MEC was approached by a Central Queensland Coal Mine to develop an optimal rehabilitation plan. The client needed to accurately estimate rehabilitation costs, ensure the rehabilitation plan was cost effective and provide confidence to the government of the value of the environmental bond. MEC optimised the rehabilitation plan using our in-house evaluation and simulation process:
I’m an engineer’s wife, which means I’m often home alone while hubby is away working on site. There are upsides and downsides to flying solo, so which do I prefer?
Continue reading “The pros and cons of being an engineer’s “site” support team (aka spouse)”
With the spike in the coal price many open cut coal mines are looking at an increase in the amount of dozer push as a strategy to increase the overall stripping cost and uncover more coal. The flexibility of bulk dozer push allows it to respond effectively to changes in the schedule.
What if, as active participants in the mining industry, we could be encouraged to spend money solving real-world problems and undertaking serious research into issues that impact us? The Research and development (R&D) tax incentive might be an effective pathway to recover or offset some costs of conducting tangible research and development activities.
Continue reading “Tax breaks for real-world research: the R&D tax incentive”
Principal Mining Engineer Geoff Watson’s second VBlog on Value Driver Trees for Underground Coal.
Principal Mining Engineer Geoff Watson’s VBlog series discusses three aspects of underground coal. In his first VBlog Geoff talks about Mineability Assessements in both Longwall and Development.
Continue reading “VBlog – Undergound Coal Mineability Assessements”
Pit optimisation is a quick and cost effective way of narrowing down options and evaluating various strategies. The optimisation process has the following benefits/capabilities:
MEC Mining has become a member of leading industry body Austmine.
Austmine has over 450 corporate members from the mining equipment, technology and services (METS) sector Australia-wide. A not-for-profit industry association, it develops, promotes and supports the METS sector by providing growth opportunities to its network of members.
Since the start of large-scale mining operations, mineral processing techniques have seen huge improvements. Because of this, tailings from older operations can contain mineral quantities high enough to make reprocessing of these tailings economical.
Several large mining companies have realised this and have started reprocessing tailings. De Beers, for example, have recovered millions of carats of diamonds from tailings surrounding the Kimberley mines in South Africa.
Continue reading “Is there a fortune hidden in your tailings?”
Silver – that precious, shiny white metal – has traditionally been highly prized for its symbolism of wealth and prestige and its associated use in jewellery and coins.
However, silver is currently much more commonly used for industrial, medical and electrical purposes, such as in household goods, solar panels and mobile phones.
Continue reading “Top 5 Silver Uses – The World’s Most Versatile Metal?”