Tag Archives: Black & Veatch

Deeper water engagement can help reset mining ESG course: Garrick Field

Environmental, Mining events, Sustainable mining, Water management, , , , , , , , , , ,

Miners have the tools and seemingly now also the will to be better stewards of crucial water resources, according to an experienced specialist in the area, Garrick Field. But he believes stronger engagement with local communities, including traditional landowners, can be the real driver of a new water stewardship course.

Speaking with Mining Beacon after the launch of Black & Veatch’s latest ‘Water for Mining in Australia’ survey and report, the company’s Industrial Water and Mining Solutions Director says high-profile tailings dam and cultural heritage failures have move the industry into an era of accountability, transparency and corporate commitments to environmental and social governance (ESG).

It’s what is happening on the ground, though, that is really demonstrating a shift in management and operational practices which can reset the tone of multi-stakeholder engagement and the industry’s potential to achieve improved environmental and economic outcomes.

“It’s the voices of stakeholders that are actually informing a lot of the solutions and decision making around the outcomes of water management in the mining industry at the moment,” says Field, who worked extensively across Australia, Peru and Argentina on large mining projects before working with Rio Tinto on a range of strategic water management challenges in Australia, North America and Eastern Europe over 15 years.

He joined Black & Veatch to help grow its mining services offering and exposure alongside a significant industrial and municipal engineering and consulting market presence in Australia and the Asia Pacific region.

“As an example, if you look at the Pilbara region of Western Australia, the shift to mining below the water table means that significant volumes of water need to be removed to enable access to the ore. There is a growing awareness amongst mining companies about the need to engage meaningfully with First Nations and Traditional Owner groups on what happens to that water.

“Historically the water has been seen as a waste product to be removed from the mining process. But more and more of that water is being valued as a resource that needs to be stewarded and not discharged, or even transported elsewhere to be put to another use, but rather reserved in catchment so that it stays in the landscape.

“It’s very important that the source and location of that water is considered appropriately. We’re seeing that as a different driver for the management of that resource that requires a different set of solutions.”

More broadly Field says deeper local engagement, undertaken earlier in project lifecycles, is opening up avenues to better long-term water resource management solutions.

“That meaningful engagement with local stakeholders on the values of the water, what happens to it and how it’s managed, can extend through project development, into operations, and beyond closure,” he says. “What would add value to a co-management type of solution, for example.

“If you define and design for stewardship together with local stakeholders at the start of the project it’s a very different experience to managing it together after the impacts of a negative event, when you have to fix things up.

“We’re seeing some developers that are taking a different approach to managing water – building infrastructure, developing water supply solutions – and seeking to engage with equity with local Traditional Owners as well, to bring shared environmental and economic benefit from the project for current and future generations.”

Field is leading a high-level discussion at the upcoming IMARC 2024 conference in Sydney on sustainable water management in mining in Australia. Fellow panellists include BHP Water Management and Mine Closure Global Practice Lead, Blair Douglas, Legacie Managing Director, Daniel Lambert, ICMM Director of Environment, Emma Gagen, and Travis Inman, Executive Director at the WA Government’s Department of Water and Environmental Regulation.

“Translating sustainable water management ambitions into on-the-ground solutions starts with a collaborative catchment-based approach – the holistic assessment of all the water users in a catchment – including social, environmental and other economic values,” Field says.

“And then margin needs to be planned and scoped such that the water needs of the mining project do not encroach on the other users and values in the catchment.

“This can be achieved by assessing the opportunities for optimised mine-planning and progressive rehabilitation for footprint reduction, water efficiency, recycling, treatment and development of alternative water supply sources.

“It is even better if these solutions can sustain and reinforce the health of the other values in the catchment.

“The contrast to this is that the project may seek approval for the water take without a real understanding of the catchment dynamics, which we have seen lead to a host of unintended consequences and impacts that need to be managed over the life of the mine and create a liability that requires significant investment to repair at closure.”

IMARC is due to take place on October 29-31, in Sydney, Australia. International Mining is a media sponsor of the event.

Beca and Black & Veatch to collaborate on sustainable solutions for Australian mining sector

Environmental, Mining industry recognition, Mining services, Sustainable mining, , , , , ,

Beca and Black & Veatch (B&BV) have announced a collaboration to deliver sustainability and decarbonisation solutions, combined with a strong local presence, to service minerals and metals operations across Australia.

Beca is an employee-owned professional services firm that has been delivering engineering, advisory and management consulting services across Asia-Pacific for over 100 years, while Black & Veatch is an employee-owned global engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company with, it says, a more than 100-year track record of innovation in sustainable infrastructure.

“Clients recognise the need for more sustainable operations and more efficient resource management approaches from extraction and processing through to delivery,” Paul Language, a Business Director at Beca, said. “Our collaboration brings sustainability expertise, at scale, to mining operations across Australia.

“We understand what it takes for miners to succeed in Australia.”

Jim Spenceley, Senior Vice President of Black & Veatch’s Mining Business, added: “Clients have set ambitious sustainability and decarbonisation goals and we are helping them develop and implement the sustainability roadmaps that will make these goals attainable. For many years B&BV have collaborated for the benefit of clients in New Zealand and we look forward to extending our services to Australia.”

Part of B&BV’s strength is a strong shared culture. Both are employee-owned, a business model that has been delivering success for more than a century for each organisation. Both companies are committed to the safe delivery and management of critical infrastructure and embracing reconciliation in the minerals and metals sector.

“Sustainability and responsible corporate stewardship are core to both companies’ operations, in the way they act and the projects they deliver,” they added.

Black & Veatch scales up environmental and sustainability offering

Environmental, Mining services, Sustainable mining, , , , , ,

Engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company, Black & Veatch, is expanding its global environmental capabilities and services as businesses respond to increasingly complex demands from regulators, shareholders and consumers, it said.

The expansion comes as companies, utilities and governments navigate a range of COVID-19 related operational challenges and a recent wave of ambitious sustainability commitments. Meeting environmental demands and delivering on sustainability targets, however, requires new levels of innovation and expertise, the company says.

“Black & Veatch’s environmental team includes nearly 200 dedicated scientists, consultants and specialised compliance and permitting experts capable of providing direct service to clients of various scale,” it said. “The team’s vast experience can help stakeholders overcome complexity and reduce program costs by making it easier to integrate environmental considerations at every phase of the infrastructure lifecycle.”

Dave Johnson, co-Leader of the Environmental Services team, said: “Every industry is embracing environmental stewardship, and companies that fail to integrate the right expertise at the right time carry significant business and reputational risks. By collaborating across Black & Veatch, clients will benefit from our dedicated in-house environmental experts, who uniquely understand their environmental risk and opportunities.”

Advances in technology, consumer behaviour and economics are also transforming infrastructure development, according to the company. “The rise of distributed infrastructure programs, which bring data analytics, electricity and other new services closer to the end user, is a major trend influencing new thinking and approaches to environmental risk and compliance strategies.”

Lisa Fewins, co-Leader of the Environmental Services team, said Black & Veatch’s clients want innovative, dependable solutions to better operate in a dynamic global environmental landscape.

“With many clients seeking to more effectively address traditional operating issues, as well as emerging challenges tied to COVID-19, our ability to work across Black & Veatch’s world-class engineering, procurement and construction teams on a daily basis lets us offer faster, more integrated solutions,” she said.

Black & Veatch says it offers more than 80 existing environmental services across five prominent categories including: environmental air quality, remediation, management, compliance and science.

Fewins said: “We are taking a leading role in partnering with innovative technology providers to support our clients with cutting-edge solutions, as well as helping clients plan, scale and manage environment requirements.”

In addition to traditional environmental services across air quality, site remediation and advanced water solutions, Black & Veatch says it is an industry leader in the development of electric vehicle charging infrastructure and renewable solutions, including solar photovoltaic and wind energy.

“The company is also helping advance sustainability and environmental goals for mining companies, data centre providers and many more industries,” it said.

Black & Veatch helps the water balance at Escondida

Base metals, Environmental, Mine operation news, Mining services, Sustainable mining, Water management, , , , , , , ,

With BHP recently celebrating the completion of the Escondida Water Supply Expansion (EWSE) project at its majority-owned Minera Escondida mine in Chile, the designer and engineer of record, Black & Veatch, has taken the time to review its work on the more than two year project.

The expansion increases the mine’s desalination capacity to the point where 100% of its needs can be self-supplied with desalinated water, according to the company, helping to protect local groundwater resources while ensuring a more sustainable, resilient and reliable water future.

Black & Veatch served as designer and engineer of record on not only the EWSE project, but also the original Escondida Water Supply (EWS) project, heralded as one of the largest, most complex desalination infrastructure projects in South America, it said.

“Completion of the EWSE project comes amid mining’s growing focus on sustainability and resilience,” it said. “Minera Escondida is in the Antofagasta region in northern Chile, one of the driest regions in the world and water is at a premium. With the Monturaqui Aquifer closing in late 2019, BHP, the mine’s majority owner and operator, realised the need to bolster desalination capabilities.”

The project builds upon Black & Veatch’s history of providing water production, water conveyance and desalination services to BHP. In 2013, the company was selected to lead the engineering design, procurement, field inspection and pre-commissioning for the marine and desalination elements of the EWS project, which was completed in 2017.

When it came time to expand the Escondida desalination facilities, BHP again turned to Black & Veatch, hiring the engineering company to serve as engineer of record for the water production, water conveyance and high-voltage components of the project; providing engineering, procurement, construction management services, pre-commissioning and commissioning services.

The EWSE project involved multiple components to increase desalinated water production capacity by 833 l/s while expanding water conveyance capacity by 1,438 l/s. The project began in June 2017 and was commissioned one week ahead of schedule, on December 25, 2019, according to Black & Veatch.

“The project was executed on a tight timeline, but Black & Veatch was well-positioned to deliver on this work, given our knowledge of the original EWS project and the client,” Jim Spenceley, Senior Vice President of Black & Veatch’s Mining business, said. “This knowledge allowed us to identify efficiencies, reducing the amount of time to construct and commission and allowing us to safely deliver EWSE ahead of schedule.”

The original EWS infrastructure was developed with expansion in mind, and Black & Veatch’s design allowed BHP to adopt an optimised solution that used the existing EWS footprint, helping to lower capital costs, it said. Replicating equipment used in the EWS project also helped standardise and simplify operations and maintenance, according to the company.

Iain Humphreys, Business Line Director and Head of the company’s regional office in Santiago, Chile, said: “Black & Veatch provided the in-depth knowledge and experience to undertake this strategic project on behalf of BHP and to successfully complete EWSE. Having worked on both projects really pays testament to the high skill level and deep experience of all our professionals.”

Between the two projects – the original EWS desalination plant and the EWSE – Black & Veatch worked more than 3 million worker-hours without a recordable safety incident, it said.

To complete the project safely, ahead of schedule and with the highest quality standards, Black & Veatch placed significant resources behind the project. A diverse international team contributed – the core team of local professionals located in Santiago was supported by Black & Veatch professionals from multiple US states, plus the UK, India, Chile, El Salvador, Cuba and Colombia. The project also had a 25% female participation rate, supporting BHP’s corporate goal of gender diversity.

BQE Water to install Selen-IX water treatment plant at US mine

Environmental, Mineral processing, Mining services, Water management, , , , , ,

BQE Water says it has entered into an engineering services agreement with Black & Veatch, an international engineering firm, for the design of a Selen-IX™ water treatment plant destined for a mine in the US.

The plant, at a scale larger than the currently constructed 6,400 m3/d Selen-IX treatment plant at Centerra Gold’s Kemess mine site in British Columbia, Canada, will remove selenium below three parts per billion limit at the end-of-pipe, the company said.

The plant will be designed to treat several thousand litres per minute of water on average and to adjust quickly to adapt to the changes in feed flow, according to BQE.

Jim Spenceley, VP Mining for Black & Veatch, said: “We recognise the value of BQE Water’s expertise in water treatment and the uniqueness of Selen-IX, which moves selenium control in the mining industry to a new level and enables important resource projects to be developed.

“The technological leadership of BQE Water, combined with Black & Veatch’s successful track record in delivering mission critical capital projects, matches perfectly the project requirements and we are excited to initiate the work jointly with BQE Water.”

David Kratochvil, President & CEO of BQE Water, said the ability of Selen-IX to remove selenium to levels below three parts per billion, coupled with the ability to quickly adapt to treatment requirements by fast turn-up and turn-down in terms of throughput, was key to signing this agreement.

“It also provides a platform for BQE Water and Black & Veatch to demonstrate to the mining industry our joint capabilities of delivering innovative water treatment solutions safely and cost effectively,” he added.

BQE Water successfully completed lab testing in 2019 that demonstrated the capability of Selen-IX to achieve the required water quality. The design of the water treatment plant is expected to be completed in the September quarter.

Selen-IX is a water treatment process technology that combines ion exchange and electro-reduction to remove selenium from large volumes of wastewater. As a purely physico-chemical process, it is insensitive to water temperature and is highly adaptable to variability in water flows and selenium levels, according to BQE Water. “The process fixes selenium into stable refractory non-hazardous solids suitable for co-disposal with tailings and potential offtake by steel producers,” the company said.

Black & Veach to manage refinery build for PT Borneo Alumina in Indonesia

Base metals, Industrial minerals, Mine operation news, Mining services, , , , , ,

PT Borneo Alumina Indonesia has appointed a Black & Veatch-led project management consortium (PMC) to develop an alumina refinery in West Kalimantan.

The facility, the first of its kind in Indonesia, according to Black & Veatch, will feature a 1 Mt/y smelter-grade alumina refinery, a 2 x 40,000 cu.m/h coal gasification plant and a 3 x 25 MW coal-fired power plant.

As the consortium leader, Black & Veatch will perform design review, equipment inspections, and provide power and coal gasification subject matter expertise. Consortium partner Progesys will be managing the alumina refinery process design scope, while another partner, Jaya CM, will be supporting the project with site construction engineers and inspectors.

Progesys is a minerals industry engineering company based in Canada, while Jaya CM is an Indonesia-based construction management company.

“As the project consultant, the consortium is responsible for evaluating engineering, procurement and construction bids and reviewing design engineering,” Black & Veatch said. The consortium will monitor major equipment supply and conduct factory acceptance tests. It will also oversee site construction and commissioning.

Jim Spenceley, Senior Vice President, Mining, Black & Veatch, said developing the downstream mineral processing industry will expand the Indonesia economy and create jobs. “Black & Veatch is ready to leverage our global expertise across business units to support as PMC overseeing our client’s Chinese engineering, procurement and construction contractor to ensure that the client realises the quality, safety and value they are seeking.”

Black & Veatch’s knowledge of international and country-specific engineering codes and standards, and contract structures systematically mitigates project cost and schedule risks, according to the company. “By serving as the interface between different engineering standards, Black & Veatch offers clients assurance that EPC contractors deliver on specific project commitments cost effectively.”