s call amounted to “outsourcing” responsibility. “I’m totally against the idea [of independent and public audits],” Goncalves said. “Each company needs to

analyze the individual conditions and we must not outsource this responsibility. The CEOs need to have their own plan, and develop the absolute best practice.” Agnico’s Grondin took a more moderate position. While she said she does not expect the company will go the route of making a public accounting of its tailings facilities, she said it is on miners to help investors and the public understand them. “Zero risk doesn’t exist and if we identify a risk at the design stage, we can manage it,” she said. “Our job is to explain what is the risk and how we take care of it. We probably didn’t realize we had to do [that] before, but with these incidents it’s becoming clear we have to.” But will investors be scared away from the sector? Executives are divided. “Absolutely it has an impact,” said Letwin. “It’s a reminder that it’s absolutely critical to stay safe and environmentally sound…We need to do a better job as an industry.” Bergeron, on the other hand, said events like the dam collapse “are not necessarily going to change the risk appetite” for investors. “It’s not like mining is going to go away,” he said. “However, these types of events…raise awareness within our own companies that there are certain things we’ve done from a legacy perspective that we do need to change.” CIM

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March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 65

Champion took the opportunity to complete a number of projects begun by the previous owner, including a 3.5-km conveyor to transport ore to the plant.

RETURN TO BLOOM Knocked off track by the commodities downturn, Bloom Lake is under new ownership, turning out high-grade ore again in the Labrador Trough, and on the road to expansion By Matthew Parizot

All images courtesy of Champion Iron Mines

ustralian iron miner Champion Iron knew it had a winner when it secured the purchase of the Bloom Lake mine in Quebec, even if its competitors could not see it. Since beginning operations in February 2018, Bloom Lake has mined over 14 million wet metric tonnes (wmt) of high-grade iron ore, slashed production costs and carbon dioxide emissions significantly and has made over $472 million in revenues, according to the company’s recent third-quarter financial results. Bloom Lake was not always quite so successful, however. It took three owners, an incomplete expansion and several billion dollars of investment for the mine to turn from an ugly duckling into a swan. Consolidated Thompson originally built Bloom Lake, just north of Fermont, Quebec, for $1.2 billion back during the iron ore boom of late 2000s, when the average price of ore was approximately US$112 per tonne. In May 2011, 75 per cent of the mine was purchased by Cleveland-Cliffs – at the time known as Cliffs Natural Resources – for $4.9 billion, with the intent to double ore capacity with a phase 2 expansion.

The expansion, which required an additional US$1.6 billion of capital as initially estimated by Cliffs, began to look less appealing as the price of iron ore began to fall. Burdened with debt and a take-or-pay shipping agreement, plus having expended US$1.2 billion on further expansion, Cliffs put Bloom Lake under care and maintenance at the end of 2014 as it tried to find a buyer. Finally, in December 2015, Quebec Iron Ore – a wholly owned subsidiary of Champion – announced that it was purchasing the mine for a modest sum of $9.75 million. The price of iron ore on the day of the announcement was around US$39 per tonne, according to the company. After Quebec Iron Ore released a feasibility study in March 2017, Bloom Lake officially restarted production less than a year later, on time and under budget. Champion’s COO, David Cataford, said that while the low price was certainly attractive, it was a welcome bonus to the mine’s enticing supply of high-grade 66.2 per cent Fe ore. “There were a few iterations [of the purchase] and the market got worse every time... but never did we expect, at least not initially, that the project would go for $9.75 million,” Cataford said. “Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but when you go back to 2014 and 2015, there were no initial indications that the project would go for that price.”

Riding the high grade “I think the most important thing was not just Bloom Lake but the Labrador Trough in general. The high-grade iron ore is what attracted [Champion CEO] Michael O’Keeffe to the trough,” Cataford said. O’Keeffe, a former managing director of Glencore Australia and chairman of Australian iron mining company Mamba Minerals, became an executive chairman at Champion following the merger of the two companies in 2013. In October 2014, he was named CEO of Champion Iron. While commodities in general have trended downward over the past year, high-grade iron ore has been priced at a premium over the normal-grade 62 per cent Fe content ore, with

business intelligence group CRU Group placing the premium between 20 and 30 per cent higher. This is due in large part to China’s recent environmental regulations that have heavily impacted steel producers in the country. High-grade iron is cleaner to turn into steel and the demand from China for highgrade ore has increased significantly. According to Cataford, Champion’s competitors did not understand the value that the high-grade iron would have at the time. Rather, when evaluating the acquisition of Bloom Lake, all other interested parties considered completing the unfinished expansion which would have required another US$600 to $700 million in investment, while most expected iron ore prices to remain under US$40 a tonne. “It didn’t make a lot of sense to most parties looking at the project, in such a way that the only real competition that we had were dismantlers – people that were looking to buy mining equipment and resell it,” Cataford said. Instead of going through with Cliffs’ phase 2 expansion, Champion took a different approach to the project. While Champion did make significant changes to the operation of the mine, much of it was following through on the investment of its predecessors – taking advantage of the billions of dollars of investment that Consolidated Thompson and Cliffs had already spent bringing the mine to where it was. The first important change was the decision to forgo expanding the total area of the mine and focusing on the sections of the deposit that had already been pre-stripped and were ready to be mined. “We had the advantage that the predecessor pre-stripped pretty much the whole mine so the costs of 2013 and 2014 on the mining operations were fairly high, but that was not a permanent high cost,” Cataford said. “Since all that pre-stripping was done, it allowed [Champion] to lower the mining costs for ourselves.” Champion also lowered the stripping ratio to 0.5, down from its previous level of 1.5 under Cliffs. According to Cataford, this change has given Bloom Lake a mine life of 20 years while also reducing production costs. Those revisions have paid off. According to Cliffs’ 2014 fourth-quarter results – the last quarter the mine was still operating before being suspended – Bloom Lake’s production costs landed at US$81.19 per tonne. Under Champion, the production costs have more than halved, coming in at US$37.60 cash cost per dry metric tonne (dmt), according to the company’s most recent financial report.

The last mile

A neighbour pays a site visit. 68 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

Other changes Champion implemented also helped contribute to Bloom Lake’s success. A significant change made by the company involved the concentrator plant present at the mine. According to Cataford, when Consolidated Thompson chose the spiral separation circuit for the concentrator, it chose one that was designed for mineral sands. While they initially performed well, the efficiency of the recovery circuit eventually went down. That – plus supplier troubles – forced Champion to make a change.

project profile

The Bloom Lake operation includes a 32-km rail spur that connects with the Quebec North Shore and Labrador railway in Wabush, Labrador.

“When Consolidated Thompson picked those spirals... they performed very well, but the big issue is that iron ore is very abrasive. So as the years went on, they deteriorated very quickly, and they were not designed to be able to rehabilitate,” Cataford explained. “The supplier of those spirals stopped making them, so there was no support from the supplier either. So the iron recovery at Bloom Lake, which initially started at around 80 per cent went down to around 68 per cent.” This was not only a cost issue according to Cataford, but also it created a large liability for Cliffs as it had a “take-or-pay” commitment with some of their contracts. Replacing those spirals with ones more appropriate for the ore they were handling allowed Bloom Lake to return to recovery levels of around 81 per cent, said Cataford. The method of bringing the ore to the concentrator was improved as well. While Cliffs had come close to completing a 3.5-kilometre conveyor belt to transport the ore to the plant, it had just stopped short of purchasing the required dust covers needed to comply with environmental regulations. The solution for Champion was very obvious. “It was a straightforward project for Champion to be able to just build those two dust covers, which allowed us to put that equipment into operations and we’ve been operating it since,” Cataford said. “It allows us to reduce about two trucks on the mining fleet, so it’s a pretty significant improvement, when you operate eight trucks, to reduce by 25 per cent the amount of trucks that are required.” The annual nameplate capacity of Bloom Lake stands at 7.4 million tonnes of concentrate, which is loaded onto a railway and sent off to a port in Sept-Îles, Quebec. Similarly, Cliffs had also finished construction of a series of dykes and pumps that would have pumped the tailings created by the mining operation instead of having them trucked away.

“They almost finished the project, we had to invest around $25 million to be able to finalize that project, but since then we’ve been pumping the tailings instead of trucking them,” Cataford said. “It was unfortunate for civil contractors that had a very good business, but very fortunate for us on our operating costs because it allowed us to reduce the cost of handling the tailings to around $2.50 per tonne.” According to Champion, that represents a 45 per cent reduction in handling costs. In addition to reducing operating costs, these projects – along with the installation of a 22-megawatt electric boiler to replace the diesel ones on the site – allowed Champion to reduce the CO2 emissions by 40 per cent compared to what they were in 2014, according to Cataford. Just 16 hours after restarting the plant in February of last year, Bloom Lake was producing saleable iron ore. By that October, the plant had surpassed its nameplate capacity. Today Champion now produces high-grade iron ore for total cash cost of less than US$40 per tonne once shipped from Sept-Iles (Free on Board). While the mine, which employs about 450 people, was designed to mine and ship profitably at US$55 per tonne, Champion is already looking into a potential expansion, which would aim to double production by finishing investment projects started by Cliffs, including multiple site improvements and completing a second concentrator already present on site. It started a second feasibility study in June 2018 and expects to reveal the results in June of this year. “We are very proud of what we’ve achieved. We’ve hired a fantastic workforce, we’re fortunate that a lot of employees believed in us even before we started the operations and then decided to come and join Bloom Lake to make it a success,” Cataford said. “All together we worked very hard for our partners and I believe today everyone is satisfied with our results.” CIM March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 69

Courtesy of Sandvik

technology

To demonstrate its autonomous capabilities underground, Sandvik had one of its self-driving LHDs navigate a glass labyrinth.

The T automated underground

he technology needed for successful autonomous load-haul-dump (LHD) underground applications has come of age with all the major challenges firmly in the past. Now, research and development for autonomous underground technology is focusing on fine-tuning the robotic vehicles to perpetually self-learn and improve. As well, researchers are looking for ways to augment the benefits of the automation for far more informed, intelligent and interconnected underground mining operations.

The value of tele-remote and automated underground haulage is proven. Now the question is just how big of an advantage these technologies can provide in a connected mine By Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

A big load off Back in 2016, when Epiroc was gearing up to launch loaders with fully autonomous capabilities, the biggest hurdle the company faced was in gaining industry acceptance for the technology. This was despite the fact that the autonomous loading system Epiroc was introducing in itself had overcome one March/April 2019 â&#x20AC;˘ Mars/Avril 2019 | 71

Courtesy of Epiroc

Queen’s University researchers have partnered with Epiroc to improve the performance of self-loading LHDs.

of the most formidable challenges for underground automation: consistent and reliable autonomous bucket loading in a dark environment that impedes the use of camera-based sensors. The ground-breaking system had been developed at Queen’s University’s Mining Systems Laboratory (now Offroad Robotics). Originally conceived by associate professor Joshua Marshall, who heads Offroad, and developed by then postgraduate student Andrew Dobson, the technology was based on the revolutionary application of admittance control to loading the bucket. The method uses measurements from the pressure sensors in the machine’s hydraulic system to determine the forces the bucket encounters when it interacts with the material and uses these to automatically set the bucket curl speed needed to dig effectively. “Until that point, we had a system that could autonomously travel from point A to point B and dump the bucket autonomously, but then you had to remotely load the bucket with ore,” said Mattias Pettersson, global product line manager 72 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

for automation at Epiroc. “The majority of our customers thought underground automation, particularly for loaders, was something only the most advanced customers could do. But that perception has changed.” Today, the only significant challenges to implementing fully autonomous LHD technologies underground are lack of Wi-Fi access and, in some cases, the layout of a mine, said Kerry Falk, manager of marketing and business development at Sandvik Mining & Rock Technology. That is because, for safety purposes, autonomous equipment needs to be operated in closed off areas without people and that’s not always a possibility in every existing mine. “The limitations right now are in the implementation and acceptance, but the technology itself can do it,” said Falk. Although autonomous loaders can at times be slightly less efficient than a human operator, their advantages over manually operated ones are significant, said Falk. “The machine travels faster than a manually operated one. When you take into account the speed gain, the consistency and the ability to

technology avoid lost time between shift changes, the productivity gains can be very substantial,” he said. The first generation of Sandvik’s automated loaders were delivered in 2004. In March 2019, the company announced that it will develop an interoperable platform to make it possible to add its AutoMine automation system to third-party loaders and trucks. The AutoMine system, which is for trucks as well as loaders, also features the ability for the vehicle to map out its route in a tunnel without the use of GPS. Instead, it uses a learning algorithm as well as lasers and gyroscopes to map out the safest and most efficient route for the machine. And then it records its route for future reference.

Machine learning for autonomous loading Working under Marshall’s supervision, a new PhD candidate, Heshan Fernando, is now working on taking Queen’s auto-load technology to the next level. The original system requires tuning control parameters when the characteristics of the material it is digging change significantly. “So if you use the same controller to dig gravel as you did rock, it’s probably going to load more or load less depending on the material’s characteristics,” said Fernando. “For this reason, I augmented the control system with some machine learning.” Fernando’s iterative learning algorithm uses the weight of material in the bucket and compares it to the target weight. Based on the discrepancy between the actual load and the target weight, the algorithm updates the new parameters to the controller automatically for the next dig. In the summer of 2017, Fernando travelled to Epiroc’s test facility near Kvarntorp, Sweden. There, he field tested the machine learning algorithm using an Epiroc ST14, which is equipped with all the automated loading hardware and software the Queen’s team developed back in 2016, on an underground rock pile as well as a gravel pile on the surface. “In our experiments, we see that eventually the robot learns to dig in these materials and does it consistently,” said Fernando. “Every iteration, it updates the control parameters, so it learns and gets better with each loading pass.” It took about three excavation iterations for the algorithm to teach itself how to reach the target payload. Currently, Fernando is doing more experiments with a one-tonne loader back at Queen’s to improve the learning speed. “This becomes important in mining because the muck pile will always change when you dig it out,” said Fernando. “The learning algorithm allows us to increase the autonomy of the vehicle because it can automatically adapt the control system. In the future, you will no longer need to have someone on the ground to tune the control parameters,” he said. That future is probably only a couple of years away. “This is a really exciting area to think about because we know every ore is a bit different,” said Pettersson. “If we can have our machines learn, then it will be easier for our customers and we won’t have to send out engineers and developers to fine tune the loaders for every application.”

Mining the data for improvements As the autonomous machines mine underground, they are also collecting far more than ore, of course. Data might not be a commodity on the market, but for mining operations and mining technology development, it is as good as gold, especially if it is the consistent data that autonomous machinery produces. In fact, now that automation has reached a tipping point, Pettersson said there has been a shift in focus from the dream of making autonomous machines and removing people from the underground mine to looking at the communication and information possibilities the technology represents. “We’ve seen a big increase in information management in taking data from the machine and using it for input to look at the operation, find improvement and manage change,” he said. “That really has been the explosion of the new solutions and services.” Sandvik is also concentrated on leveraging the data collected underground through its autonomous equipment to improve underground operations. “Right now, our focus is on the digital side and improving the amount of information that mines have on what is happening underground,” said Falk. “There is a large opportunity for advancement and to assist mines to improve their operations just by having better information, including and being able to predict if there will be a failure in a part before it actually happens.” The data gathered from autonomous equipment, however, can also lead to more autonomous innovation. For example, Epiroc has recently developed the capability to have several autonomous machines simultaneously working and interacting in the same area. “It is traffic management for machines that are sharing and co-operating,” said Pettersson. “So we are moving from single automation to more collaborative automation.” This advancement is entirely software based. “We didn’t have any additional technology added. It’s based on the information we are getting from the machines,” he said. “Eventually, the operator will simply be monitoring and supervising and only taking over when working on exemptions.”

The near future “In five to 10 years, I think we will see far more connected processes underground,” said Pettersson. “Information will be available for most aspects of the operations…[and] will be integrated and shared seamlessly. We see great benefits in this. It will make it possible to analyze and draw conclusions from different sources of information.” Autonomous capabilities are being taken to the next level. Still, Pettersson said he believes that it is important for everyone to remember that the technology is just one piece of the puzzle. “To really make this work, we also have to think about the people and the processes around the implementation of automation,” he said. “It’s very easy to be technology driven, but in the end we want to make sure we don’t just send technology in. We want to make sure it improves safety and productivity.” CIM March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 73

lettre de l’éditeur

SECTION

FRANCOPHONE MARS/AVRIL 2019

75 76 77 78

Lettre de l’éditeur Mot de la présidente L’actualité Un parcours complexe pour une solution simple Niobec s’est mis en quête de découvrir la source de la variation saisonnière de la récupération dans le processus de flottation Par Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

article de fond

80 Statut social Les sociétés minières doivent aujourd’hui répondre à des questions difficiles relatives aux préoccupations environnementales, sociales et de gouvernance que leur posent les investisseurs institutionnels et particuliers Par Kelsey Rolfe

85 Le nouvel épanouissement de Lac Bloom Déstabilisée par la crise qui a affecté les matières premières, Lac Bloom se retrouve sous une nouvelle direction qui s’engage à transformer une nouvelle fois du minerai à haute teneur dans la fosse du Labrador Par Matthew Parizot

Nous publions progressivement sur notre site Internet les articles du CIM Magazine en version française.

Une prise de conscience au grand jour

“I

l n’y a pas si longtemps, les conseils d’administration n’avaient simplement pas le temps nécessaire pour allouer des fonds d’investissement aux problématiques environnementales, sociales et à celles liées à la gouvernance », a annoncé Jamie Bonham à Kelsey Rolfe dans notre article, Statut social, p. 80. Selon M. Bonham, de l’entreprise d’investissement socialement responsable NEI, cette époque est révolue. Auparavant considéré comme un créneau et écarté comme dépourvu de pertinence, l’« investissement d’impact » est aujourd’hui un secteur d’activités important en plein essor. Alors, qu’est-ce qui a changé? Tout d’abord, les enfants auxquels on a chanté la litanie de réduire, réutiliser et recycler sont devenus adultes. Ils appartiennent à la génération qui admet la culpabilité de l’ère industrielle dans le réchauffement climatique planétaire et arrivent à un moment de leur vie où ils ont de l’argent à investir. Les entreprises les plus importantes au monde aujourd’hui sont parvenues à maturité dans le même temps. Elles avaient pour mission de « changer le monde » et ont reçu d’énormes sommes d’argent pour donner naissance à leurs idées techno-utopiques. Alors que nous sommes certainement de plus en plus méfiants des intentions des géants de la technologie, des entreprises comme Facebook et Google se sont fait un nom en se revendiquant comme forces pour le bien collectif et ont changé notre manière de parler de commerce. C’est dans ce contexte culturel que la digue à stériles Córrego do Feijão se rompt. Tout le monde peut visionner sur YouTube l’instant précis où elle a cédé, lorsque le versant vert s’est transformé avec fracas en un mur de boue. Les entreprises d’aujourd’hui sont examinées d’encore plus près par des outils de surveillance qui semblent omniscients. Comme l’article l’explique, l’industrie minière est consciente de son exposition particulière à de telles ruptures spectaculaires et s’efforce de les éviter. Paradoxalement, les coûts de fermetures sont le talon d’Achille du secteur minier et tous les mineurs doivent rendre des comptes sur les échecs d’un de leurs pairs dans un marché plus vaste et de plus en plus exigeant envers les entreprises. La meilleure marche à suivre n’a pas encore été tracée. Lors de la récente conférence de la SME, à Denver, un ingénieur ayant l’équivalent de plusieurs décennies d’expérience dans le secteur minier géotechnique et d’Amérique latine a prévenu qu’une désactivation précipitée mal gérée des digues à stériles principales au Brésil entraînerait vraisemblablement des répercussions non intentionnelles. J’ai hâte d’entendre la suite de la discussion lors du congrès de l’ICM 2019 à Montréal. Pour conclure, ce numéro marque un grand changement pour le magazine. Mme Rolfe, l’auteure de cet article et notre chef de rubrique depuis l’année 2015, poursuit sa route. L’énergie et l’ambition qu’elle a apportées au CIM Magazine ont aidé à faire de cette publication ce qu’elle est. Nous sommes meilleurs grâce à l’effort et aux points de vue qu’elle a fournis. Nous lui souhaitons un franc succès dans la prochaine étape de sa carrière. Ryan Bergen, Rédacteur en chef editor@cim.org @Ryan_CIM_Mag March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 75

mot de la présidente

Nous devons mieux faire

algré les critères de conception sophistiqués imposés, la surveillance continue et la publication de documents d’orientation détaillés, les ruptures de digues à stériles se produisent toujours. La plus récente a eu lieu le 25 janvier 2019 au complexe minier Córrego do Feijão au Brésil, entraînant le déversement de 11,7 millions de litres de déchets miniers ainsi que la mort de quelque 300 personnes. Mes pensées vont à toutes les personnes affectées par cette catastrophe. La gestion des déchets réactifs, radioactifs et non réactifs reste l’un des principaux enjeux auxquels est confronté notre secteur aujourd’hui. S’il existe d’innombrables stratégies de gestion des résidus, dont l’empilage à sec, les écrans aqueux et les couvertures sèches, le risque lié à la gestion reste élevé. D’une part, les responsabilités associées à ces déversements atteignent des sommes de l’ordre de millions, voire de milliards de dollars ; d’autre part, le coût de l’assainissement 76 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

peut largement dépasser la valeur du métal extrait. En outre, les garanties financières annoncées ne suffisent souvent pas à couvrir l’intégralité des coûts de fermeture. Il est grand temps de changer notre vision des résidus miniers. Dans des régions comme le Japon ou l’Europe, les gouvernements ont adopté une économie circulaire qui accorde la priorité à une conception minimisant l’emballage ou encourageant son recyclage ; le Canada, quant à lui, a tardé à adopter de tels principes. Il nous faut désormais envisager les résidus comme une ressource pouvant être redéfinie ou retraitée. Les teneurs de minerais s’affaiblissent de plus en plus, les découvertes deviennent moins fréquentes et la demande en minéraux et métaux est en hausse, aussi les possibilités entourant le devenir des déchets n’ont jamais été aussi variées. À l’échelle mondiale, l’exploitation minière génère chaque année 3,7 gigatonnes de stériles et de résidus. Ces matériaux ont déjà été extraits du sol et les résidus ont été concassés à des tailles leur permettant d’être traités. Si l’on ajoute à cela des teneurs parfois aussi - si ce n’est plus - intéressantes que celles de nouveaux gisements, la valeur minière des résidus n’est plus à prouver. Cette approche pourrait également être l’occasion de redéfinir d’autres composants des résidus et de rendre inoffensifs les déchets restants. Elle aborderait d’une part les responsabilités, et offrirait d’autre part une meilleure charge d’alimentation pour le concentrateur et la fonderie, redorerait le blason de l’industrie et faciliterait l’obtention d’un permis social d’exploitation. Imaginez des matières premières et des matériaux fabriqués à partir de déchets miniers conformément à des pratiques socialement engagées et durables, que l’on qualifierait de matières premières vertes ou d’écomatériaux. Cela n’est peut-être pas envisageable aujourd’hui, mais nous devons penser différemment, nous éloigner du modèle de « consommation et élimination », et réexaminer le potentiel commercial et sociétal de tous les matériaux que nous extrayons du sol. Nous devons trouver de meilleures manières de procéder.

Janice Zinck Présidente de l’ICM

l’actualité

Le gouvernement fédéral consacre 4,2 millions de dollars à des projets d’énergie renouvelable dans les mines du Nord Le carburant diesel sera remplacé par des éoliennes et des installations de stockage d’énergie à air comprimé aux mines de Raglan et de Hope Bay Le gouvernement fédéral investit 4,2 millions de dollars dans deux projets d’énergie renouvelable, au Québec et au Nunavut, afin de réduire la dépendance aux combustibles fossiles dans les mines du Nord canadien. La gestion de ces deux projets sera assumée par Tuglig Énergie Co., une société d’énergie renouvelable axée sur les régions éloignées. « Ces projets seront financés au moyen du programme d’innovation énergétique de Ressources naturelles du Canada. » Ce sont les propos tenus par Paul Lefebvre, secrétaire parlementaire du ministre des Ressources naturelles du Canada, dans le cadre d’une table ronde de l’Association for Mineral Exploration (AME) de la Colombie-Britannique qui a eu lieu à Vancouver. Celui-ci a ajouté que : « Les investissements annoncés aujourd’hui aideront à réduire la dépendance au carburant diesel et à transformer le paysage énergétique de la région de l’Arctique au Canada. Le secteur minier est de loin l’endroit où ces investissements sont les plus importants. » Une somme de 3,9 millions de dollars sera allouée au projet Raglan II en vue d’installer une seconde éolienne de trois mégawatts et d’améliorer l’installation de stockage d’énergie sur batteries à la mine de nickel Raglan exploitée par Glencore, dans le nord du Québec. L’infrastructure consacrée à l’énergie renouvelable sur place a été installée dans le cadre du projet Raglan I de 18 millions de dollars. Depuis sa mise en service en 2014, le projet Raglan I a permis de réduire la consommation de diesel à la mine d’environ 10 millions de litres, ou l’équivalent de 30 000 tonnes de gaz à effet de serre.

Avec l’aimable autorisation de Glencore

Par Kylie Williams

Matériel d’exploitation minière à la mine de nickel Raglan exploitée par Glencore, dans le nord du Québec. Grâce au financement du gouvernement fédéral, la mine sera dotée d’une seconde éolienne de trois mégawatts qui permettra de remplacer davantage la consommation de diesel.

Laurent Abbatiello, président et directeur général de Tuglig, a affirmé que l’objectif du projet Raglan II est de doubler la capacité de production d’énergie renouvelable des installations de Raglan et de multiplier par dix la capacité de stockage d’énergie. Le second projet de Tuglig a obtenu un financement de 283 000 $ pour la réalisation d’une étude d’ingénierie de base à la propriété aurifère Hope Bay de TMAC Resources, dans la région de Kitikmeot, au Nunavut, afin d’intégrer une installation de stockage d’énergie à air comprimé pour l’énergie produite par les éoliennes. Le projet de Hope Bay, qui en est actuellement à l’étape de l’émission de permis pour ses gisements de Madrid et de Boston, et dont la production doit s’amorcer en 2020, est alimenté entièrement au diesel. Un puits de mine abandonné est utilisé pour le stockage d’air comprimé. Au besoin, l’air est libéré grâce à un compresseur et utilisé pour faire fonctionner une turbine afin de produire de l’électricité. L’air comprimé peut être combiné à n’importe quelle technologie en matière de production d’énergie, mais il convient particulièrement à la

production d’énergie éolienne et solaire, lesquelles varient selon les conditions météorologiques. Selon Laurent Abbatiello, la technologie en matière d’air comprimé est tout à fait nouvelle au sein du secteur minier. « On y a eu recours en Allemagne, où la production d’énergie à air comprimé est utilisée pour appuyer le réseau, et une mine de sel en guise de réservoir. Donc, cette technologie a déjà été utilisée dans le secteur minier, mais dans un autre contexte : non pas pour alimenter la mine, mais pour appuyer le réseau. » Le projet pilote de Hope Bay comprendra la construction d’éoliennes destinées à produire de l’énergie. De plus, l’air compressé sera stocké dans des réservoirs se trouvant au-dessus de la surface, car les travaux de mise en valeur souterrains n’ont pas encore commencé. « Grâce au soutien de Ressources naturelles du Canada, nous sommes en mesure de réduire notre consommation de diesel en Arctique de plus de 4 millions de litres sur une base annuelle, a déclaré M. Abbatiello. Nous planifions de réduire notre consommation annuelle de diesel jusqu’à 10 millions de litres au cours des prochaines années. » ICM March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 77

Avec l’aimable autorisation de Niobec

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Un parcours complexe pour une solution simple Niobec s’est mis en quête de découvrir la source de la variation saisonnière de la récupération dans le processus de flottation Par Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco

endant des années, la mine de niobium Niobec située à Saint-Honoré, au Québec (la seule mine souterraine de niobium et l’un des trois plus grands producteurs de niobium au monde), a connu des variations saisonnières dans ses circuits de flottation qui ont entraîné un déclin global de la récupération du niobium durant les mois d’hiver ainsi qu’une hausse importante de la consommation de réactifs. « Nous nous y sommes habitués sans vraiment penser à ce qu’il allait se passer », expliquait Jean-Sébastien Marois, métallurgiste en chef de Niobec. « Durant l’hiver 2014, la variation saisonnière a considérablement augmenté. Il est devenu évident que nous devions agir. » Avec une réduction de près de 4 % dans la récupération du niobium cet hiver-là, M. Marois a lancé une enquête ; a suivi une année et demie d’essais et de recherches. En fin de compte, il a compris qu’il n’y avait pas qu’un coupable derrière la perte au niveau de la récupération, et que les variations saisonnières dans la flottation étaient un problème aussi peu compris que complexe. Il a aussi découvert avec son équipe un moyen simple et peu coûteux de régler le problème. Comme l’expliquait Frank Cappuccitti, président de Flottec, qui travaillait avec M. Marois sur le projet, « ce qui est impressionnant, ce n’est pas la solution en elle-même, mais le procédé qu’a utilisée M. Marois. La logique, la procédure étape par étape qu’il a utilisées, les capacités de résolution de problème, c’est ce qui était véritablement important. »

En quête du coupable Les procédés de récupération de Niobec comprennent des circuits de flottation inverse pré-pyrochlore qui permettent d’éliminer la pyrite et les carbonates. Le succès du circuit de flottation du pyrochlore suivant dépend des circuits précédents récupérant une quantité fixe de carbonates. Durant l’hiver 2014-2015, M. Marois et son équipe ont commencé par se concentrer sur la flottation des carbonates afin de résoudre le problème de l’effet négatif de la saison hivernale, après qu’ils ont constaté que même en ajoutant quatre fois la quantité classique de réactifs à ces circuits, la récupération de carbonates n’était toujours pas suffisante. 78 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

« La flottation des carbonates est un procédé très utilisé, aussi nous nous attendions à ce que d’autres aient rencontré le même problème, mais nous n’avons tout simplement rien trouvé », indiquait M. Marois. « C’était décourageant. Toutefois, dans le cas des variations saisonnières, la première chose à étudier est la température. » Il a demandé de l’aide à M. Cappuccitti, un expert en chimie des réactifs dont la société Flottec développe et propose des technologies et des services de flottation. M. Cappuccitti a lui-même essayé de résoudre ce problème et a rapidement présumé qu’il provenait du point de trouble (la température à laquelle les acides gras commencent à cristalliser) des acides gras C4 présents dans le réactif utilisé à Niobec. « Les acides gras commencent à cristalliser et ne restent pas en solution lorsque la température baisse », indiquait M. Cappuccitti. « En été, on ajoute donc ce réactif au circuit de flottation ; il est totalement soluble et actif, et ne présente aucun problème. La température de l’eau baisse soudain à 2 ou 3 °C ; on ajoute alors environ 100 grammes de réactif, mais la solution se solidifie et gèle, aussi on n’en utilise qu’une petite fraction. » D’après M. Cappuccitti, un point de trouble moins élevé aurait pu résoudre les problèmes de Niobec. Le réactif utilisé à Niobec, et de fait dans de nombreuses exploitations au Canada et aux États-Unis, est composé d’un acide gras dérivé d’arbres du sud des États-Unis. M. Cappuccitti a alors supposé que les arbres que l’on trouve dans des climats plus au Nord possèdent des acides gras dont le point de trouble est moins élevé. Après avoir mené des recherches avec une société de Scandinavie, un acide gras formulé a été développé à l’aide de tallöl, une résine liquide des pays du Nord. Son point de trouble se situait à 1 °C.

Retour à la case départ En juillet 2015, M. Marois et son équipe ont testé dans leur laboratoire X200-12 un nouveau réactif mis au point par Flottec, avec des eaux de traitement refroidies dans un congélateur. Il apparaît que l’une des difficultés de l’étude des variations saisonnières dans la flottation réside dans les changements de température saisonniers. « Nous essayions de faire des essais

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extraction en hiver en réchauffant notre eau de traitement, et en été en la refroidissant », expliquait M. Marois. Comme le confirmaient les essais, si le nouveau réactif a permis des améliorations en termes de récupération, l’eau de traitement hivernale affichait toujours des performances moindres que celles de l’été, indépendamment de la température de l’eau dans le laboratoire. « C’était le point de départ de notre étude ; nous avons alors compris qu’un autre élément entrait en jeu », indiquait M. Marois. « Nous nous sommes donc demandés quels éléments déjà connus pouvaient affecter le fonctionnement de la flottation des carbonates avec les acides gras. Nous avons envisagé toutes les solutions possibles au vu de ce que nous avions mesuré et analysé dans notre usine, puis avons recherché des variations qui correspondent aux saisons », ajoutait M. Marois. Il a alors fait appel au département de l’environnement de Niobec ainsi qu’à la quantité considérable de données sur la surveillance de l’eau que la société avait recueillies au fil des ans. M. Marois a analysé les données et s’est concentré sur les phosphates comme un suspect possible dans les pertes au niveau des récupérations, car on connaît leurs répercussions négatives sur la flottation. « Le problème est que nos coefficients de phosphate sont très faibles, de l’ordre de cinq parties par million (ppm) dans l’eau de traitement, et les essais en laboratoire montraient que la flottation était, de fait, affectée par des concentrations bien plus élevées que cela », indiquait M. Marois. « Nous avons 18 000 ppm de solides dissous, aussi cela nous a paru insignifiant par rapport à tout ce que l’on a trouvé dans l’eau. C’était un point très complexe de notre étude, que nous ne pouvions comprendre entièrement. Nous nous sommes retrouvés devant un mur. Pendant des semaines, nous ne savions que faire. »

À la recherche des phosphates M. Marois a continué à étudier les données. Un jour, il a remarqué un élément bizarre ; les concentrations en phosphate étaient différentes en fonction du lieu d’échantillonnage de l’eau. L’eau de traitement prélevée dans les bassins de décantation des résidus affichait des concentrations de 8 ppm, mais ces dernières étaient proches de 0 ppm lorsque l’eau était prélevée dans les cuves de flottation. « Lorsqu’on observe de faibles différences au niveau des concentrations dans deux eaux normalement identiques, la première chose à laquelle on pense est qu’il y a une erreur dans l’analyse », indiquait M. Marois. À la fin de l’hiver 2015-2016, le taux de récupération du niobium avait chuté de 6 %. L’équipe s’est engagée dans une course contre la montre, mais elle a fait marche arrière et a surveillé l’eau pendant toute l’année qui a suivi. « En étudiant ces données, j’ai compris que ce n’était pas une coïncidence. Les concentrations en eau contenant des carbonates étaient sensiblement plus faibles », expliquait M. Marois. « Ces découvertes ont vraiment remis notre étude sur la voie. Si l’on est en présence d’une eau de traitement à 8 ppm de phosphates qui, lorsqu’on la retire de la cuve de flottation, ne contient plus ces phosphates, on se demande immédiatement où ils sont passés. Il est évident qu’ils partent quelque part. »

Les phosphates, concluait M. Marois après plusieurs essais en laboratoire, étaient absorbés par les carbonates. Déconcerté par l’apparition des phosphates, il s’est fait une représentation mentale du concept de mine-to-mill (depuis l’extraction du minerai dans la fosse jusqu’à son transport à l’usine de concentration). Au niveau de l’usine, des quantités importantes d’eau de traitement sont ajoutées pendant le broyage, le déschlammage et la flottation des carbonates pour le contrôle de la densité de la pulpe. C’est à ce momentlà qu’il a compris l’importance de la fréquence de l’entrée en contact des carbonates avec l’eau de traitement. « Nous pensions bien faire les choses au laboratoire en utilisant l’eau de traitement que l’on trouvait dans le concentrateur, à la température du concentrateur, avec le minerai du concentrateur, et avec toutes les conditions qui nous semblaient correctes dans notre flottation. Nous faisions tout dans les règles », indiquait-il. « Nous n’avions cependant pas envisagé ce qu’il se passait avant, et ce qui aurait pu influencer la flottation. Il faut vraiment tenir compte de l’intégralité du procédé lorsque l’on tente de reproduire ce qu’il se passe dans le concentrateur. » L’équipe a procédé à de nouveaux essais qui reproduisaient l’ajout de l’eau de traitement, et a confirmé qu’à chaque fois que les carbonates entraient en contact avec l’eau, ils absorbaient plus de phosphates. Une question les laissait cependant perplexes. « En été, les bassins se remplissaient d’une prolifération d’algues, mais on ne retrouvait aucun phosphate dans les flux de résidus. Que consommaient donc les algues si le concentrateur n’envoyait aucun phosphate dans les bassins ? Et d’où venaient les phosphates présents dans l’eau de traitement ? », se demandait M. Marois. Des raisonnements et des essais plus poussés lui ont permis de trouver la réponse à cette dernière question. Les phosphates provenaient du filtre de la solution de lixiviation, mais seulement lorsque la quantité d’apatite à filtrer s’élevait, notamment durant les mois d’hiver. « Tout ceci avait un effet de rétroaction », indiquait M. Marois. La boucle commençait par les faibles performances en hiver de l’acide gras à un point de trouble élevé, qui entraînaient le déplacement des phosphates jusqu’aux étapes suivantes du procédé, lesquels se dissimulaient dans le filtre de la solution de lixiviation et finissaient dans les bassins de décantation des résidus. M. Marois et son équipe savaient qu’ils devaient trouver un moyen de briser cette boucle de rétroaction en empêchant les phosphates de se retrouver dans le bassin de décantation des résidus. Ils ont alors transféré la solution de lixiviation filtrée du concentrateur vers un effluent plus concentré en phosphates et ont utilisé le réactif d’acides gras à faible point de trouble dans la flottation des carbonates. « Nous avons pu maintenir une concentration en phosphate relativement faible, et lorsqu’est arrivé l’hiver 20172018, nous avons surveillé afin de nous assurer que le bassin ne contenait aucun phosphate », expliquait M. Marois. « Ceci a confirmé que nous avions raison. L’effet saisonnier n’a plus jamais été un problème ; nous sommes en janvier 2019 et tout fonctionne à merveille. » ICM March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 79

L’EXPLOITATION MINIÈRE EST, PAR DÉFINITION, UNE

La récente rupture d’un barrage de résidus miniers au Brésil vient, une fois de plus, le confirmer. Ainsi, dans un contexte où les investisseurs commencent à exiger davantage de clarifications concernant les risques environnementaux, sociaux et de gouvernance, l’industrie doit trouver une manière satisfaisante de répondre à leurs inquiétudes. Par Kelsey Rolfe

a rupture du barrage Córrego do Feijão a été aussi soudaine que dévastatrice. Des fissures sont apparues dans la paroi et, en l’espace de quelques secondes, le barrage s’est effondré. Un nuage de poussière marron s’est répandu dans les airs alors que la paroi laissait se déverser un torrent de boue trop puissant pour lancer l’alarme, ensevelissant tout ce qui se trouvait sur son passage. Des vidéos, diffusées quelques jours après la catastrophe, montraient des bâtiments et des véhicules submergés en quelques instants. À l’heure où nous mettons sous presse, la rupture du barrage avait entraîné la mort de 186 personnes, et 122 étaient portées disparues. Dans les semaines qui ont suivi, les conséquences de cet accident n’ont fait que décupler. Des employés, des dirigeants et des entrepreneurs de Vale ont été arrêtés, les activités de la société au Brésil ont été suspendues en vertu de décisions et amendes ordonnées par le tribunal, et les procès se multiplient. Troisième grande rupture d’un barrage minier en cinq ans après celles de Samarco, détenue par Vale et BHP, en 2015, et de Mount Polley, détenue par Imperial Metals, en 2014, ce désastre a poussé les investisseurs à exiger des changements. À la fin du mois de janvier, par exemple, un groupe influent de sociétés d’investissements et de fonds de retraite britanniques, européens et canadiens, dont la Church of England Pensions Board (la commission des pensions de l’Église anglicane), le fonds de pensions public de Suède, BMO Global Asset Management et Robeco, a

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demandé qu’un système de classification public indépendant et mondial soit mis en place pour surveiller la sécurité et le risque des barrages de résidus miniers. L’intérêt immédiat dans la gestion des résidus n’est cependant pas isolé ; il s’agit de l’expression d’une tendance plus vaste des investisseurs institutionnels et particuliers, qui se penchent désormais davantage sur les risques environnementaux, sociaux et de gouvernance (ESG). « La communauté de l’investissement au Canada et aux États-Unis pose de plus en plus de questions », expliquait Brent Bergeron, vice-président exécutif des affaires générales et de la durabilité à Goldcorp, en parlant de la rupture du barrage. « Cela n’ira pas en diminuant. En termes de droit de regard, cette tendance est même vouée à augmenter. » La façon dont réagira l’industrie est encore inconnue.

Un discours ferme Les investisseurs d’Agnico Eagle posent rarement de questions concernant les barrages de résidus miniers. D’après Louise Grondin, première vice-présidente à l’environnement, au développement durable et aux personnes de la société, si cette dernière a constaté ces deux dernières années une augmentation des investisseurs curieux s’intéressant aux risques ESG de la société, particulièrement alors qu’une base d’investisseurs plus généralistes commençait à se développer, la question des

barrages de résidus miniers faisait rarement partie de leurs priorités. Toutefois, après la catastrophe de Córrego do Feijão, un actionnaire institutionnel en particulier a exigé davantage d’informations. « Il souhaitait connaître le nombre de bassins à stériles dont nous disposions, actifs ou non, notre type d’infrastructure ; l’installation de Vale était une digue construite selon la méthode amont, et il voulait comprendre la différence entre nos digues de résidus miniers et celles de Vale », indiquait-elle. « Il désirait savoir quelles sommes d’argent nous injections dans la gestion de nos résidus... la fréquence de nos inspections et l’existence d’un plan d’action en urgence. Il voulait connaître le risque, et savoir comment nous le gérions. » Agnico n’est pas la seule dans ce cas. Des investisseurs et des analystes du monde entier commencent déjà à contacter les sociétés minières pour comprendre les dangers que posent les barrages miniers. « Même avant les catastrophes de Mount Polley et [Samarco]…, le risque réel était toujours évident, on le connaissait. C’était un grand problème, mais on pensait qu’on le gérait jusqu’à un certain point », expliquait Jamie Bonham, directeur de l’engagement auprès des entreprises à NEI Investments, une société canadienne d’investissement responsable. « Cette certitude s’est définitivement évaporée. » Omar Jabara, directeur exécutif des communications chez Newmont Mining, indiquait que des investisseurs avaient déjà questionné la société quant à la gestion de leurs barrages miniers. « Des incidents et des accidents tels que celui qui s’est produit au Brésil mettent soudainement en lumière les stériles et génèrent naturellement d’autres questions relatives à la gestion des résidus par toutes les sociétés », indiquait-il. D’après M. Bergeron de Goldcorp, les investisseurs se sont intéressés à la question de l’intégration par la société d’une nouvelle technologie qui permettrait d’éliminer l’utilisation des installations traditionnelles de gestion des résidus humides, et l’évaluation du choix des installations de stockage des résidus dès les premières étapes du développement de la mine. Le coût des installations de gestion des résidus dans la phase de fermeture de l’exploitation minière est devenu un point important, indiquait-il. Lors de la conférence téléphonique de BHP relative aux résultats semestriels de la société avec les investisseurs et les analystes, le chef de la direction Andrew MacKenzie a répondu au pied levé à la question d’un analyste de JPMorgan qui désirait comprendre comment la communauté de l’investissement « devait envisager les coûts potentiels de mise hors service et de restauration ». Les questions ont pour objectif de savoir si les activités d’une société sont trop risquées pour un investissement ; mais elles ne se cantonnent pas uniquement à l’argent. Les investisseurs savent poser des questions relatives aux risques tels que les émissions de carbone et la responsabilité financière, mais les installations de stockage des résidus restent pour beaucoup un sujet différent et complexe.

« Je ne peux pas consulter une évaluation technique de barrages de résidus miniers et en ressortir une critique qui aura du sens ; je ne suis pas ingénieur géotechnique », indiquait M. Bonham. « Il est très difficile de l’extérieur de savoir ce qui est approprié, et c’est la raison pour laquelle nous poussons les sociétés à trouver des mécanismes d’assurance, des normes qu’elles peuvent adopter leur conférant un certain confort. »

Une tendance plus vaste L’investissement socialement responsable,* autrefois une voie stratégique d’investissement qui, se rappelait M. Bonham, pouvait « amuser la salle de conférences », devient une manière conventionnelle de renforcer la valeur des portefeuilles des investisseurs institutionnels autant que particuliers. D’après un rapport d’octobre 2018 de l’association pour l’investissement responsable (AIR), quelque 2 000 milliards de dollars en actifs canadiens étaient investis dans différents types de mécanismes d’investissement responsable en décembre 2017 ; l’investissement responsable (IR) représentait alors 50,6 % des actifs canadiens gérés. C’est la première fois qu’une majorité d’actifs canadiens étaient gérés dans le cadre d’une certaine initiative responsable. EY indiquait également en 2017 que, depuis 2012, les fonds injectés dans des investissements durables avaient augmenté de 107,4 % par an. Ces chiffres n’ont rien de risibles. D’importants investisseurs institutionnels tels que l’imposante société Blackrock, la banque royale du Canada et la partie investissement du régime de pensions du Canada disposent toutes de stratégies d’investissement responsable, qui impliquent d’effectuer une procédure de sélection positive pour les sociétés affichant de bonnes performances en matière de critères ESG dans chaque secteur et de s’engager auprès des sociétés pour améliorer leur performance. Les résultats du sondage récent de l’AIR auprès des investisseurs en octobre en expliquent la raison. Les deux principales raisons pour lesquelles les investisseurs affirmaient se rapprocher de l’investissement responsable portaient sur la réduction du risque de leurs investissements et l’amélioration de leurs retours sur investissement au fil du temps.

L’INVESTISSEMENT SOCIALEMENT RESPONSABLE L’investissement socialement responsable (ISR) concerne plusieurs types de stratégies d’investissement, notamment la procédure de sélection positive et négative, l’investissement à impact social et la participation des investisseurs ; ces stratégies s’attachent à privilégier le bien environnemental et social des sociétés et des fonds ainsi que leurs rendements financiers. March/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 81

« Ces données suggèrent que les investisseurs institutionnels voient une évidente pertinence économique à l’intégration de facteurs environnementaux, sociaux et de gouvernance dans les décisions relatives à l’investissement », lisait-on dans le rapport. La popularité croissante de l’investissement responsable peut aussi être envisagée d’un tout autre œil, à savoir par une appréhension nouvelle de ce qui constitue un véritable risque. Si les paramètres relatifs aux critères ESG orientent vers un type de risques spécifique, certains des plus gros risques dans le secteur minier, par exemple les ruptures des digues de résidus miniers ou un manque d’assentiment de la communauté envers un projet, peuvent retarder ou faire échouer un projet, affaiblir une société et en faire un mauvais investissement sur le long terme. « Des accidents comme la rupture de ce barrage viennent tout simplement confirmer le risque évident d’investissement évoqué par certains investisseurs s’intéressant aux critères ESG depuis le début. Nul besoin de placer les risques ESG en avant », indiquait M. Bonham. « Le marché commence à reconnaître qu’en observant la situation du point de vue des principes ESG, on obtient une vision totalement différente de la gestion d’une société. » L’intérêt des investisseurs pour les questions ESG ne s’arrête pas à des questions futiles. Ils souhaitent investir dans les sociétés affichant les meilleures performances du secteur, et s’engagent beaucoup auprès des sociétés pour améliorer la performance de certains paramètres. « Lorsqu’il rencontre des investisseurs, notre chef de la direction Sean Boyd nous informe qu’ils présenteront à la société des rapports de recherche sur les risques ESG et nous diront que si nous ne faisons pas partie des 10 meilleures sociétés, [ils] ne souhaitent pas investir dans une société n’ayant pas atteint ce niveau », indiquait Dale Coffin, directeur des communications et des affaires publiques de la société Agnico Eagle. D’après M. Bonham, NEI s’engage activement depuis plus d’une décennie auprès de sociétés du secteur des ressources telles que le géant des sables bitumineux Suncor, avec qui elle a collaboré afin de s’assurer que la société sera en mesure de s’épanouir dans une économie à faibles émissions de carbone. Pour les sociétés minières, NEI s’engage sur des questions relatives aux droits de l’homme et à la résilience au changement climatique. Si l’entreprise se rend compte qu’il n’y a pas d’espoir réaliste que la société réponde aux attentes de NEI, elle souhaite alors désinvestir, indiquait M. Bonham. « Selon nous cependant, l’engagement permet de gagner davantage de terrain. » Plusieurs dirigeants expliquaient que l’attention croissante accordée aux questions ESG avait engendré des changements positifs au sein de leurs sociétés - non pas en termes de pratiques de gestion des risques, mais en termes de divulgation. « Notre politique de divulgation a suivi le niveau d’intérêt [accordé aux principes ESG] », expliquait Steve Let82 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

win, chef de la direction d’Iamgold. Les investisseurs, expliquait-il, veulent s’assurer que la société produit de l’or dans le respect de l’environnement, que sa maind’œuvre est convenablement formée et que la réhabilitation du terrain est prévue. Mme Grondin indiquait qu’Agnico entend souvent des remarques concernant le degré de préparation de la société au changement climatique, ses relations avec les communautés et ses travaux avec les Premières Nations ; elle ajoutait que ce procédé s’est révélé instructif. L’intérêt des investisseurs dans les principes ESG « a une influence certaine sur [notre] politique de divulgation. Nous sommes conscients de bien faire, mais nous devons tout de même en parler car sinon, personne n’est au courant de rien », indiquait-elle. En 2018, la société a organisé sa première conférence téléphonique et présentation dédiées aux principes ESG. D’après M. Jabara, les investisseurs de Newmont ne posent pas exclusivement de questions sur les principes ESG, mais il reconnaissait que cela a contribué à améliorer la transparence de Newmont. « Les risques pour une entreprise peuvent provenir de différentes sources, et comprennent notamment les risques environnementaux et sociaux », déclarait-il. « Nous déployons beaucoup d’efforts afin d’être [transparents] dans notre rapport de durabilité, et participons à des efforts en matière d’assurance tierce afin de laisser [à nos investisseurs] une certaine marge de manœuvre pour voir que nous disposons de normes, de pratiques et de contrôles corrects. » Comme l’indiquait M. Bergeron, on interroge souvent Goldcorp quant à ses procédures de consultation communautaire au Canada et dans ses exploitations à l’étranger, et la société a constaté une augmentation notable de l’intérêt apporté aux risques environnementaux tels que l’utilisation de l’eau et l’empreinte écologique dans les mines. La sensibilisation accrue à ce que les investisseurs ont besoin de comprendre a, par ailleurs, eu des retombées positives sur Goldcorp en tant que société. « En termes de situations difficiles que nous avons eues à gérer dans le passé sur divers sites miniers, cette capacité à être ouverts et transparents par rapport aux informations que nous fournissons… a finalement renforcé notre capacité à bien mieux faire dans plusieurs pays dans lesquels nous sommes implantés », indiquait-il. Les analystes et les investisseurs ont d’ailleurs constaté que les sociétés minières avaient amorcé la tendance à la divulgation et font, de fait, partie des industries les plus fortes dans ce secteur. « Des industries telles que l’exploitation minière [qui] sont très exposées aux risques sont de fait en avance par rapport à des sociétés moins exposées, car elles n’ont pas le choix », expliquait Frances Fairhead, analyste de recherche en industries extractives au sein de l’agence Sustainalytics de notation des critères ESG. « Elles pratiquent depuis plus longtemps, offrent une solide politique de divulgation de la durabilité depuis plus d’années que nombre industries, et les grandes sociétés minières ont tendance à être relativement engagées. Nous avons cepen-

dant constaté que nous nous engageons auprès de personnes plus haut placées dans l’organisation. »

Évaluer la responsabilité Pour comprendre la façon dont les investisseurs prennent leurs décisions concernant les sociétés qu’ils considèrent comme des investissements « responsables », il est important de savoir comment fonctionne l’évaluation des critères ESG. Le processus d’évaluation peut se révéler intensif. D’après Mme Fairhead, Sustainalytics identifie les questions relatives aux critères ESG spécifiques au secteur, telles que les relations communautaires, la santé et la sécurité au travail, ainsi que les émissions, les effluents et les déchets, puis évalue l’exposition spécifique de la société ainsi que sa gestion de ce risque par rapport à la moyenne dans l’industrie. La moyenne est fondée sur des facteurs qui incluent notamment le registre historique du secteur. Certaines agences d’évaluation se contentent d’analyser les documents publics des sociétés, et d’autres proposent aux sociétés qu’elles évaluent une enquête exhaustive à remplir. « Il s’agit de procédures méthodiques et rigoureuses qui exigent une grande participation de toute l’entreprise », expliquait M. Jabara. Il expliquait que le processus couvre souvent des domaines allant des ressources humaines aux pratiques de travail en passant par la performance environnementale et opérationnelle, les impôts, les paiements de redevances et les contributions aux communautés locales. « Si vous voulez participer, il faudra… pouvoir prouver que vous pouvez apporter des résultats et vous montrer à la hauteur des normes que vous avez définies. » Toutefois, étant donné le nombre important d’agences d’évaluation (qu’elles soient spécifiques aux critères ESG ou générales, auxquelles s’ajoutent des entreprises d’investissement qui procèdent en interne à leurs propres recherches), les notes accordées aux sociétés minières varieront en fonction de la personne qui procède à l’évaluation. « Certains investisseurs prétendent que c’est une source de frustration pour eux ; ils veulent des faits et seulement des faits sur lesquels ils peuvent agir », expliquait Mme Fairhead. « Souvent, les sociétés afficheront de grandes forces dans un domaine et de grandes faiblesses dans un autre ; il revient donc réellement à l’agence [d’évaluation] des critères ESG en question… de décider si un aspect est plus important que l’autre. » Par ailleurs, faisait remarquer Mme Grondin, l’évaluation des risques ESG d’une société peut parfois ne pas révéler toute l’histoire. Comme elle le précisait, certaines agences d’évaluation attribuent une note insuffisante sur le paramètre maintien en fonction de l’employé(e) si le renouvellement de personnel dépasse un certain pourcentage. Pour Agnico, qui s’efforce d’employer des membres de la communauté inuite dans ses exploitations du Nunavut, le renouvellement du personnel est plus élevé dans ce territoire. « Notre taux de rotation est élevé, supérieur à 20 %, car nous employons toujours les mêmes personnes ; il s’agit de leur premier travail, elles n’ont souvent jamais

travaillé dans un contexte industriel auparavant, aussi il leur faudra un certain temps pour s’habituer à cet environnement, ce que nous acceptons. C’est pourquoi nous les réembauchons ultérieurement », précisait-elle. « [Toutefois], les agences se contenteront parfois de ne consulter que les chiffres et de nous qualifier de mauvais employeur. Dans ce contexte, c’est le contraire. » Tout comme les évaluations de crédit, une note sur les critères ESG peut changer en un instant. Suite à la catastrophe de Córrego do Feijão, Vale a vu son évaluation de crédit scrutée de près par S&P Global Ratings et Moody’s, et Sustainalytics a également revu sa note à la baisse. À l’heure où nous publions cet article, Moody’s avait dévalué Vale à la catégorie spéculative. « L’évaluation controversée » relative aux émissions, aux effluents et aux déchets de Vale a été dévaluée de la catégorie 4 à la catégorie 5, « pour refléter le caractère exceptionnel des déversements de stériles, des répercussions catastrophiques de ces déversements sur les communautés locales et l’environnement, ainsi que du risque financier important pour Vale », lisaiton dans un rapport de Sustainalytics. La catégorie 5 dénote le risque le plus élevé possible pour une société, couvrant des événements ayant des incidences sur l’environnement et la société ainsi qu’un « risque important pour l’entreprise ». Les conséquences d’une mauvaise note en matière de risques ESG peuvent être considérables. « Certains investisseurs mettent en œuvre des garde-fous et refusent d’investir dans des sociétés qui affichent un certain niveau de controverse », indiquait Mme Fairhead. « Ainsi, on se retrouvera avec un plus petit groupe d’investisseurs prêts à injecter des fonds dans la société. »

Une divulgation totale ? Le 19 février dernier, c’est sur une note pessimiste que le chef de la direction de BHP M. MacKenzie a commencé la conférence téléphonique relative aux résultats semestriels de la société. « Je ne souhaite pas revenir sur l’incident tragique qui s’est produit à l’exploitation de minerai de fer Brumhadino de Vale au Brésil le mois dernier. La rupture du barrage est une tragédie, et nous transmettons nos pensées à toutes les personnes affectées par cette catastrophe », déclarait-il. « À BHP, nous nous engageons à tirer les enseignements d’un tel désastre, comme le doit toute l’industrie, et à redoubler d’efforts pour nous assurer que pareille catastrophe ne se reproduise jamais. » Pour accompagner les résultats financiers de la société du semestre prenant fin en décembre, BHP a publié un rapport sur les digues de résidus miniers de toutes ses opérations. D’autres sociétés ont pris les mêmes mesures. Comme l’indiquait M. Jabara, Newmont a mis à jour sa fiche analytique dédiée à la gestion des résidus, créée en 2014, afin « de répondre plus consciencieusement à certaines des questions qui pourraient survenir, d’être plus transparente et de fournir aux parties prenantes une vision ouverte de l’approche de la société envers la gestion des stériles ». M. Bergeron de Goldcorp s’attend à ce que la société rende désormais publiques davantage d’informaMarch/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 83

tions sur ses barrages miniers en vertu de son engagement envers les normes définies par l’initiative Vers le développement minier durable (VDMD) de l’association minière du Canada (AMC). La société d’exploitation de minerai de fer australienne Fortescue Metals Group et le géant minier Anglo American ont également fourni un compte rendu de leurs installations de stockage des résidus dans leurs résultats semestriels. Un jour après BHP, Rio Tinto a révélé des détails sur toutes ses installations de gestion des résidus. Le chef de la direction Jean-Sébastien Jacques a également annoncé que la société réviserait toutes ses normes internationales relatives aux installations de stockage des résidus et de l’eau, et notamment la façon d’améliorer les vérifications de ses installations externes existantes. Il déclarait également que la société était « fermement résolue à faire sa part dans le cadre de la réponse de l’industrie à ce problème ». Un changement à plus grande échelle dans l’industrie est en préparation. Les régimes de retraite et les entreprises d’investissement britanniques, européens et canadiens ayant lancé un appel conjoint pour un système indépendant d’évaluation de la sécurité mondiale des barrages miniers proposaient que ce nouveau système exige des vérifications annuelles de toutes les digues de résidus miniers, vérifications qui seraient rendues publiques, et de s’assurer que les sociétés mettent en œuvre les normes de sécurité correspondantes les plus élevées. Ensemble, ces entreprises réunissent des actifs équivalant à quelque 1 300 milliards de dollars américains, une source de financement importante qui pourrait aujourd’hui se révéler particulièrement motivante. Dans la déclaration commune, Pieter van Stijn, directeur de l’investissement responsable chez BMO Global Asset Management, expliquait que, « en tant qu’investisseur dans ce secteur, nous voulons des garanties que les systèmes adéquats soient en place pour gérer de tels risques. Nous nous engageons à collaborer avec d’autres investisseurs pour appréhender les améliorations nécessaires dans le secteur. » L’International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM, le conseil international des mines et métaux) avait, en 2016, fait une proposition identique à celle des fonds britanniques, européens et canadiens, laquelle avait été rejetée ; fin février, il annonçait son intention de créer un groupe d’experts indépendants en vue de développer une norme internationale dédiée aux installations de gestion des résidus. M. MacKenzie a réitéré l’appel, expliquant que BHP « serait ravie d’accueillir un organisme indépendant et international commun visant à surveiller l’intégrité de la construction et de l’exploitation de tous les barrages, et soutient l’appel à une transparence plus élevée dans la divulgation relative aux barrages ». Dans le même temps, certaines initiatives et normes de l’industrie doivent exister. L’AMC dispose d’un protocole de gestion des résidus au titre de l’initiative VDMD, qui offre des indicateurs de performance d’un système responsable de gestion des résidus, ainsi que d’un manuel qui 84 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

propose les meilleures pratiques en matière d’exploitation, de maintien et de suivi des installations de gestion des résidus et de l’eau. Suite à la catastrophe à Mount Polley en 2014, l’association a réexaminé ses directives sur les résidus et mis en œuvre les 29 recommandations qui en ont résulté. Les directives de l’association canadienne des barrages (ACB) pour les évaluations de la sécurité des barrages sont aussi utilisées partout dans le pays et largement considérées comme des normes parmi les plus rigoureuses de l’industrie. Si la catastrophe de Córrego do Feijão pourrait bien entraîner un changement considérable au sein de l’industrie en termes de divulgation des risques des stériles aux investisseurs et au grand public, certaines sociétés se sont déjà désistées. S’adressant à S&P Global Platts le 20 février, le chef de la direction de Cliffs-Cleveland Lourenco Goncalves déclarait que la société ne ressentait pas le besoin de participer à la création d’un organe public indépendant, et indiquait que l’appel de M. MacKenzie revenait à « externaliser » la responsabilité. « Je suis totalement contre l’idée [d’instaurer des vérifications indépendantes et publiques] », déclarait M. Goncalves. « Chaque société doit analyser les conditions qui lui sont propres et nous ne devons en aucun cas sous-traiter cette responsabilité. Les chefs de la direction doivent avoir leurs propres plans et développer, dans l’absolu, les meilleures pratiques. » Mme Grondin d’Agnico a adopté une position bien plus modérée. Si elle déclarait ne pas attendre des sociétés qu’elles optent pour une divulgation publique des informations relatives à leurs installations de gestion des résidus, elle déclarait qu’il était de la responsabilité des sociétés minières d’aider les investisseurs et le public à les comprendre. « Le risque nul n’existe pas, et si nous identifions un risque à l’étape de la conception, nous devons pouvoir le gérer », déclarait-elle. « Notre rôle consiste à expliquer la nature de ce risque et la façon dont nous le gérons. Nous aurions certes dû [le faire] auparavant, mais au vu de ces incidents, il est devenu clair que nous devons rendre des comptes. » Les investisseurs seront-ils effrayés au point de s’éloigner du secteur ? Les dirigeants sont partagés sur la question. « Les répercussions sont indéniables », déclarait M. Letwin. « Ceci nous rappelle qu’il est absolument essentiel d’administrer nos exploitations de façon sûre et sans danger pour l’environnement… Nous devons mieux faire en tant qu’industrie. » M. Bergeron, quant à lui, déclarait que des événements tels que la rupture du barrage « n’allaient pas nécessairement changer l’appétit pour le risque » des investisseurs. « Ce n’est pas comme si l’exploitation minière allait s’arrêter », déclarait-il. « Cependant, ce genre d’événements… sensibilisent les personnes au sein même de nos sociétés au fait que nous devons changer certaines pratiques que nous appliquons depuis toujours. » ICM

LE NOUVEL ÉPANOUISSEMENT DE LAC BLOOM Déstabilisée par la crise qui a affecté les matières premières, Lac Bloom se retrouve sous une nouvelle direction qui s’engage à transformer une nouvelle fois du minerai à haute teneur dans la fosse du Labrador, et se lance vers l’agrandissement de la propriété Par Matthew Parizot

Tous les photos avec l’aimable autorisation de Champion Iron Mines

ien que ses concurrents ne s’en soient pas rendu compte, la société australienne d’exploitation de minerai de fer Champion Iron savait qu’elle faisait le bon choix en rachetant la mine du Lac Bloom au Québec. D’après les résultats du troisième trimestre de l’exercice financier 2019 publiés par la société, la mine du Lac Bloom a, depuis le début de ses activités en février 2018, extrait plus de 14 millions de tonnes métriques humides (tmh) de minerai de fer à haute teneur, a considérablement réduit ses coûts de production et ses émissions de dioxyde de carbone (CO2) et a réalisé des revenus de plus de 472 millions de dollars canadiens. La destinée de la mine du Lac Bloom n’a cependant pas toujours été aussi radieuse. Il aura fallu trois propriétaires, un agrandissement non achevé et plusieurs milliards de dollars d’investissement pour que ce vilain petit canard se transforme en un beau cygne.

Champion a profité de l’occasion pour compléter plusieurs projets initiés par le propriétaire précédent, notamment un convoyeur de 3.5 km pour transporter le minerai vers l’usine.

C’est pendant la période faste de l’essor du minerai de fer à la fin des années 2000, lorsque le prix moyen du minerai avoisinait les 112 dollars américains la tonne, que la société Consolidated Thompson a construit la mine du Lac Bloom, au nord de Fermont, au Québec, pour la somme de 1,2 milliard de dollars américains. En mai 2011, la mine est rachetée à 75 % par Cleveland-Cliffs, qui s’appelait à l’époque Cliffs Natural Resources, pour la somme de 4,9 milliards de dollars canadiens, dans l’objectif de doubler la capacité de traitement du minerai dans le cadre d’un projet d’agrandissement. Cet agrandissement, qui a requis un capital supplémentaire de 1,6 milliard de dollars américains comme l’avait initialement prévu Cliffs, devenait cependant moins attrayant à mesure que le prix du minerai de fer déclinait. Accablé de dettes et d’un engagement ferme en matière d’expédition du minerai, et après avoir injecté 1,2 milliard de dollars américains supplémentaires dans son projet d’agrandissement, Cliffs place la mine du Lac Bloom en mode de soins et maintenance à la fin de l’année 2014 alors qu’elle essaie de trouver un acheteur. Enfin, en décembre 2015, Minerai de fer Québec, une filiale entièrement détenue par Champion Iron, annonce le rachat de la mine pour la somme très modeste de 9,75 millions de dollars canadiens. D’après la société, le prix du minerai de fer le jour de l’annonce du rachat se situe à 39 dollars américains la tonne. Après la publication de la première étude de faisabilité de Minerai de fer Québec en mars 2017, Lac Bloom recommence officiellement la production moins d’un an plus tard, dans les délais et selon le budget prévus.

D’après David Cataford, directeur de l’exploitation de Champion, si le bas prix de l’exploitation était indéniablement intéressant, cela représentait un avantage bienvenu pour cette mine qui offrait un approvisionnement séduisant en minerai à haute teneur constitué à 66,2 % de fer. « On a observé quelques itérations [de l’achat] et le marché empirait à chaque fois… mais on ne se serait jamais douté, ou du moins pas au début, que le projet se vendrait pour 9,75 millions de dollars », indiquait M. Cataford. « Le recul est une chose fabuleuse, mais lorsqu’on repense à 2014 ou 2015, rien ne laissait envisager que ce projet se vende à un prix aussi bas. »

Sur la vague de la haute teneur « Ce n’était pas seulement Lac Bloom, mais la fosse du Labrador en général. C’est la haute teneur du minerai de fer dans la fosse qui a attiré [le chef de la direction de Champion] Michael O’Keeffe », déclarait M. Cataford. M. O’Keeffe, ancien directeur exécutif de Glencore Australie et président de la société d’exploitation de minerai de fer australienne Mamba Minerals, est devenu président exécutif à Champion après la fusion des deux sociétés en 2013. En octobre 2014, il a été nommé chef de la direction de Champion Iron. Si le prix des matières premières en général a décliné au cours de l’année qui s’est écoulée, le minerai de fer à haute teneur est vendu au prix fort par rapport au minerai à teneur normale en fer de 62 % ; d’après le groupe de veille économique CRU Group, ce prix fort est de l’ordre de 20 à 30 % de plus que le prix habituel. On peut largement attribuer cela aux

L’opération de Bloom Lake comprend un éperon de rail de 32 km relié aux voies ferrées de la Côte-Nord du Québec et de Labrador à Wabush, au Labrador. 86 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

profil de projet

Les travailleurs se sont rassemblés le jour où la mine a redémarré en février 2018. L’opération emploie actuellement 450 personnes.

réglementations récentes de la Chine en matière d’environnement, qui ont eu des répercussions importantes sur les producteurs d’acier du pays. Le fer à haute teneur est plus propre et peut plus facilement être transformé en acier ; la demande en minerai de fer émanant de la Chine a considérablement augmenté. D’après M. Cataford, les concurrents de Champion n’ont pas compris la valeur que pouvait avoir le fer à haute teneur à l’époque. Au contraire, lorsqu’elles ont envisagé l’acquisition de Lac Bloom, toutes les autres parties intéressées ne voyaient que l’achèvement de l’agrandissement non terminé qui nécessiterait un investissement de 600 à 700 millions de dollars américains, et la plupart s’attendaient à ce que le prix du fer ne dépasse pas les 40 dollars américains la tonne. « La plupart des parties qui envisageaient ce projet n’y voyaient pas d’intérêt, aussi nos seuls concurrents réels étaient des sociétés de démantèlement, qui cherchaient à acheter l’équipement minier et à le revendre », indiquait M. Cataford. Plutôt que de se lancer dans le projet d’agrandissement prévu par Cliffs, Champion a adopté une approche différente. Si elle n’a pas effectué de grands changements au niveau de l’exploitation de la mine, la majeure partie des modifications consistaient à suivre l’investissement de ces prédécesseurs, profitant des milliards de dollars déjà injectés par Consolidated Thompson et Cliffs pour ramener la mine à l’état où elle se trouvait initialement. Le premier changement important concernait la décision de renoncer à agrandir la zone totale de la mine et de se concentrer sur les sections du gisement où les stériles avaient déjà été enlevés et qui étaient prêtes à l’exploitation.

« Notre prédécesseur avait déjà procédé aux premiers enlèvements des stériles dans pratiquement toute la mine ; ainsi, les coûts de 2013 et 2014 relatifs aux activités minières étaient relativement élevés, mais ne reflétaient pas une situation permanente », indiquait M. Cataford. « Les premiers enlèvements de stériles ayant été faits, [Champion] a pu réduire ses coûts d’exploitation minière. » Champion a également réduit le coefficient de recouvrement à 0,5 par rapport à son niveau précédent à 1,5 lorsqu’elle était sous la direction de Cliffs. D’après M. Cataford, ce changement a redonné une espérance de vie de 20 ans à la mine du Lac Bloom, tout en réduisant les coûts de production. Ces améliorations ont payé. D’après les résultats financiers du quatrième trimestre 2014, le dernier trimestre durant lequel la mine était exploitée avant que les activités ne soient suspendues, les coûts de production à Lac Bloom avaient atteint 81,19 dollars américains la tonne. D’après le plus récent rapport financier de la société, les coûts de production ont diminué de plus de la moitié sous la direction de Champion, atteignant un coût décaissé de 37,60 dollars américains par tonne métrique sèche (tms).

La dernière étape Les autres changements mis en œuvre par Champion ont également contribué au renouveau de Lac Bloom. La société a notamment installé l’usine de concentration sur le site minier, un changement important. D’après M. Cataford, lorsque Consolidated Thompson a choisi le circuit de séparation en spirale pour le concentrateur, elle en a choisi un conçu pour les sables minéralisés. S’il fonctionnait bien initialement, l’effiMarch/April 2019 • Mars/Avril 2019 | 87

Au cours des trois derniers mois de 2018, Champion a extrait 4,8 millions de tonnes mouillées de minerai.

cacité du circuit de récupération a peu à peu diminué ; à cela se sont ajoutés des problèmes de fournisseurs, et Champion a dû procéder à des changements. « Lorsque Consolidated Thompson a choisi ces circuits de séparation en spirale… ils affichaient de bons résultats, mais le gros problème est que le minerai de fer est très abrasif. Ainsi, à mesure que les années avançaient, ils se détérioraient très rapidement, et ils n’étaient pas conçus pour être remis en état », expliquait M. Cataford. « Le fournisseur de ces spirales a arrêté de les fabriquer, aussi il n’y avait pas non plus de soutien de ce côté-là. La récupération de fer à Lac Bloom, qui était initialement d’environ 80 %, a chuté à 68 %. » D’après M. Cataford, le coût n’était pas le seul problème ; en effet, Cliffs avait un engagement « d’achat ferme » dans certains de ses contrats, entraînant une grande responsabilité pour ses activités. Comme l’indiquait M. Cataford, le remplacement de ces spirales par d’autres plus adaptées au minerai que la société traite a permis à Lac Bloom de retrouver des taux de récupération d’environ 81 %. La méthode visant à transporter le minerai jusqu’au concentrateur a également été améliorée. Cliffs avait presque terminé l’installation d’un transporteur à courroie de 3,5 kilomètres pour acheminer le minerai jusqu’à l’usine de concentration, mais elle s’est arrêtée juste avant d’acheter les couvercles antipoussière nécessaires pour se conformer aux réglementations environnementales. La solution pour Champion était évidente. « C’était un projet simple pour Champion que de construire ces deux couvercles anti-poussière nous permettant d’exploiter l’équipement, et nous l’utilisons depuis », indiquait M. Cataford. « Ces améliorations nous permettent d’éliminer environ deux camions dans le parc minier. Ce n’est pas négligeable lorsqu’on utilise huit camions ; cela représente une réduction de 25 % des camions dont nous avons besoin. » La capacité nominale annuelle de Lac Bloom est de 7,4 millions de tonnes de concentré, qui sont ensuite chargées dans des wagons puis envoyées dans un port à Sept-Îles, au Québec. Cliffs avait également terminé la construction d’une série de digues de sécurité et de pompes qui auraient aspiré les stériles générés par l’exploitation minière par pompe plutôt que de les transporter en dehors du site par camion. 88 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

« Ils avaient presque achevé le projet ; il nous fallait investir environ 25 millions de dollars pour finaliser le projet, mais depuis, nous aspirons les stériles par pompe plutôt que les éliminer par camion », indiquait M. Cataford. « Ce n’est pas de chance pour les entrepreneurs civils pour qui ce projet représentait une bonne affaire, mais c’est une très bonne nouvelle pour nous en termes de coûts d’exploitation car cela nous a permis de réduire le coût de la manutention des stériles d’environ 2,50 dollars par tonne. » D’après Champion, cela représente une baisse de 45 % des coûts de manutention. En plus de réduire les coûts d’exploitation, ces projets, associés à l’installation d’une chaudière électrique de 22 mégawatts pour remplacer les chaudières fonctionnant au diesel sur le site, ont permis à Champion de réduire ses émissions de CO2 de 40 %, par rapport à celles de 2014, ajoutait M. Cataford. Seulement 16 heures après la remise en service de l’usine en février dernier, Lac Bloom produisait du minerai de fer vendable. Au mois d’octobre dernier, la mine avait dépassé sa capacité nominale. Aujourd’hui, Champion produit du minerai de fer à haute teneur pour un coût décaissé total de moins de 40 dollars américains la tonne une fois qu’il est expédié de Sept-Îles (franco bord). Si la mine, qui emploie environ 450 personnes, était conçue pour extraire et expédier profitablement au prix de 55 dollars américains la tonne, Champion envisage déjà un agrandissement possible qui visera à doubler la production actuelle en terminant les projets d’investissement amorcés par Cliffs, en procédant notamment à de nombreuses améliorations et en achevant l’installation d’un second concentrateur déjà sur le site. La société a commencé une seconde étude de faisabilité en juin 2018, et devrait révéler les résultats en juin cette année. « Nous sommes fiers de nos résultats. Notre main-d’œuvre est exceptionnelle, nous avons la grande chance de travailler avec des employés qui avaient confiance en nous avant même que nous ne commencions les activités, puis qui ont décidé de rejoindre Lac Bloom pour assurer son succès », déclarait M. Cataford. « Tous ensemble, nous avons travaillé très dur pour nos partenaires, et je pense que tout le monde est aujourd’hui satisfait des résultats. » ICM

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March/April 2019 â&#x20AC;˘ Mars/Avril 2019 | 89

MINING LORE The curious talents and tales of the Baroness de Beausoleil

Cassier’s magazine (1904)

By Cecilia Keating

he Baroness de Beausoleil, the fill French coffers. Veritable Declarations world’s first recorded female of the Discovery of Mines and Minerals in mineralogist, was born Martine France, by means of which his Majesty and Bertereau in central France around his subjects will be enabled to do without 1590, and was introduced to mining by Foreign Mineral Trade included a list of her Brabantine [the modern-day 150 French mines the pair claimed to Netherlands] husband, Jean de have discovered. Châtelet, the Baron de Beausoleil. The King extended the couple’s The Baron, who had held various assignment in 1634 but sent no senior government posts overseeing money. The Baroness responded by mining activity in central Europe, was publishing a new pamphlet named the headhunted by the controller-general Restitution of Pluto in 1640, this time of French mines around 1601. France dedicated to the King’s right-hand man had been ravaged by the Wars of Reli- This woodcut from Georgius Agricola’s De Re Cardinal Richelieu. An unusual mix of gion, and King Henry IV believed min- Metallica depicts the use of the dowsing rod, a mining theory and political treatise, it method of finding ore bodies that the Baroness ing could invigorate the economy. decried Touche-Grippé’s unpunished de Beausoleil extolled. However, after Henry IV was murcrimes and petitioned Richelieu for dered in 1610, the Baron and his young wife adopted an itin- financial compensation for their hard work. erant, freelance lifestyle developing mines across central The pamphlet gave the Baroness the opportunity to defend Europe, Britain, and Scandinavia at the behest of various kings her position as a woman in the mining industry. To those who and emperors. The couple returned to France in 1626 when said that mining was “too bold, and surpasses the forces and they were hired to survey France’s mining potential and open industry of [our] sex,” she retorted that she “would refer this mines on behalf of King Louis XIII. disbeliever, and all those who arm themselves with such and Disaster struck before long. In 1627, while the Beausoleils other like arguments, to profane histories, where they will find were in Brittany, a provincial official named Touche-Grippé that, in the past, there have been women who were not only ransacked their home on the grounds that they were practising bellicose and skilled in arms, but even more, expert in arts and witchcraft. He claimed to be searching for a magical tool, but speculative sciences, professed so much by the Greeks as by confiscated all their documents, instruments, rock specimens the Romans.” She also attempted to distance herself and her and other items, and charged them with sorcery. After all, he husband from the accusations of witchcraft that dogged them. said, “How can mortal man discover what is underground Unfortunately, the pamphlet’s content may have hindered without diabolical aid?” The accusations of witchcraft may in that mission. In one section, she described the dwarfs she saw fact have been a cover to expel the meddlesome outsiders in Hungarian mines She promoted the dowsing rod as a intruding on local, private interests on behalf of the Crown. method to locate ore deposits, and outlined her astrology-based Ultimately, the couple were cleared but were never able to prospecting techniques, whereby specific celestial arrangeregain their property. Impoverished and outraged, they trav- ments were favourable for mining a particular metal. She also elled to Germany, where Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II explained that metals and minerals were generated inside the put the Baron in charge of Hungarian mines. When they came earth’s womb by the movement of the celestial bodies above. back to France in 1630, with German and Hungarian miners Historians have long claimed that it was the fantastic, in tow, King Louis renewed the Beausoleils’ mandate and alchemistic content of the Restitution of Pluto that inflamed issued an official order requiring that resistant regional parlia- accusations of sorcery and resulted in the couple’s imprisonments recognize and support their work. But he failed to offer ment by Cardinal Richelieu in 1642. However, two years financial support, and the couple spent a fortune paying their passed between the book’s publication and the imprisonment. men, funding their exploration efforts and hauling their ret- Some historians now believe that the Cardinal took issue with inue from region to region. the couple’s allegiance to his political adversaries. Frustrated by this lack of remuneration, in 1632 the Baroness The Baron was placed in the Bastille, while the Baroness published a pamphlet dedicated to the government official who was imprisoned just outside Paris in a prison in Vincennes. had hired them that detailed how the Beausoleils’ work would Both died shortly after. CIM 90 | CIM Magazine | Vol. 14, No. 2

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