Blog Archives - Page 6 of 9

Top 3 Nickel Uses – The Power Metal

BlogDecember 4, 2017

Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge.

It belongs to the transition metals category and it is hard and malleable. The metal is extracted from its ores by heating and reducing the ore.

If it’s not in the plan, it just won’t happen. A “BoB” perspective

BlogNovember 23, 2017

We’ve heard it all too often, “fail to plan – plan to fail” and it rings so true across all facets of the business process. At MEC, we believe in a holistic approach to identify the strengths and weaknesses of Management Operating Systems (MOS), particularly within mining organisations.

The future is flexible: working arrangements at MEC

BlogNovember 22, 2017

With prominent Australian organisations such as ANZ and the Australian Stock Exchange offering their employees options around work hours and locations, flexibility is fast becoming a cornerstone of Australian businesses focused on attracting and retaining high-calibre staff.

Coal Loss and Dilution – Drill and Blast

BlogNovember 21, 2017

Drill and Blast is one of the leading causes of coal loss in an open cut coal mining operation. There are so many aspects that must be considered as part of the Drill and Blast Engineers design process and it is easy for an inexperienced or time constrained engineer to overlook critical areas. A poorly designed and managed blast can lead to millions of dollars of lost revenue.

Post Doze Licence – Expression of Interest

BlogNovember 7, 2017

Post Doze is a method of improving the economics of waste material movement by extending the use of dozers. The Post Doze method was developed jointly by 3D Data Guidance and MEC and is protected by an PCT Patent Application number: PCT/AU2017/050915. The Post Doze method is applicable to strip mines and bulk earthmoving applications where waste is moved less than 200m horizontally. In Post Doze, a 100 -200 tonne excavator is used to elevate and translate waste towards the low wall, which is then pushed to spoil by dozers. A significant volume of work has been undertaken on the method to validate the value and create operational sequencing and training material.

What does a high-performance culture look like?

BlogNovember 6, 2017

In my eyes, it’s one that brings together diverse, unique and innovative people who are passionate about achieving a common goal. These individuals have a fire in their belly to make change and both challenge and embrace the distinctive strengths each brings to the game. They dust each other off when they fall and have learnt to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Every member of the team feels valued and included by their direct working group and leaders.

How would Donald Trump deal with Employee Engagement?

BlogNovember 3, 2017

This article has little to do with Donald Trump, but someone mentioned that you need an eye-catching title for a post on LinkedIn… MEC has a diverse workforce of mining engineers spread across Australia and around the world. These engineers typically spend long periods of time away from our Brisbane office working on remote mine sites.

MEC – Values your Underground Coal Margins

BlogNovember 2, 2017

MEC - Values your Underground Coal Margins The hardworking team, at MEC, just love to “get down and dirty” for your mine technical, financial and operational needs. Here are just some of the un-shameless activities we find ourselves involved in across Surface and Underground Commodities:

Mine Studies – Concept to Closure, Due Diligence;
Operational Support – Project Management;
Site Support – Technical Services & Field Specialists, and
Mine Rehabilitation & Closure – Final Landform Planning.

Ocsober’s over!

BlogNovember 1, 2017

Congratulations to David Plowman, MEC’s General Manager, for successfully navigating a month without alcohol! David raised just over $1,200 during Ocsober, Life Education’s national fundraising initiative to reduce drug- and alcohol-related harm amongst young people.

NPV trap

BlogOctober 6, 2017

Net present value (NPV) is the universally accepted tool for measuring the value of a mining venture. We spend a lot of effort maximizing the NPV by changing all sorts of parameters. Essentially, NPV just converts future cash flows back into today's dollars by compounding the discount rate ( think interest rate ) into the future. NPV discounts early cash flow less and later cash flow more. Usually, any cash flows that are more than 15 years away are attributed negligible value in today's dollars.

Cobalt crunch

BlogSeptember 13, 2017

There is a crunch coming in Cobalt supply as electric cars become more common. There is 25kg of cobalt in the lithium ion battery pack of a Chevy Bolt. Looking down the track 5 years, let's say that 10% of 78 million cars sold world wide are electric. This will require 195,000 tonnes of additional Cobalt supply each year. Currently the total world production is only 123,000 tonnes, all of which is already needed to make items such as aircraft parts.

Maximizing machine production hours may destroy value

BlogJune 20, 2017

Most mine sites measure performance in terms of ore mined, waste moved or product produced. Production KPIs tend to manifest as a drive to maximize the working hours of equipment. The drive to achieve production (rather than value) KPIs often has some negative side effects that destroy the value that they seek to create. Maximizing equipment hours tends to reward the building of inventories, as to achieve high hours, machines need to work even when they are not required.