The mining industry can have a very short memory when commodity prices rise and bad habits from the mining boom glory days can easily creep back into the industry.
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Top 3 Nickel Uses – The Power Metal
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.
They Tried To Make Me Go Do Some Rehab. I Said No No Yes!
When Amy Winehouse wrote her song about rehab I am sure she didn’t have mine site rehab in mind. The principals of having a sustainable future and minimising harm however are still the same.
Over the past decade the level of Financial Assurance (FA) held by the QLD Government for mining activities has increased to $6 Billion an almost 500% increase over the 10 year period.
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Longwall Production Trends – Benchmarking the Future
It’s interesting when you glance at the peaks, troughs and trends in Australian Longwall production. In just less than 20 years we have seen between 2 and 3 fold increases in total ROM tonnes with obvious economic-driven flat spots.
In a recent industry update (July 2016), “Queensland coal – mine and advanced projects” reported a 2014 – 2015 saleable coal increase of 14.7Mt to 243.6Mt compared to the previous financial year for all mining operations. The underground component – 42.6Mt, was won from 13 mines.
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MEC Underground Coal Delivers Mine Planning Solutions
Faced with tight customer deadlines, MEC Mining recently delivered multiple mine planning and production scenarios for a major underground coal producer. The scope included a “first principles” mine design and bottom-up productivity review for Continuous Miners and Longwall operation. Coal reserving and production scheduling of multiple scenarios were executed with XPAC which delivered the required inputs to financial modelling.
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Silver – The World’s Most Versatile Metal
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.
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Fast Facts About Aluminium
The modern world owes much to aluminium, a silvery-white, soft, non-magnetic, ductile metal. Indeed, the aviation, construction, electronic, automotive, energy and food industries – just to name a few – would all be unsustainable without aluminium.
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Know Your Cost Drivers & Levers
Extractive industries are, by the very nature, a set of defined and repeatable processes to meet the business objectives. Typically, within each process are Drivers eg. Labour Rosters, Geological and Geotechnical factors which impact negatively on business costs. Then there are the Levers eg. Physical factors, Process Cycle and Operating time and affecting rates and hence Productivity.
Trade Off Studies – Value your Decisions
Decision making is often a complex series of processes which may result in a “less than optimal” business outcome. Whilst there are tools to support and rationalise the process such as Multi Criteria Decision Analysis, the real value can be realised and optimised using a Trade Off Study approach. The outcome is logical and auditable to inform the best decision for the business.