Exploration activity has been trending down since the end of October 2011, and according to the latest State of the Market report from IntierraRMG, there were drilling reports from only 355 prospects in March. Gold exploration is particularly low, with activity reported from just 172 prospects in March, compared with 382 in March 2012.

The figures for the next few months are unlikely to improve following the precious-metals price collapse in mid-April and a significant drop in recent exploration funding.

Slumping metals prices, and falling equity valuations, reflect serious uncertainty about the world economy. The recent quarter ended with the Governor of the Bank of Japan announcing a huge monetary stimulus, Europe bailing out the banking system in Cyprus, disappointing employment figures in the USA and worrying signs of a slowdown in the crucial Chinese economy. This depressing scenario has had a knock-on effect over the minerals exploration sector.

If the exploration sector is looking for some comfort, it might come in the knowledge that the past six months of falling metals prices comes off historically high levels. The price of gold, for example, had risen seven-fold since 2001 to an all-time high in 2011 of over $1,900/oz. Indeed, the last time the UK saw gold at over £1,000/oz, in real terms, was in 1489 when the Royal Mint issued sovereign coins valuing an ounce of gold at £2.

As indicated in the IntierraRMG report however, gold is still priced at well above the cash extraction cost of a large part of the world’s production. Even at the recent two-year low, fewer than 9% of the 235 gold mines monitored in the Raw Materials Group database (RMD) had average cash operating costs higher than the metal’s price.

Of the gold mines in RMD’s cash-cost module, 215 operations had average costs under $1,350/oz in 2012 operating costs. These mines produced a combined 1,268 t last year at a weighted average operating cost of just $693/oz. These operations produced 97% of the gold output from the monitored mines.

Conventional agitator-flotation systems are less sensitive to feed variations, but changing conditions, especially where base metal minerals are being processed, decreases the ability to control the process. Likewise, with column flotation technology, the particle/air collision time in a single cell is very low, making selectivity very high. Multiple cells are therefore required to achieve an acceptable yield. The Pneuflot pneumatic flotation cell mixes the air and pulp in a continuous stream and ensures that correctly sized bubbles are fed into the pulp as it enters the cell. This maximises the number of particle and bubble collisions. The system is able to produce a wide range of bubble sizes between 0 and 1 000 µm, allowing the equipment to be used for all flotation stages, from rougher through cleaner to scavenger.

Turbulence in a Pneuflot cell is comparatively low when used on ultra-fine feed materials. The bubble size range in the self-aspirated aerator can be reduced by changing the feed slurry rate using a frequency converter on the motor’s power supply. There are no rotational parts as in agitator cells and unlike column cells, no further air injection is usually needed. Furthermore, special rubber and ceramic materials are used to construct all parts that are exposed to friction. This provides improved wear behaviour and longer service intervals.

Available in sizes ranging in diameter from 800 mm to 6 m, the Pneuflot systems have been successfully installed in a number of industrial applications. Slurry feed rates of 10 to 1,400 m³/h  can be achieved in a single cell, depending on cell diameter.

“The shifting focus from production at any cost to efficient production also means TALPAC is more relevant than ever. As an equipment productivity simulator, TALPAC’s proven logic lets you model real haulage situations, letting you study the measurable factors that affect productivity and how your fleet will react to them. It has the industry’s most comprehensive equipment database that is updated regularly, directly from the latest manufacturer specifications” said Philips.

“The latest release sees a lot of work behind the scenes, many of which are focused on ensuring that TALPAC continues to be compatible with the constantly changing IT environments of our clients, including new operating systems such as Windows 8 which is now supported” Philips continued.

Alun Philips went on to talk about the TALPAC family of products, saying, “As the industry’s respected name in equipment productivity simulation, we’ve welcomed two new products into the TALPAC family this year. “HAULNET and Underground Coal TALPAC are the latest members of the TALPAC family, each helping mines to simulate equipment productivity to validate their plans and ensure they are achievable in practice.”

The furnace conversion was carried out without a single lost-time injury. Fancois Smith, Tenova Pyromet Project Manager said “This was a significant achievement, given the challenging conditions of the brownfields project. We were working in very tight spaces, which required much of the rigging and moving of the heavy equipment to be carried out manually.”

The new equipment used for the furnace rebuild was based on the Tenova Tagliaferri design, which has been used in many furnace operations worldwide since 1968. Smith stated “In our planning, we also had to take into account working seamlessly with a number of other contractors on site.”

In the converted 30 MVA FeMn furnace, manganese ore, from Assmang manganese mines in South Africa’s Northern Cape, is fed with reductant in submerged arc furnace where it is beneficiated into manganese and slag. Tenova Pyromet was responsible for the orginal Furnace 2 Rebuild, when the furnace was still producing ferrochrome. The 33 MVA, 29 MW furnace featured a 1,270 mm Tagliaferri electrode column and was designed to produce 69,000 tpa of ferrochrome. T

International Mining is organising a very significant event that is certain to become a key meeting in the mining world’s annual calendar. The International Mining Technology Hall of Fame will recognise the technical innovators of our industry – past and present. The first gala dinner is to be held in the Grand America Hotel, Salt Lake City, Utah, February 22, 2014. Please email your nominations (with a full explanation, maximum 500 words, of why this person should be inducted into the International Mining Technology Hall of Fame) to john@im-mining.com

The mining equipment and technology sector usually makes advances thanks to the dedication and expertise of individuals or small groups that have pushed the boundaries of innovation and R&D to bring new solutions to the industry. Sometimes initially facing internal and external scepticism or funding shortages, these leaps of progress have gone on to help make major increases in productivity and efficiency in mining, as well as in some cases making operations safer through helping to remove operators and miners from high risk roles.

The International Mining Technology Hall of Fame will recognise these pioneers across a range of categories, and perhaps going back many years. Nominees could be as varied as the developer of a fundamental improvement in crusher or drill rig design, to the introduction of a new process or mining method. Nominations should be individuals or small teams rather than companies.

Please let us have your nominations for people who should be considered.  We will be looking to induct 12 people (and it can be a posthumous award) into this hall of fame at a gala dinner at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Saturday, February 22, 2014; just before the SME Annual Meeting starts. International Mining has people who have been in the mining industry for some 40 years each and we can think of many worthy recipients, you can think of many more around the world.

This is the only Hall of Fame recognising the global innovators in our industry – some have been forgotten already, let’s honour those who so deserve the accolades before too much more time passes. Nominations that fail this year will automatically pass into the 2015 voting.

Once the nominations are in, the voting will be undertaken by a college of some 200 experts and leaders in the fields of exploration, mining and processing. To ensure impartiality, none of them will be employees of supplier companies (but their nominations are very welcome).

The inventors of seismic imaging technology, the diamond drill, RC drilling, is it Tony Barringer or Danie Krige, or someone else for you in exploration?

Who invented the boom that is so important to drill jumbos? Who do we credit with the first use of the LHD? Is it autonomous trucks, despatch systems, emulsion explosives, or some other mining innovation?

Maybe you think it should be the brothers Frank and Stanley Elmore – credited with the first successful application of mineral flotation, or is it mineral sizing, or SAG milling, SX-EW, ore sorting, or……?

As there has been nothing like these awards in the international arena since the World Mining Blue Ribbon award of the 1980s, it is recognised that awards may be nominated (by the readers of International Mining) and chosen (by the voting college) for developments going back many years – for new machines or techniques that were truly ‘game changing’ – like Eddie Wagner’s first LHD delivery in 1958, Jeff Whittle and his origins of optimisation software, the first use of hydraulic breakers and service vehicles in mines, major changes in crushing and grinding, bioleaching. etc.  Among International Mining’s many thousands of readers there will be many other ideas. We look forward to seeing the suggestions and the subsequent voting results – this promises to be an exciting process. It will also be a very important contribution to the collection of mining history. It will be a memorial to the men and women who have made a significant contribution to the technology, science and safety of the mining industry.

There are 12 categories for awards:

1. Exploration 
2. Underground Development
3. Underground Production
4. Underground Load and haul
5. Underground Support
6. Surface Mine Production
7. Surface Mine Load and haul
8. Mining software
9. Safety
10. Comminution
11. Concentration
12. Bulk handling

Over the next months we will be accepting nominations from readers, sponsors and suppliers across the industry worldwide, followed by voting by our college of experts. If you would like to be considered for membership of the college, please email John.

Please send your nomination with reasoning (maximum  500 words) why this person should be in the hall of fame – what did the technology/idea achieve? And please convince us that this person is the one that should be honoured for this specific technology or technique. Nominations will close at the end of September 2013; the selection college will then vote before the end of the year.

Baker continued “In the two years since our last AIMEX, the industry has also really focused on productivity and efficiency, particularly with the softening in resources prices globally, and the need to reduce costs. In response to this, the emphasis among exhibitors and displays at AIMEX 2013 will really be all about innovation; how the very latest processes, systems, services and products can really meet miners’ demands for productivity and efficiency gains.”

“Our exhibitors include a wide range of suppliers of innovative equipment, products and services aimed at lowering costs per tonne and increasing production and mining efficiency,” said Baker.

“These include suppliers of large items of capital equipment, such as ultra-class dump trucks, underground loaders and trucks, longwall equipment and drill rigs, through processing equipment and systems, as well as training, safety and information management solutions.

“It is very much a national exhibition; we will have new products and services covering metalliferous and hard-rock mining, as well as coal mining – in both surface and underground applications.”

Baker said the high rate of change and product development among suppliers to the mining industry meant that visitors to AIMEX 2013 were guaranteed to learn about innovative products, services, processes and solutions that they had not previously encountered.

“This exhibition will truly offer something for everyone who is involved in the mining industry across all regions of Australia – whether they are from the central Queensland coalfields, the Far North Queensland hard rock mines, the Pilbara iron ore operations or WA’s Eastern Goldfields, or whether they are closer to home in the NSW Hunter and Illawarra coalfields, or the gold, coal and other operations in the NSW Central West,” he said.

The event is taking place in the west outback of NSW, Broken Hill, with the location being Australia’s longest-lived mining city and where BHP Billiton traces its origins. The town has a massive orebody that ranges among the world’s largest and richest silver-lead-zinc mineral deposit.

According to Symposium’s Managing Director, Kerry Stevenson, the focus for this year will be on the current economic climate including its challenges and opportunities, not only in the Australian resources industry, but also Australia’s position in the international market.

“We have a terrific line up of market intelligence, keynote speakers and investor presentations. We are also delighted to have the Minister for Resources and Energy New South Wales, Chris Hartcher, opening this year’s Symposium.” Stevenson said.

The conference will kick off on Monday morning with an address from one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs, Dick Smith. This week’s Federal budget in May is also expected to be a hot topic of conversation.

Giving his predictably forthright assessment of Treasurer Wayne Swan’s arithmetic skills will be Liberal Party heavyweight Nick Minchin, who will be addressing the budget and its implications for the resources sector.

“As a nation, Australia must work to keep as globally competitive as possible or risk losing out to those countries whose Governments support their resource sectors. Having thought leaders such as Nick Minchin address such issues is what makes this forum a must-attend event.” Stevenson said.

The event will also look at ways Australia can collaborate and remain competitive as well as identify the outlook and opportunities for those who invest in the industry. Perspectives on a global scale will be highlighted by a number of international keynote speakers from the United States and the United Kingdom.

President of the Colorado Mining Association (CMA), Stuart Sanderson, will be discussing opportunities and challenges for US and Australian cooperation. Dave Kanagy of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration in Denver will be addressing emerging workforce trends between the two countries. John Molyneux of WH Ireland Stockbrokers in the UK will be comparing international equity and the liquidity benefits of dual listings. Mark Bennett from Sirius Resources, one of the standout success stories in the junior resource sector over the past year, will address the Symposium on David and Goliath: How a penny dreadful beat the big boys.

Multotec’s Derrick Alston says the company intends to increase the available aperture size range to 1.4 mm and reduce it as far as 300 micron to accommodate the various requirements of diamond and mineral processing.

“The TeePee panel was developed with open area in mind and the resultant design provides a significant open area that has been shown to be double what was previously achieved with conventional Multotec Hi-Flow panels for the same aperture and with double the drainage capability,” Alston says. “In dewatering applications there’s a significant improvement in drainage, further reducing the moisture content of the oversized material. This makes the panel an ideal solution on plants where existing dewatering screens are overloaded.”

Multotec Group CEO Thomas Holtz comments: “Although we have a broad product portfolio, our business model encompasses a focus on product groupings that suit certain commodities and we continue to develop and fine-tune products to suit these specific applications. And, to offer process support, we deploy seasoned veterans from the various mineral processing environments.

“Optimised screen panels and cyclones are pivotal to achieving the high efficiencies required in this industry,” he says. “I’ve heard a metallurgist put it this way: if the bottom cut-off size on the screen panels is inaccurate, you throw away diamonds. If the coarse size is imprecise, you break diamonds and if the cyclones are inefficient, you lose diamonds.

“Our cyclones for dense media separation (DMS) are recognised worldwide as being the most efficient in the market today, owing to their precise and well thought-out design, as well as their proven efficiencies.”

DMS is known to be one of the most complex unit processes in mineral processing today, particularly if cyclones are used. The cyclone forms the core of the DMS process and is one of the reasons that the diamond industry continues to favour high chrome as a material of construction.

International Goldfields has announced results from ongoing diamond drilling by Ouro Paz Joint Venture in Brazil. Twenty holes tested six separate prospects within the Union project area with a total of 2,500 m of drilling being completed. Encouraging assay results are located at the initial drill test of the Morro do Carrapato Prospect.

The results of a preliminary bench-scale metallurgical test program on representative samples from the Chinchillas silver-zinc-lead project in Argentina have been announced by Golden Arrow Resources. Samples are said to have responded well to sulphide flotation, with silver recoveries averaging 98.7% as well high lead and zinc recoveries.

Located in northeastern Bahia, the 100% owned Braúna diamond project will receive $50 million of investment for development by the owner, Brazilian based Lipari Mineração. The project is in feasibility stage and expected to become South America’s first diamond mine to be developed in kimberlite rock, the primary mineral source in diamonds.

Globe Metals & Mining has engaged specialist consultant, David Ma, to assist with optimisation of the concentrated processing plan and product marketing for the Kanyika niobium project (KNP) in Malawi. Ma will evaluate different process options to maximise profitability of the KNP. Ma is the President of Metalink International, a leader in the manufacturing and trading of speciality metallurgical products including riobium and tantalum products.

South Boulder Mines (STB) has reached a binding term sheet agreement with the Eritrean National Mining Corp (ENAMCO) regarding ENAMCO’s participation in the Collui potash project. The agreement represents a major milestone in the development of the project and provides significant certainty as to the economic and fiscal basis under which it can be developed.

Alderon Iron Ore, through The Kami Mine Limited Partnership, has entered into a definitive Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management Agreement (the EPCM Agreement) with WorleyParsons Canada Services who will be the engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) contractor for the development of the Kami iron ore project.  The budget for the EPCM Agreement with WorleyParsons is estimated at $92.5 million, which is consistent with the cost estimate set out in Alderon’s feasibility study for the Kami project.

Fresh high-grade gold and silver assays point to the possible discovery of a new zone of mineralisation at its Tembang gold-silver project in South Sumatra, Indonesia according to Sumatra Copper & Gold. The results are considered significant because any additional resources at this location would easily and economically accessed via the planned Belinau underground decline development, which is expected to start in December 2013.

Donner Metals reports that production at the anticipated average rate of 3,000 t/d commenced on May 15 at the Bracemac-McLeod mine located near Matagami, Quebec. Donner’s partner and operator, Glencore Xstrata, is now processing copper and zinc ore from the new mine following the depletion of ore at their Perseverance mine. The Bracemac-McLeod mine is a 65% Glencore Xstrata, 35% Donner joint venture. As operator, Glencore Xstrata is responsible for the execution of all development, production, processing, milling, smelting and refining activities related to the Bracemac-McLeod mine, as well as the exploration programs conducted on the Matagami project.

CRIRSCO’s objectives are to:

• promote uniformity, excellence and continuous improvement in national and international reporting standards through consultation and co-operation
• represent the international minerals industry on resource and reserve reporting issues, including discussions with other international organisations, attending international meetings and providing written submissions
• encourage the continued development of international exchange of competent/qualified persons through nationally-based recognised professional organisations.

Encouraging leading practice in resource estimation is consistent with ICMM’s sustainable development goals and brings added assurance that a nation’s mineral wealth is being developed in a responsible manner.

Most developed countries use almost identical resource and reserve definitions as defined in the CRIRSCO reporting template, and new codes and standards are being based on the template. This unified approach has provided the mining industry, regulators and investors with a common framework to report and interpret mineral resource and mineral reserve estimates, thereby facilitating funding to the mining industry through improved investor understanding and confidence.