NEW ZEALAND QUARRYING & MINING Volume 14 - No 1| February-March 2017 | $8.95
A balance of value and performance A new Hyundai R145CR-9 excavator shows off its versatility at Atlas Concrete Silica mining in focus Quarries old and new contributing to concrete
Waterproofing road surfaces Latest research into improved pavement maintenance INCORPORATING
Aggregate News
Persistence brings rewards Bathurst Resources becomes our coal king
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C O N T E N T S
NEW ZEALAND QUARRYING & MINING Volume 14 - No 1 | February-March 2017
INSIDE
18
UPFRONT
6 8
Editorial Upfront
ON THE COVER 16 A balance of value and performance – A new Hyundai R145CR-9 excavator shows off its versatility
FEATURES
Heavy haulage 18 From copper to gold
22
Quarrying
22 Alice and the Tikitere Quarry 26 Thank you dead diatoms 28 Diatomaceous with a bang
Roading
29 SMA for Waterview’s tunnels 30 Pavement – the water issue 32 The road to better quality basecourse 34 Sharp eyes on the road
Mining
36 37 38
Persistence brings rewards OceanaGold awarded by Philippines government; Gold Symposium in Rotorua CRP funded for marine mining research; Gold search in southern schist belt; Our mineral rich fault line
Aggregate & Quarry Association of NZ
26
40
Aggregate News
29
AT THE BACK 46 Innovations and products 46 Advertisers’ Index
ON THE COVER: Q&M magazine visits a concrete recycling plant in Auckland to watch a new Hyundai R145CR-9 excavator show off its versatility.
See story page 16
37 Q&M February -March 2017 5
E D I T O R I A L
NEW ZEALAND QUARRYING & MINING
Q&M covers news, views and trends from the extractive industries, along with features on projects and people in the industry.
www.contrafed.co.nz
Public education – who is in charge? We unintentionally ended up with a ‘silica’ theme in our first issue of 2017; with an historic review of our first ‘pozzolan’ silica production in the 1970s; a quarry profile on the Tikitere Quarry near Rotorua, which produces material for Microsilica 600; and a connection to the concrete tunnel linings of the Waterview project. Research on silica mining from the active geothermal areas of our Volcanic Plateau; a close-up look at the wall of the tunnels before they open in April; the building of the Roman Colosseum; and the invention of dynamite – certainly made putting together this issue a very interesting and educational effort. Not to say that we ever put together a dull issue. This magazine covers an industry that is not only very exciting with its variety of resources, but essential to the development of the country. Yet, sadly, it is grossly misunderstood and under-appreciated by the very public who depend on it. And you are not the only industry that has an undeserving ‘public relations’ problem. It sours many holiday BBQs listening to talk about ‘extraction’ in this country being a opportunistic crime against the environment, and interpreting the likes of James Cameron’s Avatar (based on mining exploitation) as anything other than sanctimonious science fiction. The libertarians out there say it is up to the ‘industry’ to promote itself and find acceptance (or ‘social licence’ in new-age, bullshit jargon). This is nonsense. As taxpayers, we pay for an education system that has a responsibility, and duty, to teach values that prepare us for citizenship. “The best educated human being is the one who understands the most about the life in which he is placed,” wisely noted Helen Keller, the 20th century, deaf-blind American author and political activist. ‘Life’ includes building materials and construction. Aggregate, and its production, is the founding stone of where we live. If the citizenship is ignorant of this, and even encouraged to take a negative view of extraction, then we are going backwards. It doesn’t help that many government departments, keen to sweeten the public with their own positive ‘social licence’ messages, have a frustrating practice of publicly announcing major construction projects while omitting the industries and companies that are responsible for all the good work. Even worse is the way some government departments make public denouncements about extraction practices as if the industry not only works in collective collusion, but can’t be trusted. I have said it before and I will reiterate – the industry is made up of individual companies, answerable only to themselves because they don’t have the power, or the licence, to control others. Even the Quarry Association, and other representative bodies, can only deal with their own members – and memberships are voluntary. While on the subject of associations – make sure you read the AQA pages in this issue, which air a lot of grievances amongst members over qualifications. It is the responsibility of government to make laws that protect the extraction industry in terms of sustainable production and from self-harm. And it is the responsibility of government to police those laws. So please – spare us the pious ‘do the right thing’ campaigns this year and expressions of ‘disappointment’ when they don’t work. Messages are only good if they get read and understood, and I guess that doesn’t apply to irresponsible law-breakers? Meantime, carry on digging for a better nation, and look after your own welfare. As long as we all do that, there shouldn’t be health and safety issues amongst legitimate operators. As for industry ‘social licence’ – it’s up to the government to stand up for, and defend, any legitimate industry essential to this nation’s development. Alan Titchall, Editor 6 www.quarryingandminingmag.co.nz Q&M
PUBLISHER
Contrafed Publishing Co Ltd Suite 2.1, 93 Dominion Road, Mt Eden 1024 PO Box 112357, Penrose, Auckland 1642 Phone: 09 636 5715 Fax: 09 636 5716 EDITOR
Alan Titchall DDI: 09 636 5712 Mobile: 027 405 0338 Email: alan@contrafed.co.nz GENERAL MANAGER
Kevin Lawrence DDI: 09 636 5710 Mobile: 021 512 800 Email: kevin@contrafed.co.nz ADVERTISING
Charles Fairbairn DDI: 09 636 5724 Mobile: 021 411 890 Email: charles@contrafed.co.nz REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS
Hugh de Lacy, Neil Ritchie, Richard Silcock and Peter Owens ADMINISTRATION/SUBSCRIPTIONS
Email: admin@contrafed.co.nz DDI: 09 636 5715 PRODUCTION
Design: Tracey Asher, TMA Design Printing: PMP MAXUM Contributions welcomed. Please contact the editor before sending them in. Articles in NZ Quarrying & Mining are copyright and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission of the publisher. Opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the shareholding organisations or the publisher. The views expressed in the Aggregate News section of NZ Quarrying & Mining may not represent the views of Contrafed Publishing or its shareholding organisations. VISIT THESE WEBSITES Aggregate & Quarry Association www.quarrying.org.nz Institute of Quarrying (NZ) Inc www.ioqnz.co.nz New Zealand Minerals Industry Association www.straterra.co.nz Extractive Industries Training Organisation www.mito.org.nz Civil Contractors NZ www.civilcontractors.co.nz NZ Ready Mixed Concrete Association www.nzrmca.org.nz Connexis www.connexis.org.nz ISSN 2463-509X (Print) ISSN 2463-5103 (Online)
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U P F R O N T
Other uses of large aggregate Large stockpiles of rock and boulders at the Transmission Gully motorway, Lanes Flat site in Pauatahanui, found a rather unusual additional use. Search and rescue dog handlers John Appleby and Clare Robertson, from the USAR Search Dog Association, spotted the stockpiles from State Highway 58. They made contact with the Transmission Gully motorway project team because the site looked like ideal training grounds for their urban search and rescue dogs – Ted and Monty. “The large piles of rock looked like they would perfectly simulate the type of terrain people can get trapped in following the collapse of structures after large earthquakes, tornados, landslides and other natural and man-made disasters,” says Clare. After working closely with the project’s health and safety team to make sure they could support the training exercise while keeping both people and dogs safe, Ted and Monty got to work finding people hidden in the stockpiles. “Humans shed up to 40,000 skin cells every minute and it is these tiny particles floating in the air that USAR dogs are trained to locate,” says Clare. “Fast and effective location of trapped victims has a major effect on their chances of rescue and recovery.” Project director for Transmission Gully motorway, Boyd Knights, says the team is only too pleased to help. “Sometimes these things are tricky to pull off because we have such stringent health and safety standards. We worked through all the potential issues and risks with our health and safety team, such as making sure the rock piles we allowed the USAR team access to were stable enough to support the exercise.” Stockpiles at the Transmission Gully motorway project have also provided training opportunities on site for Wellington Police Armed Offenders Squad, Wellington Police dog handlers and the Tawa Fire Brigade.
Better diesel Changes are being made to petrol and diesel specifications
fewer harmful vehicle emissions,” says Energy and Resources
through the Engine Fuel Specifications Regulations 2011, which
minister Simon Bridges.
sets out minimum standards for fuel performance. These changes include reducing the sulphur level allowed in petrol from 50 to 10 parts per million; introducing a total oxygen limit, which potentially allows a wider range of fuel blends; and raising the biodiesel blend limit in diesel from five to seven percent. “Reducing sulphur levels in petrol will result in less wear and tear on engines and improved fuel efficiency, meaning there will be 8 www.quarryingandminingmag.co.nz Q&M
“Both the introduction of a total oxygen limit and the increase in biodiesel blend limits allow for fuel mixes that have less harmful emissions.” Bridges says fuel regulations change incrementally over time to keep up with new technology and international best practice. “The changes allow greater flexibility, will allow suppliers to offer lower emission fuels and could reduce costs at the pump over the long term.”
U P F R O N T
Innovative new aggregate test from NZTA The NZTA says it is working on an innovative new test that will better determine the quality of the aggregate used on our roadways. Poorer quality aggregate holds higher levels of smectite clay minerals. The higher these mineral levels in our aggregate, the more likely it is to break down, resulting in poor quality roads that cause disruption to customers, increase safety risk and cost money to rehabilitate. There are some recent instances where this has occurred on our highways, says the NZTA. “While the aggregate used on these highways met our basecourse specification, further analysis after the pavement had broken down showed the aggregate contained these clay minerals. “By more accurately testing for these clay minerals, this will enable us to better determine which aggregates will last longer than others and, therefore, which will lead to better quality highway pavement.” Over the past two years, NZTA principal technical advisor
Something for you budding prospectors Prospectors hoping to fund their retirement have a better chance searching for gold with a new, larger super-coil metal detector. Minelab Electronics in South Australia has increased the coil for its popular GPZ 7000 hand-held metal detector. The larger coil not only covers more ground in less time, but its improved depth detection also helps search for gold previously too deep to detect.
Gerhard Van Blerk has been evaluating a new type of test to better quantify the level of smectite clay. This new test is similar in nature to those used overseas. Internationally, there are established tests which use ethylene glycol to accelerate the weathering action that naturally occurs in the pavement. “However, these overseas testing regimes are either a subjective, visual test, or they use a series of complex equations to calculate a single durability indicator over a multitude of tests,” says the agency. Gerhard has developed a modified ethylene glycol test that provides an objective measure with good repeatability. “We are still underway with cross-checking these test findings, but
Costing around A$1795, the GPZ 19 Super-D coil was
early indications are good. We are relatively confident that this test
commercially launched in Australia late last year, ahead of
will be adopted by our aggregate specification in the near future,”
its international distribution.
he says.
Southern marketing director for Australia and New
“All going well, this test will be made mandatory to ensure the
Zealand Fraser Kendall says the interchangeable coil
aggregate used in our state highways is fit for purpose and our
would be the ideal product for professionals and serious
pavements will last as expected.”
hobbyists. The GPZ 19 has proven to be a significant upgrade on its predecessor the GPZ 14 with a detection depth increase of up to 30 percent, he adds. “Its design and changed layout give it a number of better qualities, most significantly greater depth, which gives prospectors the ability to go back over old areas that had been prospected and allow them to keep searching. “Our plan was to not only open new areas, but reopen past search areas and the GPZ 19 does that.” The detector allows users to map their location and log gold finds using an installed GPS unit and has had numerous successes across the globe. In August 2016, an Australian man used the GPZ 7000 to discover a 145-ounce gold nugget in central Victoria worth about A$250,000.
NZTA testing facility
Q&M February -March 2017 9
U P F R O N T
You say what? Aggregate producers will be hoping this invention won’t be going
maintain. Their lighter weight means the ground will be less prone
very far. Bitumen and chemicals producer Total teamed up with
to subsidence.
KWS, a subsidiary of Dutch construction group VolkerWessels, and plastic pipe manufacturer Wavin to develop PlasticRoad. PlasticRoad is made up of recycled plastic waste formed into lightweight modules. The hollow interiors allow for cables, plastic
When the elements reach their end of life expectancy they can be recycled again, contributing to a circular economy and cleaner environment. KWS engineers Anne Koudstaal and Simon Jorritsma, inventors
pipes and general drainage of water. The companies claim that
of PlasticRoad, says a prototype should be completed by the end
the pre-fabricated units will be easy to transport, assemble and
of 2017.
New material as durable as asphalt The NZTA is trialling a new type of pavement material on the Huntly
pavement designs, including the design of the pavement laid on
and Hamilton bypasses that is said to be as strong as asphalt at
the Huntly bypass, through to failure in a period of a few months.
less than half the cost. This new basecourse material, called Hi-Lab, is constructed from coarse-graded large stone aggregate, combined by a slurry
“This is something that would usually take on average 40 years outside of the test environment. “Testing in CAPTIF provides a controlled environment and we
of cement and finer stones. Pavement strength is derived by larger
can test various pavement samples ranging from those specifically
stones interlocking and having direct stone-on-stone contact.
designed to fail through to those which shouldn’t fail at all.”
The Transport Agency says it has been trialling Hi-Lab on
So far, those sections designed to fail cracked early as
various sites over the past five years, including trial road sections,
expected, but are still performing extremely well despite the
roundabouts and rehabilitation projects and thinks the results look
cracking, says David.
promising. NZTA principal pavement engineer David Alabaster says further testing is being carried out in the agency’s Canterbury Accelerated Pavement Testing Indoor Facility (CAPTIF), in Christchurch. “This means we’ll be accelerating loading and testing Hi-Lab 10 www.quarryingandminingmag.co.nz Q&M
“The section designed not to fail is only showing very minor signs of distress in rutting (most likely in the surfacing), with very minor changes in other pavement layers.” The agency says testing will continue through until early next year.
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U P F R O N T
Conference claimable CPD hours Following discussions between IOQ NZ, AQA and WorkSafe, there is a change to the claimable CPD hours from the AQA/ IoQ conference in Blenheim last year and for the QuarryNZ conference being held in Auckland in July. The proposed format will allow any CoC holder to potentially attain up to 12 hours formal CPD for attending the Auckland conference. The proposal is to have three workshops at the conference this year
Online health and safety tool
and each will be of a two-hour duration. This will allow a CoC holder attending
WorkSafe has developed a new online tool to help businesses get started with
a workshop to claim two hours formal
managing their workplace health and safety risks.
CPD. This also means that a CoC holder
The ‘Around the Block’ tool is animated and interactive, taking users on a journey
(who was only able to claim six hours formal CPD in Blenheim last year) has
through a typical city block. Thirteen businesses often seen on a city block have been included so far and
the potential to claim a further six hours
over time, more business types will be added to the block, particularly targeting
for attending all three workshops at this
small and medium sized businesses that make up some 97 percent of the business
year’s conference. This is in addition to the formal hours
landscape. The tool, www.worksafe.govt.nz/atb, was built by WorkSafe in collaboration with
for attending the conference (four
ACC to help businesses better understand their obligations under the new Health
hours) and the formal hours for the two
and Safety at Work Act from a risk management perspective.
AGMs.
Kaikoura – work in progress With the passing of the Hurunui/Kaikoura Earthquakes Recovery Bill back in December, work repairing the earthquake damaged region began in earnest. Cabinet agreed to reinstate the coastal route to Kaikoura and provided additional funding to speed up the process. The existing State Highway 1 and rail corridor along the
SCIRT Alliance that cleaned up Christchurch. The focus has been on SH1 and the number of slips, small and large, blocking the main highway either side of Kaikoura, as investigations into building an alternative route to the closed sea-hugging section of SH1 proved unviable. While the scope of the project has yet to be decided, the
coastal route to the north and south of Kaikoura will be rebuilt,
new highway is designed to be two-plus-one, or two lanes, with
with additional improvements to increase safety and resilience.
passing lanes. The new section will also feature new viewing
Exact costs are still being determined, but the current budget is $2 billion. Transport minister Simon Bridges says: “The precise work
platforms, made from slip material. Initial work focused on the highway south of Kaikoura and, by December 21 last year, State Highway 1 to the south of
required to repair the route is still under investigation and it will
Kaikoura was open to all traffic for daytime travel. Contractors
be a very complex job. However, the government is confident
put in more than 10,000 hours of work to get to this point,
that limited access via the coastal route can be restored in
removing more than 50,000 cubic metres of rock and material
about 12 months.”
in more than 7000 truckloads from 26 slips along the route.
A contracting alliance called the North Canterbury Transport
Work has also started on mitigating the most dangerous
Infrastructure Recovery (NCTIR) is doing the work, made up of
slips, involving up to 750,000 cubic metres, and clearing State
the NZTA, KiwiRail, local councils, Fulton Hogan, Downer, HEB
Highway 1 north of Kaikoura, with plans to have the highway
and Higgins. It is led by Duncan Gibb, the ex-director of the
fully opened within 18 months.
12 www.quarryingandminingmag.co.nz Q&M
‘39
‘66 1940
1950
1960
Erik jr
‘98 1970
1980
1990
‘16 2000
2010
had discovered- thanks to the swinging sixties, music and girls. Girls had taste- he realised, and
they really didn’t dig fellas with facial scars. Unfortunately for Erik Jr, his dad’s cable excavator had a habit of providing these... regularly. Luckily Åkerman (forefathers of Volvo) were thinking the same way, and in 1966 created their first hydraulic excavator. Not only did this contribute enormously to occupational health & safety, the massive increase in performance, productivity and reliability left Erik Jr more time and more bonus cash to enjoy the benefits of a job well done. We dig that.
0800 848 267 www.transdiesel.com
volvoce.com
2020
U P F R O N T
Nobby – a Case in point Nobby Green runs WT & DI Green Contracting, a specialty excavator and contracting operation based out of Te Kuiti, about 80 kilometres south of Hamilton in the Waikato. Paul Forrest, from Advancequip, alerted Q&M to the fact we had inadvertently photographed Nobby at work in the middle of Stevenson’s Drury quarry in the last issue in our pictorial story ‘A day in Stevies’ Drury Pit’. Nobby’s excavator is hammering away on its own cracking tough boulders. And that is Nobby’s speciality – touring quarries in the district and breaking up the rocks too tough for the quarry’s own gear. He started his business in 2005 and has employed up to five machine operators in his busier times, but is currently operating just one excavator (a Case CX250C) contracting to several chosen
machine components from the stones that get thrown out by the breaker. “He has had the Case now for 14 months and worked it hard.
key clients from the southern Waikato through to Rodney District in
Nobby says that with the breaker and heavy duty hitch, the
the north.
excavator has about two and half tonnes hanging off the front, but
Paul Forrest caught up with Nobby at Stevenson’s Drury Quarry where he was working with his big hydraulic breaker, on the same
he says it’s impressive how stable it feels.” Nobyy tells us that his excavator has now done 2500 hours in
day Q&M magazine was there photographing the Porter Group
the 14 months since he bought it, and they have “nearly all been
cover for the December-January issue of this magazine.
working hours, not walking hours”.
“His specialty is breaking up oversize blasted quarry rock to a size that can be processed by the primary crushers,” says Paul. “He had just finished breaking up a large amount of rock which
“It has a very comfortable cab, a big improvement on my earlier machines,” he says. “It is so quiet and very smooth. No problem working it all day
had been stockpiled for him on the pit floor and had moved up to
every day. I had an SH220 that is very similar in capacity, but this
the top of the hill overlooking the quarry to break up some huge
is quieter, smoother, and more comfortable.
lava boulders as part of the preparation to extend the Drury Quarry towards the north.
“This is our first machine from AdvanceQuip and when my old machine came up for replacing, Steve from AdvanceQuip was the
“His Case excavator still looks pretty mint as he has set it up
only one [supplier] to call me back.
with special polycarbonate shielding to protect the paintwork and
“I am very happy overall.” Q&M
14 www.quarryingandminingmag.co.nz Q&M
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O N
T H E
C O V E R
A balance of value and performance
Q&M magazine visits a concrete recycling plant in Auckland to watch a new Hyundai R145CR-9 excavator show off its versatility. By Alan Titchall.
W
ith three concrete recycling plants in Auckland’s northern district and a new one planned at Riverhead, the recycling side of business at Atlas Concrete is doing very well, says group general manager, Shane Coutts. “Recycling has become very important for Atlas and is an area of focus for the future. “While recycling in New Zealand might be lagging behind the volumes produced in overseas markets, where there are legislative incentives to drive recycled aggregate, our clients are appreciating more and more the benefits of having access to the cost effectiveness of local recycling facilities that process their concrete waste into products they can use as an alternative to virgin aggregate. “Especially as transport costs of virgin aggregate keep increasing as quarries move further out of town and motorway congestion has an impact on transport productivity.” Based in Auckland, Atlas Concrete has concrete recycling operations at Silverdale, Kumeu and Albany, complemented by a slurry recycling facility at Woodhill. Albany is the main recycling plant and is located at 8 Paul Matthews Road, within easy reach of the North-South and East-West motorways. It is here that I meet up with Shane to photograph a new Hyundai R145CR-9 in action for the cover of this issue. Goggles and ear muffs are mandatory, while the machine is fitted with a rock breaker. 16 www.quarryingandminingmag.co.nz Q&M
The site is surprisingly city urban, albeit neatly tucked away on an industrial park, surrounded by a green belt. Summer rain over the past evening has dampened the concrete stockpiles. “Our two challenges are noise and dust and we put a lot of effort into controlling both,” says Shane, alerting me to the sprinkler system about to shower me from above. The Hyundai R145CR-9, with its rock breaker, is pounding away at a cluster of large concrete cylinders with the voracity of a demented woodpecker. “They are tower crane footings from a building site,” says Shane. “The concrete has done its job and now gets a second life. It’s a great alternative to filling up landfills with product that can be used in construction.” The machine operator is Peter and he stops work to confer about photography angles in the interest of health and safety – largely my own. A larger Hyundai R290LC-9 excavator works in the background moving smashed up material – a smorgasbord of pre-used concrete, from bridges to power poles, patio pads, drainage pipes and driveway slabs. Clients vary between local authorities, civil contractors, builders, demolition specialists, home renovators and even DIY homeowners. While talking with Peter I point out an unrelated asphalt recycling plant using an old wheel loader (not Hyundai) slaving away with an open cab. Tough work for that operator, I say.
Shane Coutts, group general manager Atlas Concrete.
“Yeah, not for me mate,” says Peter, who can enjoy Hyundai’s bigger generation cab with upper skylight and plenty of polycarbonate safety glass up front. The seat and suspension also feature the latest in cab ergonomics, which is good for your back when crabbing the machine tracks over any rubble. Powerful air conditioning takes care of that dust too. While the Albany yard is not small, the Hyundai R145CR-9’s short (1480mm) tail-swing radius allows Peter to work in confined areas, important on recycling sites where machines work closely together and magazine editors come snooping around with cameras. The nimble Hyundai R145CR-9 “floats”, says Shane, between the Albany site, Kumeu, Silverdale and Woodhill, working in a variety of applications. “That includes using the rock breaker attachment at Albany, Kumeu and Silverdale when we receive large concrete structures. “The Hyundai R145CR-9’s prominent role is at Kumeu, where it loads the crusher and its secondary role is maintaining the slurry ponds at our Woodville operations.” Shane showed me around the site crushing plant, which is totally enclosed for dust and noise control. “We produce around 60,000 cubes of material a year, which might be small compared to some recycling operations, but this is changing.”
Standard products are AP65, AP40, AP20, AP8, drainage 65 (65-40mm) drainage 40 (40-25mm) and drainage 25 (25-8mm). “We have been working with Auckland Transport developing a specification for recycled crushed concrete. Once this specification is published we are expecting more acceptance of the product.” The recycling operation is not that different from a quarry, Shane adds. “The larger material comes in and we size and grade it. We use jaw crushers and have a small mobile impactor that floats between sites. “The big difference is that the material comes to us so we don’t have to blast it from a hill and transport it to the plant. “There’s basically two parts to our process – the demolition concrete is pulverised to remove the steel and size ready for the crusher. We then crush and screen over two screens to make our products. The impactor can be added into the system if we need to convert drainage products into AP products. “Most of the raw material is moved around with excavators. The finished material is handled with loaders.” I notice that most of the machinery is Hyundai. “Yeah – Atlas has enjoyed a 20 plus year association with Porters and Hyundai. “And Hyundai machines have proved a good ‘balance’ between quality and economics.” • Q&M February -March 2017 17
H E A V Y
H A U L A G E
From copper to
gold
Global Transport recently achieved a heavy haulage project that involved a shipment of mining gear from Peru to Macraes Mine in Otago. MARY SEARLE details the complicated passage from South America to Central Otago.
G
lobal Transport was contracted to get five Cat 789D dump trucks onto a ship in a Chilean port, across the South Pacific Ocean to the port in Timaru and then onto transporters for the rest of the journey to the mine. The dump trucks had been bought for a mining job in the copperrich Antofagasta region of Chile in 2013, but had barely been used. As such, they were a bit grubby, but virtually new. The seller of the trucks used a local heavy haulage company to get the vehicles to the port in Peru, and that’s where Global Transport took over with a ship on charter to move the equipment to Port Timaru. Normally, such big cargo would be shipped out of the port city of Antofagasta in Peru. However, the town was no longer tolerating big loads being transported through its streets. This meant they had to use Mejillones Port, 100 kilometres to the north of Antofagasta. The Cat dump trucks were parked outside the port. The dump bodies had been removed for transport and the chassis were complete with wheels. The bodies were then taken by transporter and the chassis were driven into the port for loading onto the ship. Global Transport owner Richard Hyde says ensuring everyone is in the know and happy with the way things are going is all part of working in South America. “Meeting face to face is better than email. They understand you have ownership of the operation. “You have to play the game or everything will just stop,” says Richard. “It’s better than it was 20 years ago, but it’s a different culture. “My jobs run pretty smoothly because I’ve done it so often. But 18 www.contrafed.co.nz Q&M
it’s all about knowing the risks – ensuring the right people have been contacted, the correct funds have been paid to the respective parties, and the right questions have been asked. “Preparation is everything,” he says. “Surprises are the things that kill you.” After a day and a half, the ship was ready to sail. The ship, which had originally come out of the US Gulf, was late, so the pressure came on the master to run at maximum speed to Port Timaru. However, at the port in Timaru there was another ship on the berth. In order to avoid unnecessary fees, Richard contacted the captain of the ship and asked him to slow down a bit. At Port Timaru, Laurie Cantwell took control of the operation (Richard was in Peru overseeing another transport operation). Discharge went smoothly as a lot of planning went into the stowing of the vessel. And discharge is always quicker than loading a vessel, says Richard. “If transporters are sitting, waiting to catch a lift via the ship’s hook, it costs money.” The bodies were discharged directly onto widening trailers with four rows of eight wheels and headed to the mine site, a 175-kilometre trip south. The bodies are 12.7 metres long and 7.6 metres wide and weigh between 38 and 44 tonnes each. The chassis were then off-loaded. Although the chassis were too heavy to transport via the road with their wheels on, the wheels had been deliberately left on as the chassis needed to be mobile to move onto the Port at Mejillones, and, more importantly, so they could be driven inside the vessel to the final stow position. A tyre handler was brought down from the mine to remove the
1 1. The chassis and truck bodies arrive at Mejillones Port in Chile ready to export. 2. A Cat 789D chassis is lifted by the ship’s hook onto the vessel 3. The Cat chassis are stowed aboard the vessel for the journey to New Zealand. 4. A Cat 789D chassis loaded onto a Fulton Hogan transporter ready to head to Macraes Mine. 5. Seals frolic in Chilean port while the Cat dump trucks are loaded onto the ship.
2
wheels and, with the wheels removed, the chassis, which weigh around 68 tonnes each, were then lashed to the transporters – either a widening trailer with four rows of eight wheels and two axle dollies or a five axle widening trailer – and departed for the mine. The wheels and ancillary items comprised another 10 loads to the mine and were transported on flatbed trailers. The 20 heavy hauls were undertaken by Fulton Hogan, which had three transporters, assisted by BR Satherley Transport, with another two transporters. You can see some excellent footage of the move, including the gear being hauled up the Macraes Road hill, on the Global Transport website: http://bit.ly/2jamJbb. Q&M
3
4 PHOTOS SUPPLIED BY GLOBAL TRANSPORT.
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Q&M February -March 2017 19
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MYSTERY CREEK EVENTS CENTRE, HAMILTON
Q U A R R Y I N G
Alice
and the
Tikitere Quarry ALAN TITCHALL tours a quarry on the Taupo Volcanic Plateau that supplies Golden Bay Cement with
one of concrete’s essential additives and explains its connection to the new Waterview tunnels.
K
en Thorpe looks down into the grey-pinky pit where a little steam is coming off the face. “We use gas meters to monitor hydrogen sulphide when mining, of course. The northern pit hydrogen sulphide levels are generally low, but we have to be careful in the southern pit,” he says. “Any depression in the ground, or out of a fissure, hydrogen sulphide is deadly and acts on the body like cyanide. “I have found dead wallabies, rats, cats, rabbits and birds in hollows around the site. In one hole there were about 30 dead yellow hammers, which must have been attracted by the yellow sulphur.” We are looking around the top of the northern pit at Tikitere Quarry around the east side of Lake Rotorua. The deposit is silica. Lots of it. Ken is a geologist who holds an A-grade quarry certificate, an A-grade opencast coal mine, and a first class underground coal mine manager’s certificates. He is also a registered assessor with MITO; contracting with an Auckland-based company to train extractive industry courses. “I started my own consultancy a while ago, and have kept the wolf from the door, although it has chewed up the door mat a few times.” His connection to Tikitere and its silica goes back 25 years.
22 www.quarryingandminingmag.co.nz Q&M
During the peak mining cycle over the summer months he acts as quarry supervisor, when most of the mining of the resource is done. The resource we are looking at in the pit hasn’t been mined for months and the surface has oxidised to a grey colour. Ken points out another site hazard. “When the ore is freshly mined it is pure white, and it’s like working on snow. You need quality sunglasses to stop the glare.” The quarry sits in the middle of the Tikitere hydrothermal field, close to the shores of Lake Rotorua. The closest neighbour is the Hells Gate thermal visitor park. Unlike the diatomite (silica composed of the fossilised remains of diatoms) mined at Ngakuru Valley south of Rotorua, the Tikitere deposit is related to volcanic activity. “Formed from the hydrothermal alteration of host rock – basically pumice and ignimbrite deposits.” Ken adds that the deposit is probably very close in nature to the original silica (pozzolan) that the Romans mined from Pozzuoli in Italy (see box story on page 27) used to make the first hydro-concrete. “Hot geothermal fluids permeated through the pumice and ignimbrite, stripping out the minerals to leave behind amorphous silica – probably as a gel. Over thousands of years this gel has quietly hardened as the geothermal activity has moved elsewhere
Above: Looking north over the main quality pit with the ‘warm lake’ to the left. Left: Ken Thorpe pointing to the silica quarry’s extensive boundaries. His connection to Tikitere and its silica goes back 25 years. During the peak mining cycle over the summer months he acts as quarry supervisor, when most of the mining of the resource is done.
and the deposit cooled. Not to say we don’t still find the odd warm spot on site.” The resource is not that deep – about 20 metres – but it is spread over a lot of consented land leased from a Maori trust. The entire quarry was consented in 1991 as one of the last of the Town & Country Planning Act consents before the RMA took over. Ken says the silica content on site is about 85 percent, or well within the industry standard for amorphous silica. However, there is more thought to lowering this percentage, which means the quarry’s lower grade ore could be exploited. “This would expand our resource out to tens of millions of tonnes. And, speaking from someone who has been involved from the start, not all the resource has been explored yet.” The Ngakuru deposit originally dug out under the supervision of the MOW in the 1950s for the hydro dams probably had a silica content of 66 percent, he says, so accepting a lower grade silica is nothing new, but will impact on the quarry’s value.
The operation In full flight, the processing operation at Tikitere works in two 12 hour shifts with three workers per shift, plus day work personnel. With his A-grade certificate Ken Thorpe is the quarry supervisor during the peak summer months and Justin Masters, the overall
manager. Wayne Southall is the plant manager. The silica, branded Microsilica 600, is produced under the Golden Bay banner. Microsilica 600 is typically added to concrete in ratios of up to 10 percent to achieve the qualities as described in the box story on page 28. This past summer has been busy for the Tikitere Quarry as it is supplying a large export order to Singapore. The quarry normally stockpiles about 5000 cubic metres of raw ore for orders during the year. The material can get ‘sticky’ in winter so they try to do most of the mining and lifting during the summer months. “It doesn’t always work out that way and we do get fine weeks during winter,” says Ken. “Even a day without rain and a bit of wind will dry the surface material out.” The mining is carried out with a Komatsu 20 tonne digger and two 12 cubic metre dump trucks. “That’s all we need,” says Ken, “as the material is soft – especially in the lower-grade material areas where we can use a swamp bucket.” The firmer higher-grade material is crushed before stockpiling with a mobile crusher. Ken says dust is not a problem during summer as, once the material is stockpiled, it forms a ‘skin’. “It is a very stable material.” A problem can be the endemic sulphur, which tends to run in Q&M February -March 2017 23
Q U A R R Y I N G
The plant The material is first fed with water into a primary blunger, which features a large toothed blade on the bottom which runs at high speed breaking down the ore to less than 2mm in size. Then an initial cut through a hydro-cyclone removes the heavier crystalline quartz, and oversize product the secondary process cannot handle. A secondary process involves a mill with the mill media being small pinkish quartz pebbles, which are quarried in Central Otago from schist. The finished Microsilica 600 is bagged on site in one tonne bulk bags, 25 kilogram and 10 kilogram bags, plus it’s available to the market via bulk powder road tankers, and also in pre-mixed slurry via road tanker.
veins through the material and can get too concentrated. Drainage is not a problem as the site is in a natural depression with water running into the centre and self-draining through natural fissures. There are a few natural on-site ‘ponds’ (at around 25 degrees) but they dry out during the summer.
The plant process Ken likens the primary blunger in the plant to a kitchen whizz, which features a large toothed blade on the bottom which runs at high speed breaking down the ore to less than 2mm in size. “The raw ore is fed into the blunger with water, and exits as a slurry. It’s a fairly crude process, but sufficient for it to pass into the factory for the secondary process.” An initial cut through a hydro-cyclone removes the heavier crystalline quartz, and oversize product the secondary process cannot handle. The second plant process involves a mill, and the mill media being small pinkish quartz pebbles, which are quarried in Central Otago from schist. The finished Microsilica 600 is bagged on site in one tonne bulk bags, 25 kilogram and 10 kilogram bags, plus it’s available to the market via bulk powder road tankers, and also in pre-mixed slurry via road tanker.
Silica in action During the building of the Waterview tunnel Ken Thorpe was invited to watch Alice, the mighty tunnel machine, in action lining the tunnel with concrete ring segments, made in a special pre-cast factory in Auckland. Some 24,000 of these concrete segments now line the twin, 2.4 kilometre long, motorway tunnels which will soon be open to the public. These reinforced concrete lining segments, 450mms thick and two metres wide, were manufactured with millimetre precision and have the strength and durability to withstand 100 years of demanding use. And guess what – they feature Microsilica from the Tikitere quarry. “The tunnelling machine needed a smooth glass-like surface on these interlocking concrete rings for its suction pad to grip, then swing them into place,” says Ken. “The Microsilica helps to provide a very smooth surface, which is another plus to the strength-adding properties of the product. “Every time I drive through the Waterview tunnels in the future I will be thinking – hey – we at Microsilica are part of this engineering masterpiece.” Q&M
New technology Although there is a lot of ‘waste’ material in the process, a change in lowering the silica content but not the strength will allow the plant to re-process it in the future. In addition, new technology in the way of vibratory mills and classifiers to remove the crystalline from the amorphous silica, is on the cards. “We have hundreds of tonnes of material we could re-process so it will be great to see it being used,” says Ken. Wayne Southall has been given permission to go ahead with this new process, but he was involved in a car accident back in March (not his fault), so things have been put on hold until he gets back on board. 24 www.contrafed.co.nz Q&M
The northern pit hydrogen sulphide levels are generally low, but workers have to be careful in the southern pit. Any depression in the ground, or out of a fissure, hydrogen sulphide is deadly and acts on the body like cyanide.
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This 50 ton crusher features an amazing crushing box with technology allowing it to produce roading chip in one pass. With a double deck after screen with re-circ conveyor and mid-fractions belt this machine takes away the need for a second machine. The third milling beam (apron) as an option allows you to crush down to 10mm minus. Load sensing hydraulic system provides best in class fuel economy with 20-25% reduction. Zinc and powder coated finish, stainless steel hydraulic lines... and more. Top: Justin Masters (pictured) and Wayne Southall (who was on leave) are plant managers. Middle: An old production picture. These days, mining is carried out with a Komatsu 20 tonne digger and two 12 cubic metre dump trucks. As the material is so soft – especially in the lower-grade material areas – they often just use a swamp bucket. Above: Some 24,000 concrete segments line the twin, 2.4 kilometre long, Waterview motorway tunnels. These reinforced concrete lining segments, photographed at the factory in East Tamaki Auckland, feature Microsilica from the Tikitere quarry. The tunnelling machine needed a smooth glass-like surface on these interlocking concrete rings for its suction pad to grip, then swing them into place. The Microsilica helps to provide a very smooth surface, which is another plus to the strengthadding properties of the product.
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Q&M February -March 2017 25
Q U A R R Y I N G
Thank you dead diatoms ALAN TITCHALL reviews the historic beginnings of the silica extraction industry in the
Rotorua district on the Taupo Volcanic Plateau.
I
n February 1972 Road Transport & Contracting magazine, the precursor to Contractor magazine, featured an article on a quarry operation at Ngakuru, near Rotorua. The diatomite at Ngakuru, near Rotorua, was mined and made into what was called ‘pozzolan’, which is used in concrete manufacturing. When added to concrete, pozzolan produces an acid-resistant product that is ideal for cow sheds and fruit processing plants (plus it makes concrete easier to pump). The fine graded pozzolan particles also fill the microscopic voids between the cement particles, improving “packing” and creating a less permeable concrete microstructure (and the reason why pozzolan concrete is popular for making boat hulls). The fine particle size also reduces concrete bleed and helps reduce the interface layer between aggregate and cement paste, improving general strength and durability. In 1972, 1300 tons of pozzolan was railed to New Plymouth for the construction of the chimney at the power station built on the edge of the harbour. The power station has since been demolished but the chimney has been left standing as a local ‘icon’ (see photo). The Ngakuru quarry near Rotorua is still operating, as are a few other quarries as featured on page 22. The difference 26 www.quarryingandminingmag.co.nz Q&M
is that the silica is made from single-celled plants related to algae, whereas other geo-silica deposits in the region have been produced by volcanic activity. These days Kiwi ‘pozzolan’ from the Rotorua region is marketed under different ‘brands’, such as Microsilica 600 and is joined by a number of other natural, or man-made, siliceous or aluminous materials, such as fly-ash, to provide concrete with the same ‘pozzolan’ attributes.
The beginnings of Ngakuru The old government Ministry of Works department carried out investigations in the 1950s to find a suitable material to counter the problem of alkali reactivity in concrete aggregates used in major hydro dam construction along the Waikato River. Experimental work initiated by the Ministry of Works began in 1955 and the Ngakuru diatomite resource was found to be the best in the region. In 1957 the Nelson mine and quarrying company – Lime & Marble – in partnership with Wilkins and Davies Construction set up a joint operating company called Pozzolan Products to operate the original Ngakuru quarry and its resource covering 40 acres.
Water challenge An inherent characteristic of all diatomite deposits is the high free water content (about 300 percent), which makes mining almost impossible in wet weather. The deposit was partly dried by rotary hoeing or discing the upper three inches to let air in and make the material workable. It was advantageous to mine the diatomite in summer and stockpile it under cover in big storage areas to keep the plant going through the winter. The material was then put through a pneumatic dryer that was designed and built with the help of the chemical engineering section of the old DSIR government agency. The material, with less than five percent moisture, was then fed into a ball mill to produce a material as fine as talcum powder (the pozzolanic properties of diatomite are dependent to a large extent on the particle size – in general, the finer the particle – the more effective it is). The pozzolan was then either bagged in five-ply multiwall paper bags, or blown into bulk silos, for loading into a fleet of three tankers that distributed the material throughout the central North Island.
It built the Colosseum Pozzolanic concrete was used by the ancient Greeks and Romans long before the birth of Christ and both the Roman Pantheon and the Colosseum were built of it. Pozzolan derives its name from the town of Pozzuoli in Italy where the ancient Romans found a volcanic ash that formed cement with hydraulic properties when mixed with lime putty. Instead of just evaporating slowly off, the water would turn this sand/lime mix into a mortar strong enough to bind lumps of aggregate into a load-bearing unit. This made possible the cupola of the Pantheon, which is still the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome. Today other natural or man-made siliceous or aluminous materials, such as fly-ash (sourced from coal burning at the Huntly power station), give concrete the same attributes and are still known as ‘pozzolans’.
Q&M February -March 2017 27
Q U A R R Y I N G
Geo-silica The geo-silica deposits in Rotorua indicate their age to be between 60,000220,000 years. Golden Bay Cement uses a selective quarrying operation at Tikitere Quarry near Rotorua that ensures that the variation in chemical composition of its Microsilica 600 product is kept within strict limits to produce a powder with consistent defined particle size and chemistry (see quarry story in this issue). The inclusion of eight percent Microsilica 600 in combination with the necessary minimum binder content, and maximum water/cement ratios, meets the durability requirements for concrete detailed in the durability section of NZS3101 for marine and chemical attack applications. Q&M
Explaining diatoms Diatomite is composed of the fossilised remains of diatoms – tiny, single-celled plants related to algae, which are able to extract silica from the water in which they live. They use the silica to build external skeletons known as frustules. When the diatom dies, the skeleton settles to the bottom and can remain there for millions of years, so diatomite is usually found in quantity on the beds of ancient lakes. On our Volcanic Plateau intense volcanic activity made conditions favourable for diatoms and their frustules slowly built up into extensive beds at sites such as Ngakuru. These beds were raised by the recession of water or by earth upheavals. Other (geo) silica in the region is made from volcanic activity – see feature on page 22.
Diatomaceous with a bang One of the best known products involving diatomaceous earth is dynamite, invented by the Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel.
B
efore dynamite there was nitroglycerin – a very strong explosive that is extremely shock-sensitive and also degrades over time to even more unstable forms. Dynamite combines nitroglycerin with adsorbents and stabilisers, rendering it safe to use, but retaining its explosive properties. The original composition of dynamite was made up of three parts nitroglycerin, one part diatomaceous earth (absorbent) and a small admixture of sodium carbonate antacid as the stabiliser. As an absorbent medium, diatomaceous earth is not usually used today as it has been replaced by cheaper media like sawdust, wood pulp, flour, or starch. Nobel’s invention didn’t come easy. Nitroglycerin had been synthesised by the Italian chemist Ascanio
28 www.quarryingandminingmag.co.nz Q&M
Sobrero in 1847 at the University of Turin. Nobel later adopted the stuff as a commercial explosive. After his younger brother, Emil Oskar Nobel, and several factory workers were killed in an explosion at the Nobels’ Swedish armaments factory in 1864, he set about experimenting with safer ways to handle the dangerous compound through a new company (Alfred Nobel & Company) and factory in the isolated hills of Geesthacht near Hamburg. By now nitroglycerin was getting a hairy reputation. In April 1866, three crates of nitroglycerin were shipped to California for the Central Pacific Railroad, which planned to experiment with it as a blasting explosive to expedite the construction of the 506 metre long Summit Tunnel through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. One of the crates exploded, destroying a Wells
Alfred Nobel
Fargo company office in San Francisco and killing 15 people. This led to a complete ban on the transportation of liquid nitroglycerin in California. Liquid nitroglycerin was widely banned elsewhere as well. These legal restrictions led to Alfred Nobel and his company developing his dynamite product in 1867. Today dynamite is still used in the mining, quarrying, construction, and demolition industries, and is still the product of choice for trenching applications, and as a cost-effective alternative to cast boosters. Q&M
R O A D I N G
SMA for Waterview’s tunnels
C
ontractor magazine was invited into the nearly completed Waterview tunnels in Auckland to witness one of the safety feature tests, which was one of many carried out during the final fit out of the tunnels and testing and commissioning of safety systems. Testing will continue through to mid-April, when the entire Waterview Connection project is open to the public. The twin tunnels, the longest in the country at 2.4 kilometres each (twice the distance of Auckland’s Harbour Bridge) feature: 74,500 cubic metres of aggregate for backfill, five kilometres of drainage pipes, 140,000 square metres of paint (black for the roof and magnolia for the walls), and 400 kilometres (270 tonnes) of cables and wiring. Around 800,000 cubic metres of spoil (enough to fill 320 Olympicsized swimming pools) from the tunnel extractions has been compacted at a disused quarry at Wiri in South Auckland. Stone Mastic Asphalt (SMA) pavement had already been laid for each tunnel to carry three lanes of traffic with speed restricted to 80kph and a ban on lane changing (good luck on that one with Auckland motorists!). The giant motorway-to-motorway interchange at Great North Road, connecting the Northwestern and Southwestern Motorways, had been largely finished by the end of last year. The project has been delivered on time and budget by the Well-Connected Alliance made up of the NZTA; Fletcher
Construction; McConnell Dowell; Parson Brinckerhoff; Beca Infrastructure; Tonkin & Taylor; and Japanese construction company Obayashi Corporation. Sub-alliance partners are Auckland-based Wilson Tunnelling and Spanish tunnel control specialist SICE. “We are very excited and very happy with how the contractors have performed and they have done a fantastic job on a very risky project, especially with the tunnel boring machine,” Brett Gliddon, Auckland highway manager, NZTA, told Q&M. “They were no major issues and now we are in the testing stage it is all going very well and it is all on track for an April opening.” Iain Simmons, project manager, WellConnected Alliance, says the SMA used in the tunnels features blast furnish slag from the Glenbrook steel mill. “It has a very high skid resistance and is bound together with a bitumen emulsion heated and mixed with cut-back oils and water. The mastic material is sprayed on top to provide a very dense, resistant, long-lasting surface.” All pavement surfacing for the project was supplied by Downer and Higgins. “Outside the tunnels we used an opengraded porous graded asphalt – because of its quiet surface to reduce noise, especially on the ramps where we have used a thick double layer of open-porous asphalt. “We have made an effort to achieve a pavement life as long as we can, while remaining within reasonable costs.” Q&M
The SMA Pavement supplied by Downer and Higgins.
Brett Gliddon, NZTA Auckland highway manager, surrounded by local media.
On top of the Great North Interchange (on the ramp heading east into the city), which is complete. Looking northwest the new recreational facilities, including a skateboard park, can be seen to the left.
Q&M February -March 2017 29
R O A D I N G
– the water issue Significant new research is being undertaken to find affordable methods of waterproofing our road surfaces. RICHARD SILCOCK reviews a four-year research project.
O
n average $1.3 billion is spent each year by the NZTA and local and regional authorities on road maintenance – that can be largely attributed, either directly or indirectly, to water damage. According to NZTA figures, almost 90 percent of the road network is susceptible to water damage. Under a four-year research project being carried out by Opus Research at its laboratory in Petone, work is focused on a non-permeable membrane which restricts water entry while also providing a skid resistant surface. The $2.7 million research project which started in October 2015 is being largely funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment with assistance from NZTA – and in consultation with a number of contractors around the country, including Downer, Higgins and Fulton Hogan. The research is also being carried out in collaboration with the University of Auckland and with some assistance from ARRB Group (Austroads research division). Phil Herrington, a senior road pavement scientist with Opus Research who is leading the research, says one year of research has certainly confirmed that roading seals used in the past have not been particularly effective in their water-proofing function. “That is, they [the chip seals] leak,” says Phil. “Water damage of our roads manifests itself in several ways: deformation and potholing, which leads to the loss of bonding between the chip seal and the aggregate, and ‘flushing’ of the seal. This ‘flushing’ causes the bitumen surface layer to become slick and unsafe to drive on. “We are looking at alternative ways to create a far better bond and seal. Our research so far is leading us towards applying a ‘primer’ to encourage a far superior bond between the aggregate basecourse and the surface layers which, along with a water impermeable membrane layer, should prevent water from entering the basecourse. “In essence we are researching methods of modifying the chip surface to prevent water ‘disbonding’ the bitumen sealer. “At this stage we are looking at placing a membrane layer under the chip seal and above the aggregate. We are testing and evaluating different membranes for their waterproofing capability, subjecting them to extreme temperature differences and intense sunlight, and looking at application and measuring wear tolerance. “We are also looking to find new and innovative construction methods. “Our aim is for the primer, membrane and method of 30 www.contrafed.co.nz Q&M
application to become the accepted industry standard utilised by the Transport Agency, local authorities and contractors and other road construction authorities overseas. “Once we have completed the research on types of membranes we will evaluate them using our in-lab accelerated pavement wear testing machine and would expect to do field trials on sections of road during the last year of the project. “This will be done in collaboration with NZTA in different parts of the country and under various climatic and traffic conditions.” John Donbavand, national pavements manager with NZTA, says the agency has been promoting the use of primers to provide a more water-resistant layer but they are not a complete fix. “We rely on unbound granular basecourse to provide the structural component of the pavement and it is this type of pavement that is particularly susceptible to water ingress. “Currently our basecourse layers use a relatively large stone size to provide an open grading, so when water does get in, it can drain away. “However, these large stones tend to break down in service which reduces the drainage capacity and can trap water in the structure making it susceptible to large pore pressures under loading from heavy vehicles. “This leads to the potential for pavement shear and deformation. In winter there is also the possibility of ‘swelling pressure’ where, if the water freezes, a phenomenon known as frost heave occurs.” The economic benefits from this research project are two-fold. There are predictions that the net cost reductions for NZTA and local authorities could be in the region of $81 million a year within five to 10 years of the research being completed. Additionally, the waterproofing technologies developed are estimated to at least double pavement life and as a result reduce the need for frequent road maintenance. Phil Herrington says the research has the potential to revolutionise the way in which future road pavements are constructed. “Expensive premium basecourse materials and current cement and foamed bitumen stabilisation techniques could be replaced with much cheaper materials and changes in road construction design. “We could perhaps even see quarried ‘waste material’ used in some instances,” he says. Q&M
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R O A D I N G
The road to better quality
basecourse
John Donbavand, the NZTA National Pavements manager, made a presentation at the NZTA-NZIHT conference in Dunedin late last year. ALAN TITCHALL was there.
W
ith his responsibility in maintaining and developing pavements standards, specs and guidelines for state highway pavements, John Donbavand raised a number of issues relative to the future use of aggregates and the implementation of the recommendations from the working group on the Quality Right Project. Although NZTA acknowledged that improvements could be made to all parts of its capital projects, its senior management decided to focus on pavements since it is the big ticket item, and some of the areas of quality pavement change will inevitably have a positive impact on other areas. The working party which includes representation from CCNZ, ACENZ and NZTA had met twice by the end of 2016 and a work plan was developed from the first meeting. This plan stretched across a wide range of activities that included reviewing procurement, skill sets, inspection and testing, quality assurance and approval processes. “We know [in the past] there has been a focus on shortterm performance from our suppliers rather than the agency’s 32 www.quarryingandminingmag.co.nz Q&M
long-term goals,” he concedes. “To put it nicely – this has led to attenuated pavement solutions and, to put it not so nicely – skinny pavements. “We [NZTA] are now going to prescribe the pavement options that include layer thickness, material properties, and material performance. “You might say hang on – that’s where the innovation is, but we haven’t had any innovation for 25 years in these areas. “We are suggesting – let’s just stipulate and, for the contractor, this is a great thing as then the contractor will know what they are tendering on. They know what the thickness is. “And it leaves room for the supplier to focus their ‘innovation’ on how they put the material together, where they source it, and how they construct it.”
Resource capability John says that when it comes to supervision, the Transport Agency needs the right people on the project site.
“The agency acknowledges that the short terms costs are going to be higher, but these will be more than offset by the long-term savings.” •C lient/consultant/contractor to agree the critical phases of the pavement construction; • Critical phases to form hold points which must be signed off by the client before progressing; • Increased observation (Construction Monitoring Service level 5 to be considered); • Ensuring all consultants involved with verification, certification and approval have appropriate skill levels; • All non-conformances to be held in a central register; • Ensure we are knowledgable clients; • Provide a central hub for all quality data – this hub to be accessible to contractor/consultant and client working on the capital project. The agency acknowledges that the short terms costs are going to be higher, but these will be more than offset by the long-term savings, says John. “And there are other benefits such as improved safety and a reduction in public disruption; this is important for us as a customer orientated organisation. “And the one for me is improved employee morale. Let’s face it – the last thing anybody wants is for our contracting staff to go home and say ‘the project is crap, but then you get what you pay for’. “This is all a big change to get that quality and I don’t know if people appreciate how big.”
“The agency needs to invest in a good supervision process control engine. We need to make sure the right people are on site who are driving the right behaviours, and not just a graduate engineer – no disrespect to them and they are our future, but they may not be the people that are likely to ensure we get the best quality. They should be there learning. “So we will require the people who are providing the on-site supervision to be named in the [future] tender documents and their experience and a relevant track record will be assessed as part of the tender evaluation. “Then it comes to us in terms of our monitoring. “We are making training available in general pavement engineering, as and when required, to make sure us as project managers are knowledgeable enough to know when something is not quite right and should be challenged.” The full set of recommendations from the Quality Right Working Group included: • Include quality requirements in the pre-qualification system; • Regular meetings to discuss quality between the contractor/ consultant/client; • Client to stipulate time frames for receiving test data; • Greater prescriptiveness for pavement design; • Improved principal requirements;
Quarry accreditation and evaluation process In addition to this project the Transport Agency has been reviewing the quality of the basecourse material coming from quarries through historic test data on production properties on the Specification for Basecourse Aggregate, NZTA M/4. Test information from over 40 quarries was examined and it was found that the level of compliance was very low, says John. “It was obvious from this evaluation that changes were required. “Recommendations for improvement included: Changes to the sampling regime; review of the grading envelopes; and development of a QA system and associated ‘process control chart’ software.” With regard to the process control chart the NZTA ‘stole’ ideas from CCNZ in the way the association monitors asphalt using the asphalt plant accreditation scheme, he adds. “We have established a similar system for quarries and the Aggregates and Quarry Association (AQA) has agreed to assist us monitor the data. “The AQA have been assisting us throughout the process and will be pivotal in the implementation of the quality assurance scheme.” Q&M Q&M February -March 2017 33
R O A D I N G
Sharp eyes on the road SCRIM trucks were back on our highways over the past summer and this pavement management system and surveying has become vital to the cost-effective maintenance and modelling of our highway network. By ALAN TITCHALL.
S
CRIM is the acronym for quite a mouthful – ‘Sidewayforce Coefficient Routine Investigation Machine’. The distinctive yellow coloured trucks seen riding over our highway system during the summer months are commissioned by the Transport Agency. They travel our networks at 80 kilometres per hour collecting pavement information – skid resistance; texture; roughness; rutting; geometry (gradient, crossfall and curvature); and centreline GPS coordinates. In addition to ‘responding’ to found defects, the NZTA uses the data to monitor highway performance; plan future work programmes; analyse trends; and predict how road conditions might change in the future. Information is stored in the agency’s RAMM database and used for many aspects of network modelling. The two SCRIM vehicles are unique to this country having been designed to deliver data as required by NZTA. They are built and supplied by Bristol-based WDM, a large manufacturer and provider of highway survey and monitoring equipment, and the largest survey contractor in the UK, serving all UK government agencies and 90 percent of local authorities. WDM also carries out work in South Africa and Australia, amongst other overseas markets, and has been surveying our own roading network every year since 1995, with a focus on the Transport Agency and local authorities. The surveying is said to be very accurate. The trucks are sent back to the UK each year for a complete overhaul of the technical equipment and every nut and bolt on the truck. Both the NZ SCRIM+ vehicles are then tested against a fleet 34 www.quarryingandminingmag.co.nz Q&M
of other UK SCRIMs to ensure they are reading correctly after the overhaul. They also go through comprehensive validation testing when they get back to New Zealand. This ensures that the machines are reading accurately and that results can be compared from year to year. The GPS systems on these trucks mean the Transport Agency can match 20-metre segments of road between different years.
The technique While the truck is on the move, a bar with 20 lasers defines the transverse profile over a road width of 3.3 metres. The rut depth in each wheel-path is calculated from this transverse profile using a simulated two-metre straight edge. This data is used to determine the average, maximum and minimum rut depth, and the standard deviation and the distribution of rut depths every 20 metres. Longitudinal profile (roughness) is measured using two lasers, one in each wheel-path, together with accelerometers fitted on the transverse beam. Vehicle suspension effects are defined by the accelerometers and deducted from the laser output to provide a road profile. The International Roughness Index (IRI) is calculated from the longitudinal profile using the World Bank Quarter Car model and, again, is reported every 20 metres. Road texture is measured by three 32 kilohertz lasers, one each in the left and right wheel-paths and one between the wheel-paths. Accelerometers remove most of the vehicle motion relative to the road to provide a stable inertial profile from
which the mean profile depth (MPD) is calculated. This MPD is also measured and calculated according to ISO 13473-1:1997. Survey equipment features a geometry measurement system using inclinometers and gyroscopes to sense the vehicle attitude as the truck travels along the road. Inclinometers measure the forward or back tilt of the vehicle for gradient, and the side-toside tilt of the axles for crossfall. Gyroscopes are used to sense the movement of the vehicle around corners to calculate the horizontal and vertical curvature. Geometry data is smoothed with a 30-metre moving average and reported every 10 metres. Oxford Technical Solutions GPS equipment samples the Omni-Star satellite to record the differential GPS coordinates of the centreline. Tilt sensors for crossfall and gradient, together with a gyroscope, provide alignment details when out of sight of the satellite. Information is post processed using LINZ base stations The survey data, including forward facing video is then sent back to WDM’s offices in Wellington where it is processed, fitted to our roading network and verified before being issued to NZTA.
Skid resistance – the Holy Grail of safe roads Overall, since SCRIM surveys were introduced, the number of skid-related fatalities in New Zealand has fallen by nearly 40 percent. To obtain skid resistant information, the survey truck features
a freely rotating test wheel that is applied to the road surface under a known load. A controlled flow of water wets the road surface immediately in front of the wheel, so that when the vehicle moves forward, the test wheel slides in a forward direction on a wet road surface. The force generated by the resistance to sliding indicates the wet skid resistance of the road surface. The results of this testing are averaged to determine the skid resistance of continuous 10-metre sections of the road. The SCRIM surveys have proved an important tool in not only deciding what aggregates work and what don’t, but in accessing contract performance conditions for roading contractors, including the requirements under the Network Outcomes Contracts. Q&M
Left: Nigel Scott from WDM UK knows our highways very well after operating the SCRIM+ truck (background) over our network for the past decade and more. Opposite, left: Survey equipment features a geometry measurement system using inclinometers and gyroscopes to sense the vehicle attitude as the truck travels along the road. Inclinometers measure the forward or back tilt of the vehicle for gradient and the side-to-side tilt of the axles for crossfall.
Q&M February -March 2017 35
M I N I N G
Persistence brings rewards Bathurst Resources has become the country’s pre-eminent coal producer. By PETER OWENS.
B
athurst fought long, hard and expensively to commission its Escarpment coal project on the West Coast only to be hit by the coal price crash when it finally won the right to proceed. The company received plaudits when it then bit the bullet and postponed full operations at the Escarpment Mine and placed the operation in maintenance mode. After a marked improvement in prices for metallurgical coal and increased interest in the global steelmaking business, the company is looking at resuming operations at the Escarpment Mine, which took shareholders by surpise at the company’s annual general meeting in Wellington on December 3, 2016. Shareholders were told the company was “cautiously optimistic” about the future for metallurgical coal and the worldwide steel business. While there has been considerable turmoil in our coal industry in recent years, Bathurst is now the pre-eminent coal producer, particularly after the recent acquisition of key Solid Energy coal mines – the Stockton coking coal mine in the Buller coalfield, Maramarua and Rotowaro in the North Island. On domestic supply operations, Bathurst recently enlarged its profitable operations at the Takitimu mine at Nightcaps. This long-established operation has extended north from its existing operations into the Black Diamond Block in FY2017. The production target for FY2017 was about 230,000 tonnes. At West Canterbury, Bathurst is producing thermal coal for regional industry and is working to schedule to produce 100,000 tonnes in 2017, and increasing output to 150,000t in 2018. 36 www.quarryingandminingmag.co.nz Q&M
While the Escarpment and the developed Cascade mines are currently on care and maintenance, plans are afoot to blend their future operations with the Stockton mine. This mine is the largest opencast and major export coking coal operation in the country and would accelerate Bathurst’s entry into the export market, using already established customer relationships and infrastructure. Bathurst sees Stockton’s infrastructure as leveraging the development of Escarpment and future development of the nearby Whareatea West deposit. The purchase of Stockton was a wise decision by Bathurst. Not only is it strategically located but it is based on known reserves and has a life-of-mine expectancy of 11 years. Phoenix Coal, which bought up Solid Energy assets, is 65 percent owned by Bathurst (and 35 percent by the Talleys Group). Of these assets, Rotowaro west of Huntly produces highquality, low-ash thermal coal for the domestic market, with New Zealand Steel a prime customer. At the AGM in Wellington, Bathurst chairman, Toko Kapea, took satisfaction in reminding shareholders that in August 2016 the company reported a surplus of $1 million for the fiscal year – the first recorded surplus since the company was incorporated. He also pointed out this surplus, as modest as it was, was in comparion to the net loss of $16 million in 2015. In a fit of environmental anxiety Wilderness magazine, in its 2013 December issue, “urged” its tramping readers to report “potential breaches” of Bathurst Resources mining consent on Denniston. Q&M
Gold Symposium in Rotorua The Gold17 Symposium will be held in Rotorua between February 21 and 23, the first time this international conference will be held here. Gold17 Symposium is the latest in a number of such gold conferences since they were initiated in Zimbabwe in 1982. That conference, Gold82, was followed by similar events in other African, North and South American countries and Australia. Oceana Gold Globe Progress Gold Mine, Westland, New Zealand. Photo taken in 2007. Water truck at Macraes.
The conference is being convened by the Australian Institute of Geoscientists assisted by Geoscientists Symposia. Major sponsors of the symposium include the AusIMM, GNS Science and New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals. The principal corporate sponsor is OceanaGold
OceanGold awarded by Philippines government
Corporation, the major gold miner and
Allegations against OceanaGold Corporation relating to social and environmental issues at Didipio are regarded as irrelevant by the Philippines government which has bestowed on the company a series of top awards. For the second consecutive year, the Didipio mine was awarded the Presidential Mineral Industry Environmental Award last year, recognising its exemplary efforts in responsible mining. The Philippines government receives considerable income from foreign mining concessions within its shores and maintains close interests in mining operations. Every year, the President of the Philippines, on recommendation from a selection committee co-chaired by the Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), recognises mining operations that perform to the highest standards of safety, environmental and social management. During the Philippine Mine Safety and Environment Association’s 63rd Annual National Mine Safety & Environment Association ceremony held late last year, the Didipio operation was also presented with additional awards in categories recognising excellence in minerals processing, safety and agro-forestry. The Didipio mine received five awards including: • Presidential Mineral Industry Environment Award, surface mining operation • First Place – Overall Safest surface mining operation. • First Place – Safest Mining Operation, metallic category. • First Place – Safest Mineral Processing, concentrator category. • Third Place – Best Mining Forest, metallic category. “We thank President Duterte, the DENR secretary and members of the sub-committee for this prestigious award [the Presidential Mineral Industry Environmental Award] and want to reiterate our commitment to what he, and members of his government, have repeatedly expressed as their desire for a responsible mining sector in the Philippines,” says OceanaGold’s chief executive Mick Wilkes. By Peter Owens. Q&M
symposium, and he has recently
processor in this country. Julian Vearncombe, of SIS Resource Management, is organising the completed a lecture tour of a number of our larger cities under the auspices of the New Zealand branch of the AusIMM. He says the Rotorua conference is “the most important gold geoscience conference since Gold14 in Kalgoorlie WA”. Gold17’s focus will be on developments in gold mineral systems, technology suitable for all types of gold mining, new opportunities and related topics, he says. Delegates will be offered the chance to engage in specialist workshops and pre- and post-symposium tours of epithermal gold deposits in the North Island. They may also visit placer, orogenic and mesothermal gold deposits in the South Island. This will include a visit to OceanaGold’s large operation at Macraes near Palmerston in East Otago.
Q&M
Q&M February -March 2017 37
M I N I N G
CRP funded for marine mining research Despite having the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) decline its application to mine the Chatham Rise east of Christchurch City and despite facing a massive bill for costs from the same source, Chatham Rock Phosphate (CRP) is pressing on. According to managing director, Chris Castle, the company intends lodging a fresh application in the middle of 2017 and Castle also says CRP has lodged an application for a Judicial Review of the EPA claim for costs and that this is to be heard in the High Court in late March. The refusal to grant the initial application does not seem to have affected CRP’s standing in some commercial areas. CRP and its Dutch technical partners Boskalis and Deltares have received Dutch government research funding to improve the environmental management of marine mining. This funding has been awarded by The Netherlands-based Topsector Water TKI Delta technology. Mining experts believe this unexpected funding offer may well have been triggered by increased global interest in the economic and environmental outcomes of marine mining. The rapidly diminishing supply of resources worldwide, such as phosphate, manganese nodules and polymetallic sulphides, has highlighted the need to develop tools and methods to predict, adaptively manage and reduce the environmental effects of marine mining. Adapting computer-modelling tools to predict plume dispersion for deep-sea mining, or dredging operations is hampered by a lack of field observations in these environments. It is possible to validate hydrodynamic and sediment re-suspension models by deploying sensors for field observations over several months. Validating the predicted sediment plume dispersion is much more difficult as it requires a large-scale source of suspended material in the water such as trial mining. Castle says this jointly developed project will make computer models of plume dispersion more realistic and will look at ways to adaptively manage re-deposited sand and silt in deep water. In addition to this, the project will investigate the use of flocculants, natural materials that can be added to the returned sand and silt to make the sediment plume settle from the water more quickly. The Netherlands Ministry for Economic Affairs encourages partnerships between research organisations and companies by allocating and awarding funds to reviewed high quality research proposals. CRP’s current partners in the operation fall into this category as Deltares is an independent institute for applied research in the field of water, subsurface and infrastructure, and Boskalis is a marine services company. By Peter Owens. Q&M 38 www.contrafed.co.nz Q&M
Gold search in southern schist belt New Age Exploration (NAE), a Melbourne based company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, has been sniffing around central Otago. After initial soil sampling and mapping in two locations, the company has quickly raised extra capital to be able to drill for gold with two gold prospecting permits – at Teviot near Roxburgh, which had been heavily prospected during the 19th century, and at Mahinerangi not far from Lawrence, another traditional gold mining town. The Teviot permit covers 458.5 square metres and Mahinerangi 417.5 square metres. The latter site is not far from the famous Gabriel’s Gully Goldfield, where over half a million ounces of gold were recovered in the 1860s. According to NAE, the initial exploration programme will start soon, directed by Dr Douglas MacKenzie who is a teacher and research fellow of the University of Otago’s Geology Department. His team will concentrate on soil sampling and geological mapping to identify drilling targets. Recent research by the university has identified a “mirror image” geological setting in the south of the Otago schist belt – and within the areas permitted to NAE. The report suggests this southern geological setting reflects the same as that in the north of the belt where just 60 kilometres away OceanaGold’s Macraes Mine has yielded about 4.3 million ounces of gold in the past 26 years. NAE will be the first to explore this southern schist belt. Q&M
Our mineral rich fault line The latest earthquakes in the top of the South Island have not discouraged London-listed Mosman Oil & Gas (AIM MSMN) from exploring the region for oil and gas, with a focus on Murchison. Last year Mosman’s consultant SRK calculated that the prospective resource in P90 category terms at the Murchison prospect had a recoverable gas potential of 9543 Bcf and recoverable oil of 148 Mmbbls. SRK also estimated the conventional oil prospective resources at the Te Wiriki Prospect in P90 terms of 0.06 Mmbbls of recoverable oil. In 2015 Mosman received approval from New Zealand Petroleum & Minerals for a LiDAR survey on Murchison – a change of conditions to replace a licence condition to acquire magnetic and gravity data. This survey was completed in July last year and processing and analysis of results “generally confirmed the structural geological model and demonstrated the usefulness of the data”. Mosman has now signed a second contract with consultants GNS Science to create more analysis. The company was working on finalising preferred drill locations and a timing schedule, and initial discussions have begun with drilling contractors to determine availability and to review costings. The Buller Region and the areas that follow the seismic fault running along the Southern Alps host a wide variety of minerals. This not only includes the massive Buller coal field, but gold that has been mined commercially in Reefton – funding the nation’s first street lighting – and Karamea nearer Nelson. Uranium was also discovered near Karamea about 50 years ago. By Peter Owens. Q&M
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U P F R O N T
Aggregate News AGGREGATE & QUARRY ASSOCIATION OF NZ
A quarry transformed – the Whangarei Quarry Gardens are now 16 years old and a magnificent example of what a quarry can become. (Page 44)
The future needs better foundations
G
reetings, I hope you’ve returned having had some admittedly patchy summer sun on your face and a relaxing time with family and friends. We certainly all need to be restored and recharged as 2017 gets seriously underway. Our industry faces another challenging year by any measure. First, it’s election year. The AQA is entirely apolitical. We just want policies that allow our industry to continue providing the foundations
for our own and the nation’s growth and ensure sensible protections for our workers. That shouldn’t be too much to ask. Yet a holiday review of our Board’s ‘Foundations for our Future’ document shows we’ve been asking for a long time. The document was produced in 2008 – nine long years ago. It noted: 1. No national strategy for the development of aggregate supplies 2. No formal mechanism for industry liaison with Government and advice to it 3. No recognition in national transport and infrastructural development planning on the need for proximate resources 4. No requirement for local bodies to include provision for local aggregate resources in their long-term plans, and 5. An unchallenged public perception that quarries are dirty, noisy neighbours. If I was forced to rate progress since 2008 I’d say virtually no progress on 1–3 and little progress on 4 and 5. In the ‘Foundations for our Future’ we suggested a range of initiatives including a national infrastructure summit. The document was written in an election year 40 www.aqa.org.nz
which saw Labour go out and National come in. I’ve got to say we haven’t had much joy from either major party. So, we are trying again. On page 41 you will see the full text of a media release we put out in mid-January. Hopefully it will be the start of a new conversation with our politicians from central and local government. I acknowledge the AQA still Brian Roche has a lot of work to do to get the recognition our industry deserves. I’d ask each of you to do your bit and make every effort to get politicians of every shape and size into your quarries to show them what we do and how we are central to every square metre of building and roading in our nation. One thing every politician should see are the examples of what happens to quarries after we leave. Thanks to Dave Kerr for the wonderful photos on page 44 showing the Whangarei Quarry Gardens and the magnificent public asset this has become.
This issue also covers the debate that is happening around Certificates of Competence. When 60% of B Grade CoCs are failing their oral exams, we have clearly got a major issue. Naturally enough there are a range of views about the cause and response – and the AQA Board is quite representative of those views. Brian Roche AQA chair.
Rock needs to roll – election year challenge
This was the AQA’s media release sent out in January as a call to arms by New Zealand local and central government politicians.
T
he quarrying industry says the cost of the crushed rock and stone that forms the basis of every New Zealand building and road will rise significantly without major law and regulatory changes. Brian Roche, who chairs the Aggregate
and Quarrying Association, AQA, has laid out an election year challenge to politicians of all parties. “Unless we get some real recognition of our industry’s needs to continue extracting rock and stone within or close to urban centres, the cost of every Kiwi home, building, road and footpath is going to rise significantly in coming years.” Mr Roche says the AQA wants to talk to any politician who is prepared to listen to industry concerns that New Zealanders will increasingly face major cost increases if quarries continue to be pushed further away from urban centres. “For years now, we’ve faced what we call the sterilisation of resources. Councils and courts act on community concerns and shut down quarries or make it difficult to open them anywhere near where anyone lives. “Auckland is a case in point. A high percentage of the aggregate for Auckland is already trucked in from Northland and Waikato. Having to import this material adds to cost per truckload with this generally doubling for the first 30km and further increases for every kilometre material is carted from a quarry. These costs feed into every home, building and road. “The trucks also add to traffic and congestion. It’s not because there isn’t any rock in Auckland; it’s that authorities make it difficult to continue extracting material except in pockets like the Bombay Hills area.” Mr Roche says even some of the quarries still operating in Auckland region could face challenges given the pressure
for housing and Auckland Council’s push to extend the current urban boundaries into rural areas. Some councils are also implementing new 10 year district plans which uphold a controversial Supreme Court decision which maintains that no economic activity of any kind can take place in areas of outstanding natural landscape. “We could see such potentially perverse impacts as quarries no longer being able to extract river shingle in flood zones which sit in areas of outstanding natural landscape,” said Mr Roche. “What quarries want to discover is whether there is a political party or politician out there who is prepared to review planning laws with a view to better accepting quarries in urban and urban fringe environments.” Mr Roche says while quarries can create some noise and dust issues, these can be greatly reduced by good planning rules, shelter belts, hours of operation restrictions, good site management to minimise any effects outside quarry boundaries and improving industry approaches to engaging with neighbours and communities. “Our industry accepts it’s not perfect but what we do allows every New Zealand home and workplace to function, as well as providing the materials for the roads that get us there. We are willing to work with communities and show them what we do. It might also help if people saw end of life quarries as great public amenities like Mt Smart Stadium, The Sculpture Park (Waitakaruru Arboretum) near Hamilton, the Isaac Conservation and Wildlife Trust (Christchurch) and the Whangarei Quarry Gardens. Many other quarries have returned used land to agricultural land or created a lake/water park.
Crusher now our Minister The pre-Christmas reshuffle of the Cabinet by new Prime Minister Bill English has seen our industry gain a new Minister. Simon Bridges has lost Energy and Resources to Judith Collins, who earned the title “Crusher” for her promises to crush boy racers cars. The AQA board welcomes Ms Collins appointment and trusts it can engage with our new Minister in a way that allows industry issues to be sensibly progressed. We also hope she may take note of our media release!
No stonewall here – the aggregate facts •N ew Zealand sources its aggregate from land based quarries or from river gravels • Currently we use around 40 million tonnes of assorted aggregates every year • That’s the yearly equivalent of a big truckload (around 8.5 tonnes) for each person • About 10 million tonnes goes into buildings; most of the rest goes into roads and farms • Auckland is still the biggest consumer with much material coming from Waikato • Post-quake Canterbury now has aggregate production exceeding Waikato’s www.aqa.org.nz February -March 2017 41
The debate over CoCs Two months after the December 31 deadline requiring new CoCs, some quarries are inevitably now being run by people who are not qualified to do so. Meantime, failure rates of 60% for B Grade oral exams are being reported by WorkSafe. How these issues can be best resolved is a debate around every quarry and industry board table. Aggregate News editor Brendon Burns looks across the viewpoints.
W
e all know the saying about whether the glass is half “The HHU have made it perfectly clear what the processes and full or half empty. Both assessments are correct, albeit consequences are for those who haven’t quite ticked all the boxes one being positive, the other somewhat negative. This by 1 January 2017. Sites will not be shut down overnight unless may be, depending on your position, a good analogy for the current there has been no genuine effort to achieve the required CoC.” discussion. Most particularly, are the requirements for B Grade Peter Morgan reminds us that having a CoC to operate a quarry Certificates of Competence too tough or simply another indication is not a new development and notes that if no genuine effort has that our industry is having to face up to the rigours of becoming a been made to achieve the required CoC after more than two years of thoroughly competent and professional industry. opportunities, then that raises questions about someone’s suitability AQA Chair Brian Roche made his views clear at last year’s to hold a CoC. Marlborough conference, acknowledging the new Health and Safety “If the failure rate is too high then perhaps the bar has been set at Work Act was having a major impact on what we do in the quarry too high. If this is the case then those that have set the bar should industry. acknowledge their error and take appropriate action. If the failure “After many years of hands-off regulation we each have to rate is too high due to lack of knowledge then the trainers need to adjust to the disciplines and requirements of a more guidancestep up and take responsibility. oriented approach. The AQA Board acknowledges this is not an “If the failure rate is too high due to lack of ability to communicate easy process. The average age in our workforce is reputed to be then perhaps the candidates are simply not ready. Pushing mid-50s, so learning new employees through the CoC “...the current oral examination process is developing an competencies or being programme just to get cover as aura of its own and becoming an obstacle, real or imaginary tested on something you’ve a PCBU is the wrong reason for which has to be overcome.” done for years is not easy.” candidate selection.” Brian Roche noted that the quarry sector is actually well ahead Peter Morgan and IOQ NZ president Les Ward say the issues of of many other industries because we were required to make some the oral examination failure rate needs to be urgently addressed. major changes ahead of the new legislation, including the detailed AQA Chief Executive Roger Parton has had considerable new Good Practice Guidelines on quarry safety, launched in late feedback on the oral exam process. 2015. “The atmosphere in the oral examination is daunting and That said, getting up to speed with the new CoC requirements was becoming a bogey that is spooking many candidates. One candidate no easy task – even with the year’s extension until last December. left the examination and commented he felt that he had been treated Brian Roche urges quarries to support their staff to get their like a criminal and had just been on trial. Five candidates failed the renewals completed and says the AQA Board recognise there are examination that same week and all expressed similar views. All had training issues and is working to address these in a number of ways, received extra training in preparation but this did not deliver hoped including via MinEx and IOQ web training. for benefits. It would appear the current oral examination process The IOQ NZ’s vice-president Peter Morgan has helped drive that is developing an aura of its own and becoming an obstacle, real or training. He does not see any major threats to the industry from imaginary which has to be overcome.” people who didn’t get their CoCs renewed by December 31. AQA Board member Mike Higgins says the negative feedback he’s 42 www.aqa.org.nz
hearing on the current B Grade CoC Oral Exams is the symptom of a much bigger issue. These include in his view: •U nit Standards which don’t always cover the question. •E xpectations that a candidate’s employer has all the robust systems, which are not necessarily in place in small companies. • The many differences between mining and quarrying, some of which need to improve in quarrying, but this takes time. Mining has lots of highly qualified people, in big supportive business structures. The average quarry operator is a self-made or family business with a good track record with safety, and many years of supplying tight markets. • To be balanced, some of these small companies probably should not be allowed to continue in business either. The problem is we have a wide range of abilities, from good to very poor, within the industry. Some solutions will require massive investment in training, systems and plant, which may not be recoverable from the market in the short term. Remember it has taken 20 years to get to this situation after the 1992 law changes, and subsequent loss of inspectors. Mike Higgins, who sits on BoE panels, says the big difference
between mines and quarries is that the CoC is not really a manager in the true sense, but an active, hands-on, leader within generally small teams. “You won’t find many Quarry CoC holders in an office, but they will be out in the field, or on a loader, where they can monitor what is going on. Most B Grades only operate at a ‘supervisor’ level, as economically they have to be productive within their team.” The Institute of Quarrying Australia (IQA) has promoted both Certificated Quarry Managers and Certificated Quarry Supervisors and he sees this as a constructive option for what NZ now faces. “An IQA style Certificated Manager could ‘supervise’ a number of Certified Quarry Supervisors, who in turn look after the risks on their separate operations within a big site or scattered smaller sites. This reflects the old B Grade intention and also reflects the reality within many companies. The B Grade does not make decisions of change, just decisions to keep the operation productive and safe. Some current B Grades are not managers, but are reliable supervisors of their various operations, as is evidenced from the number of operations, small and large, that don’t have serious harm issues,” says Mike. See AQA Technical Adviser, Mike Chilton’s views on CoCs, page 45.
Rock hard assessments George Kelcher has spent most of his working life in quarries with Road Metals where he is now General Manager and he wouldn’t want it any other way. He returned to the AQA Board last year – his second tour of duty. He’s also a Past President of IOQ NZ and was awarded the Porter Quarry Leadership Award in 2016. Not untypically, George has some rock hard assessments of current issues with CoCs. “The issue of the Quarry Manager ticket system has become too complicated. Early in my working life in the quarry industry we did not have much legislation, then full regulation up to 1991; we then supposedly became self-managed under the 1992 H & S legislation, reducing to only one or two Quarry and Mining Inspectors. Then came Pike River and the Royal Commission. The Government raced through legislation to fix it all and this is where I believe we got totally out of kilter with the real world. The quarry industry did not agree with being included in what was written for mining but quarry ticket qualifications were included in the 2013 mining legislation. “The B Grade is now miles too close to the A Grade and a B Grade applicant has not had time to learn in a small quarry before sitting an A Grade ticket.
In my view the panels are in reality treating B Grade applicants like A Grade applicants and this is wrong and will not work going forward. “A B Grade ticket where explosives are used is limited to four staff but a B Grade where explosives are not used is allowed unlimited staff numbers. This is an anomaly and needs to be looked at. This leads to the option of a C Grade ticket or Surface Permit as a lessor qualification for small or mobile operations which I believe is legally allowed for under the current legislation. “There needs to be a set of unit standards at a lower level than B Grade put together for this qualification and the definition of “A Quarry” needs to be redefined as well so as to make sense in the real world.
“The questions for both A and B Grade oral exams should be published along with guidelines on what level of answer is expected, similar to getting a driver’s licence. Coach drivers do not have to go through the hoops that a prospective quarry manager does to achieve a qualification to comply but the potential for a very high number of casualties is very real. Although this does not happen often, multiple fatalities in a single quarry accident are also few, if any, and very far between. “For this oral exam system to be successful things need to change very soon or we will still be faced with a high failure rate going forward. “The lack of qualified people who have
George Kelcher actually achieved all the unit standards
required for an A or B Grade ticket will lead to poaching of existing staff and eventually some sites will not be allowed to operate due to lack of a quarry manager. “This was not the intent of the legislation nor in the best interests of the industry. We must improve H & S performance but I do not believe the system we are currently trying to put in place will achieve this. Our industry, WorkSafe and the Government needs to be looking at this very hard and very soon.” • These are George Kelcher’s views and not necessarily those of Road Metals Co Ltd or the AQA.
www.aqa.org.nz February -March 2017 43
Turning a quarry into a public amenity Quarries often have second lives serving the public. Aggregate News is grateful to Dave Kerr for taking the photos and reminding us about just one such former quarry…
I
n the late 1940s, Hardie Bros established a stone quarry at the Russell Road site in Whangarei producing aggregate for local roading projects. Following a severe flood in 1974, quarry operations moved to Otaika at the southern end of the city. Winstone Aggregates Ltd took over the quarry and donated the 25 hectare site to the Whangarei District Council in 1976 to become part of the city’s parks and reserves network. For nearly 20 years the site was used as a rubbish dump and weeds started to take over. In 1990, Laughton King negotiated with Whangarei District Council for the formation of a public garden on the site. In 1997, the Council purchased 2.5 hectares of adjoining land to form a link to the top north-west border. A group of enthusiasts – ‘Friends of the Quarry Garden’, later becoming a trust, began the challenge of clearing the site of rusting car bodies, hunks of concrete and weeds. Most significant in this was the inspirational effort contributed by many local contractors who donated machinery and hundreds of hours of skilled labour to the project. The transformation of the site over the years has been truly amazing. Lush gardens now dominate the valley, with more areas of the former quarry being prepared for planting every year. A Visitor Centre and Cafe were opened just over a year ago. More information: www.whangareigardens.org.nz.
Join our united voice! The Aggregate and Quarry Association achieves workable and sensible outcomes for our industry. Contact us today: office@aqa.org.nz www.aqa.org.nz Benefits for members include: • A voice on numerous national committees, including MITO and MinEx • Access to information and guidance from our expert Technical committee committee members plus our Board members • AQA members also receive issues of Contractor and Q&M free of charge. A G G R E G AT E & Q U A R RY A S S O C I AT I O N O F N Z
Supporting New Zealand from the ground up 44 www.aqa.org.nz
AQA Board Chair
TECHNICAL NEWS
Brian Roche, Ravensdown
New member of AQA Technical Committee
Deputy Chair Jayden Ellis,
Clare Dring has replaced Brett Beatson as a member of the AQA Technical Committee. Clare, who has a BSc & PGDip EngGeol, joined Fulton Hogan’s Technical Services team in Christchurch as a technical engineer last April. She is also currently completing her Master’s degree in Engineering Geology with the University of Canterbury. In the past, Clare has worked at the Fulton Hogan Canterbury laboratory in bitumen, aggregates, and asphalt but spent the majority of her time on research and development of Fulton Hogan products. Her areas of focus include aggregates and quarrying, binders and subsequent specifications as well as providing support for the implementation of new specifications and test methods. Clare has taken a particular interest in the proposed ethylene glycol test being promoted by NZQA.
Stevensons Construction Materials
Board Members Andrea Cave
Winstone Aggregates
Mike Higgins
Isaac Construction
Tony Hunter
Blackhead Quarries
George Kelcher Road Metals
Bruce Taylor Fulton Hogan
Brett Swain Clare Dring
Southern Screenworks
Technical Committee Chair
Technical viewpoint on CoC issues AQA Technical Adviser Mike Chilton says differences between mining and quarrying may be presenting issues on oral exam panels. “The B Grade coal position is always under an A Grade so when a candidate says they would get their manager and follow company procedures to deal with an issue that is okay at a coal mine but not at a quarry. “Basically, giving a candidate a B Grade Quarry CoC means that they can go down the road and take sole charge of a hard rock quarry with potentially no other support, knowledge or systems within the company. Panellists have to test whether the candidate can cope with a situation or form company systems while they’re operating the digger at the face, taking phone calls from customers, dealing with staff issues and trying to please their new boss! It is no wonder not everyone can pass this test! The only difference between A Grade and B Grade is the A Grade manager has more staffing issues – but also potentially more internal company support. Mike Chilton says for quarry manager CoC applicants to pass they need: • Exposure to day-to-day management of a quarry • Experience with different and challenging scenarios • To know the Good Practice Guidelines • Practice at answering oral questions (under a bit of pressure).
Stacy Goldsworthy
Green Vision Recycling
Greg Arnold
Road Science
Jayden Ellis
Stevensons Construction Materials
Alan Stevens
Civil Contractors
David Morgan GBC Winstone
Clare Dring
Fulton Hogan
Cobus van Vuuren GBC Winstone
Aggregate & Quarry Association of NZ
PO Box 32 019, Maungaraki, Lower Hutt, 5050
Lifetime A grades can become B grades WorkSafe has agreed that holders of a Lifetime A Grade Quarry Manager’s certificate of competence may, upon application, be granted a B grade quarry manager’s CoC. They will need to hold unit standard 26856 (Carry out the risk management processes at an extractive site), a current first aid certificate and be a fit and proper person. The CoC is granted under the 2016 Regulations and therefore is subject to all the requirements in the regulations such as the 5-year term of the CoC and CPD requirements. More info from BoE_Secretariat@worksafe.govt.nz www.aqa.org.nz February -March 2017 45
Chief Executive Roger Parton
tel 04 568 9123 fax 04 568 2780 email office@aqa.org.nz
web www.aqa.org.nz
I N N O V A T I O N S
Lifetime no-cost replacement In a first for the bulk material handling industry, a global manufacturer of conveyor belt cleaning systems is offering lifetime no-cost replacement of tensioners and mainframes for belt cleaners that are fitted exclusively with the company’s cleaner blades. Under its ‘Forever Belt Cleaner Guarantee’, Martin Engineering says it will provide replacement parts as required, for all cleaner assemblies using its urethane belt scrapers, regardless of model or blade type. The company’s replacement blades are mixed, formed and cured in a computer controlled, modular workstation designed and built by the company’s engineers, rather than subcontracting the production as
some suppliers do. This process allows for the highest quality control and a one-day turnaround on most orders, says Martin. Q&M
Two new mini excavators New Zealand distributor for IHI products, Youngman Richardson & Co has released two new excavator models, the 17VXE and 19VXT. Compact, powerful and versatile these new mini excavators are a continuation of what the IHI product stands for, says the company. “Not only are they able to work efficiently where space is limited but also with their low emission engines they are very friendly to the environment,” says Youngman Richardson & Co sales director, Phil Fairfield. “Thanks to technological innovation, including their design, these new excavators make working so much easier whilst ensuring maximum productivity. “We’re very excited about these new machines and will be keeping a close eye on their potential given the growth in the New Zealand residential housing market. These
two excavators are just a sample of a wider variety of product that extends from 0.9 to 8.5 tonnes from IHI.” The IHI 17VXE uses technology normally associated with bigger and higher-spec machines. Power and speed of performance is assured in small restructuring work that could involve the maintenance of sewage systems but can also include construction, gardening and nursery projects. A convenient side-opening bonnet provides easy access when engine maintenance is required. The IHI 19VXT is said to be ahead of its time due to an expandable undercarriage (from 980 to 1310mm) making this model ideal for working in rough and narrow spaces. Ergonomic controls and servo assisted joysticks provide the ultimate in driver comfort.
Pictured: The IHI 17VXE
For more information contact Youngman Richardson & Co: 09 443 2436 or for South Island enquiries, 03 341 6923. Q&M
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46 www.quarryingandminingmag.co.nz Q&M
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