Tag Archives: mine tailings

Clean TeQ aims for tailings management leadership with ATA acquisition

Environmental, Mineral processing, Mining mergers and acquisitions, Mining services, Sustainable mining, Water management, , , , , , ,

Clean TeQ has signed an agreement to acquire ATA® in a deal that, it says, will accelerate its dewatering technology offering as part of targeted expansion into the global mine tailings management industry.

The agreement sees Clean TeQ exercise an option to purchase ATA from US-based Soane Labs LLC. ATA, Clean Teq says, represents a step change to both the economics and environmental sustainability of global mine tailings management by:

  • Delivering rapid separation of water and solids from both in-process and in situ tailings;
  • Producing stackable dry tailings without the high capital and operating cost of mechanical compression commonly used in the market; and
  • Recycling process water for reuse in operations, including the potential to recover dissolved metals otherwise lost to waste.

Economically efficient and environmentally sound tailings rehabilitation is a recognised priority for the mining industry, as companies increasingly emphasise sustainable metal production, reducing legacy issues and improving social licence to operate, Clean Teq says.

Peter Voigt, CEO of Clean TeQ Water Limited, said: “We have been working with the ATA technology for over 12 months and are satisfied that it has the potential to change the way mine tailings are processed for mine rehabilitation. ATA complements Clean TeQ’s market-leading metal extraction technologies and enables the company’s strategy to become a leader in the global mine tailings management industry in the rapidly growing global mine tailings management industry.”

The ATA technology was developed to offer a secure and low-cost mine tailings treatment process by rapidly separating water and solids to produce stackable dry tailings and recycled water. The technology uses smart chemistry to rapidly agglomerate the solids in ore slurries. The solids dewater under their own gravity, removing the need for high capital and operating cost pressured filtration used in the industry today. The resulting materials can be compressed and stacked, with the extracted water being returned to recycle (or sent for recovery of dissolved metals), dramatically reducing water usage. In underground mining operations the compact material may also be used for backfilling, with or without cement, according to Clean Teq.

Clean TeQ said: “Mine waste dewatering presents an enormous market opportunity for Clean TeQ. Tailings management is a significant environmental and safety challenge for the industry, particularly for mines in tropical climates where natural evaporation rates are low, or where seismic activity increases geotechnical risks. As environmental bonding requirements increase in response to higher perceived risk in managing tailings storage facilities, ATA’s unique rapid and low-cost dewatering offering will enhance the mining industry’s environment credentials while lowering operating and mine site rehabilitation costs.”

On August 9, 2022, Clean TeQ announced the signing of the exclusive global technology licence agreement with Soane Labs for the ATA technology. This provided Clean TeQ with an exclusive global licence to exploit the ATA technology, with an option to purchase the technology, at Clean TeQ Water’s discretion and at a pre-agreed value, within 18 months of signing. In accordance with the agreement, the company has decided to exercise the option to purchase the ATA technology and entered into a purchase agreement on September 20, 2023, through a 100% scrip issue for a total consideration of A$3 million ($1.9 million).

ATA will be deployed in conjunction with the company’s proprietary metal extraction technologies (Clean-iX®) as part of a strategy to provide the mining industry with a holistic mine tailings rehabilitation solution that, the company says, delivers:

  • Best-in-class tailings management, via future partnerships with both potential customers and experienced tailings management teams;
  • Market leading technologies that provide a step change in the economic and environmental sustainability of mine tailings management; and
  • Dry stacked and minimal footprint tailings solutions for current and legacy wet tailings sites, including the ability for underground backfill.

Clean TeQ says it is planning pilot-scale testing at several sites in the coming months leading to full scale commercial implementation.

The ICMM addresses mine tailings reduction ambition with new roadmap and initiative

Environmental, Mineral processing, Mining industry recognition, Mining policy, Mining services, Sustainable mining, Water management, , , , ,

Today, the International Council on Minerals and Metals (ICMM) has published a Tailings Reduction Roadmap which, it says, lays out innovative approaches and solutions capable of significantly reducing tailings from the mine life cycle, as part of a broader Tailings Innovation Initiative.

The initiative brings together a third of the global mining and metals industry to collaborate with technology innovators, including suppliers and academia, to accelerate technology for reducing tailings waste and to explore the potential to eliminate it in the long term, the ICMM says.

The Tailings Reduction Roadmap sets out short- and long-term technology options. These include mature solutions that can be implemented in the short term, such as coarse particle flotation technology to enhance the recovery of coarser particles of ore that have traditionally been seen as waste, and solutions with the potential to reduce tailings in more significant quantities, but that will require further development over the next 10-15 years, such as higher precision mining and artificial intelligence.

Developed through a series of engagements between technology suppliers, innovators and ICMM members, the roadmap offers strategic direction to the mining industry on how to accelerate the development and adoption of technologies to reduce tailings, the ICMM says. It addresses technological challenges, such as testing new technology on a different range of ore characteristics, as well as enabling factors, including business case and regulatory requirements, in parallel.

ICMM members are already piloting technologies laid out in the roadmap that match their commodities and site characteristics, so that learnings can be applied to solutions that can be scaled up to benefit the whole industry.

Rohitesh Dhawan, CEO of ICMM, said: “Catastrophic tailings failures in recent years including at South Africa’s Jagersfontein mine just last week have brought into sharp focus the need for urgent action to produce less tailings as we supply the metals and minerals that are critical for the energy transition and sustainable development. If we continue to use traditional production processes, we run the risk of multiplying tailings waste many times over. There is no easy solution, and we will continue to need tailings storage facilities into the future. However, this initiative signals our clear intent to act with urgency and purpose to find ways of minimising or potentially eliminating waste at every stage of the mining cycle.

“Work has already begun, but if we are to match our ambition, we need to work collaboratively in accelerating the types of breakthroughs that can be adopted widely in any existing or future operations around the world. Our ambition is that ICMM’s Tailings Reduction Roadmap and wider Tailings Innovation Initiative will help to identify and accelerate opportunities for wider collaboration and serve as a catalyst for advancing more partnerships between industry and technology innovators on piloting these technologies.”

‘World-first’ public database of mine tailings dams launched

Environmental, Mining policy, Mining safety, Sustainable mining, Water management, , , , , , , , , ,

Environmental organisation GRID-Arendal, with support from the UN Environment Program (UNEP), says it has launched the world’s first publicly accessible global database of mine tailings storage facilities.

The database, the Global Tailings Portal, was built by Norway-based GRID-Arendal as part of the Investor Mining and Tailings Safety Initiative, led by the Church of England Pensions Board and the Swedish National Pension Funds’ Council on Ethics, with support from the UNEP. The initiative is backed by funds with more than US$13 trillion under management, according to GRID-Arendal.

Professor Elaine Baker from the School of Geosciences is Director of the GRID-Arendal office at the University of Sydney. She said: “This portal could save lives. Tailing dams are getting bigger and bigger. Mining companies have found most of the highest-grade ores and are now mining lower-grade ones, which create more waste. With this information, the entire industry can work towards reducing dam failures in the future.”

The release of the Global Tailings Portal coincides with the one-year anniversary of the tailings dam collapse in Brumadinho, Brazil (pictured above – CREDIT:IDF/Flickr), which reportedly killed 270 people. After that event, a group of institutional investors led by the Church of England Pensions Board asked 726 of the world’s largest mining companies to disclose details about their tailings dams. Many of the companies complied, and the information they released has been incorporated into the database, GRID-Arendal said.

The database will allow users to view detailed information on more than 1,900 tailings dams, categorised by location, company, dam type, height, volume and risk, among other factors.

Kristina Thygesen, GRID-Arendal’s Program Leader for Geological Resources and a member of the team that worked on the portal, said: “Most of this information has never before been publicly available.”

When GRID-Arendal began in-depth research on mine tailings dams in 2016, very little data was accessible. In a 2017 report on tailings dams, co-published by GRID and the UN Environment Program, one of the key recommendations was to establish an accessible public-interest database of tailings storage facilities.

“This database brings a new level of transparency to the mining industry, which will benefit regulators, institutional investors, scientific researchers, local communities, the media and the industry itself,” Thygesen said.

Vale plans significant investment in dry processing technologies, Reuters says

Environmental, Mine operation news, Mineral processing, Mining equipment, Steel and iron ore, Sustainable mining, Water management, , , , , , , , , ,

Vale reportedly plans to invest $2.5 billion on, predominantly, dry processing technology as it looks to draw a line under the recent tailings dam failures that have occurred at its Brazil operations.

Reuters, citing emailed responses from Vale’s Director of Ferrous Planning and Development, Fabiano Carvalho Filho, said the Brazil-based miner would spend the amount over the next five years, with the funds mainly used to convert Vale’s Carajas iron ore mining operations in the northern portion of the country to 100% dry tailings facilities.

The news came on the same day the company released its March quarter financial results, which saw the miner report a $1.6 billion loss on the back of the recent Brumadinho dam rupture.

The company is looking to increase its dry processing operations to 70% of its overall iron ore output by the end of 2023, from 60% currently, according to the Reuters report.

Of the 17 processing lines of Plant 1 at Carajas, 11 are already using dry technologies and the remaining six wet lines will be converted by 2022, Carvalho Filho reportedly said.

In addition, the investments will also go towards two projects in Minas Gerais – one for a new iron ore processing complex, with the other focused on restarting a previously operational mine – the news agency said.

The dry processing spend is part of an existing program under which Vale has invested almost $17.5 billion over the last decade, Carvalho Filho told Reuters, adding that the investments were not directly tied to the recent tailings dam spills at the Brumadinho and Mariana dams.

Flowrox builds on NovaTek acquisition with launch of filter technology

Base metals, Environmental, Industrial minerals, Mineral processing, Mining equipment, Mining mergers and acquisitions, Mining services, Water management, , , , , ,

Weeks after acquiring Swedish filtration technology company, NovaTek AB, Flowrox Oy has launched its Flowrox Filter Press and Flowrox Ceramic Disc Filter.

These products significantly strengthen the Flowrox product range in the solid/liquid separation market, the company said.

When the company announced the addition of NovaTek earlier this month, Simo Manninen, Vice President of Marketing at Flowrox, said: “Flowrox aims to grow not only its existing core, valves and pumps business, but also selected strategic growth areas. With the acquisition of NovaTek, we are seeking to grow in the solid/liquid separation.”

NovaTek filters are used in metallurgical industries to filter cadmium, cobalt, chlorine, copper and selenium. They can also be used for several other applications, such as polishing of pickling acids in the steel industry, pigment separation and washing, and in power plants in the separation of gypsum.

Flowrox said the Filter Press was developed with filter operators and is well appreciated, especially among leading global metal production companies. It “presents fully automatic operation, high quality, superb performance and high availability”.

The Flowrox Ceramic Disc Filter (pictured) requires low investment and delivers clear filtrate with dry cake, according to the company. “Compared to conventional vacuum filters, it consumes approximately 90% less energy.” The filter operates continuously with high capacity and is a cost-efficient solution for many concentrator and tailings processes, the company said.

Flowrox, up until recently a manufacturer of industrial valves and pumps, aims to deliver complete filtration solutions to maximise production, reduce downtime and lower total costs.

A team of experienced Flowrox professionals provide the whole package of services starting with detailed analysis of process, filtration testing, equipment selection and sizing according to the test results and practical experience, Flowrox says, with the aim to optimise filtration performance.