Tag Archives: TSF

Ma’aden brings in Darkstone for Mansourah-Massarah TSF contract

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Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma’aden) has awarded Darkstone with a SAR105 million ($28 million) construction contract for the second phase of its Mansourah-Massarah gold mine tailings storage facility (TSF) construction project.

Darkstone Arabia Ltd, a company engaged in industrial mechanical and electrical maintenance, mechanical engineering, civil, construction and MEP works, was awarded the procurement and construction contract by Ma’aden this month, with the engineering portion assigned to ATC Williams, a leader in the provision of solutions for tailings, water and waste, to aid in designing the tailings and water management system.

Mansourah-Massarah is an open-pit mine in the Central Arabian gold region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, approximately 500 km southeast of Riyadh. The project has expected production of 250,000 oz/y of gold over an estimated life of 12 years.

As part of the contract, Darkstone will perform several tasks, including:

  • Construction of the waste management system, including floor and perimeter embankment, piping, mechanical works and HDPE geomembrane;
  • Waste distribution system;
  • Water management system;
  • Conducting laboratory tests; and
  • Carrying out various related activities.

Decipher to help miners align with new tailings storage facility standards

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Wesfarmers-owned software-as-a-service company, Decipher, says it has extended its successful TSF cloud platform to provide a solution to simplify the process of tailings storage facility (TSF) data disclosure as well as helping companies align with the new global tailings standard.

The recent Global Standard on Tailings Management was launched on the August 5, 2020. The historic agreement includes six topic areas, 15 principles and 77 auditable requirements, which covers the entire TSF lifecycle – from site selection, design and construction, management and monitoring, through to closure and post-closure.

With an ambition of zero harm to people and the environment, the standard significantly raises the bar for the industry to achieve strong social, environmental and technical outcomes by elevating accountability to the highest organisational levels and adds new requirements for independent oversight, Decipher says.

“These recent initiatives have encouraged mining companies to respond quickly to public demand for more transparency which has highlighted the need for a software solution which can improve tailings data management, reporting, monitoring, compliance and governance,” the company said.

This is where Decipher’s technology comes into play.

Decipher Chief Executive Officer, Anthony Walker, said the resources industry is actively seeking easily implemented, cost effective and globally accessible solutions.

“The early adoption from Tier 1 miners and general interest has been phenomenal indicating that there is a real need for a TSF data disclosure solution; it excites us that our technology platform can be leveraged to support better management and monitoring of tailings storage facilities,” he said.

Topic Area VI of the new standard requires operators to support public disclosure of information about tailings facilities, and participate in global initiatives to create standardised, independent, industry-wide and publicly accessible information about facilities. For example, the recent Investor Mining and Tailings Safety Initiative called upon 727 extractive mining companies to make public disclosures about their TSFs to form an independent global database – The Global Tailings Portal, developed by GRID-Arendal.

Due to manual processes, and often disparate and siloed datasets, mining operators have estimated it took them around six weeks per site to collate their tailings data, according to Decipher. “With many operators having well over 50 sites, this process is challenging and surfaced many inefficiencies,” it said.

After hearing these frustrations from the industry, Decipher designed a tailings database solution to help companies easily capture, manage and disclose tailings data, enabling them to meet data provision requests from industry groups such as the Investor Mining and Tailings Safety Initiative, it said.

Decipher has also been working closely with GRID-Arendal to create an API to facilitate automatic update of tailings data within the Decipher platform directly to the Global Tailings Portal.

“We believe this will significantly increase efficiency and provide a massive time savings for mining operators who choose to disclose regularly,” the company said.

Topic Area III of the standard aims to lift the performance bar for designing, constructing, operating, maintaining, monitoring, and closing facilities.

Recognising tailings facilities are dynamic engineered structures, this topic area requires the ongoing use of an updated knowledge base, consideration of alternative tailings technologies, and a comprehensive monitoring system.

“Decipher’s TSF solution is trusted by environmental, tailings, geotechnical and management teams globally to help improve monitoring, compliance, reporting, operational visibility and safety,” the company said. “The platform brings together data from laboratories, IoT devices, LiDAR, CCTV, drones, inspections and remotely-sensed platforms to serve users with up-to-date information to provide key data and insights, enabling teams to effectively monitor, govern and operate their TSFs.”

Armed with Decipher’s Tailings Database solution, Decipher says. customers can:

  • Comply and meet requests for data provision from industry groups such as COE, ICMM, UNEP, PRI, Global Tailings Review and more, with fields embedded for simple reporting and tracking;
  • Store an endless variety of tailings data in one location which is otherwise managed by a number of teams in disparate systems;
  • Operate with increased confidence knowing required data is being collected and monitored;
  • Easily visualise their operational TSF data on the map;
  • Cluster data into key areas such as safety, risk, compliance, construction, design, roles and responsibilities;
  • Assign actions and tasks for data collection with a register and audit trail of all actions and respective statuses to monitor progress, and reminder and escalation notifications;
  • View dam data across multiple sites in a single screen with the ability to easily export for reporting;
  • Facilitate automatic updates to databases and portals based on integration capabilities with third-party systems or public portals;
  • View spatial visualisation to display tailings dams in proximity to surrounding environment and communities;
  • Better align with standard such as the Global Tailings management; and
  • Access custom reports.

Multotec builds integrity with hydrocyclone solution at Zambia tailings facility

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An innovative hydrocyclone solution from Multotec is allowing a large Zambian copper mine to develop a safe and cost effective tailings storage facility (TSF), the South Africa based company says.

The TSF faced a number of specific challenges, according to Frikkie Enslin, Senior Applications Engineer responsible for cyclones at Multotec, including its extensive planned capacity and the area’s flat topography. The mine’s process plant pumps some 10,000 m³/h of tailings to the TSF, requiring its final circumference to reach about 19 km.

“The flat area around the mine meant there was no suitable topography to provide a natural dam,” Enslin says. “It was therefore vital to create strong walls to retain the slurry from the plant, so that the integrity of the TSF could be assured.”

Simple gravity separation and sun-drying had proved unable to create material firm enough to constitute walls, according to Multotec. In the early days of the plant’s operation, it was shown material being deposited by means of plain spigoting could still not be walked on even after a month of drying in the sun. By contrast, Multotec’s 250 mm GV hydrocyclones were able to deliver an underflow discharge that could be walked on in just two days, the company said. After a week, the material could withstand the weight of an excavator.

The sheer volume of slurry being pumped into the TSF, however, created its own challenge. The hydrocyclones had initially been mounted on metal cradles, which were inundated within a couple of hours. Extracting the cyclone and cradle from the mud for the next placement was difficult and very time consuming.

“The customer needed a solution that would keep the cyclone above the slurry level for longer, and would be easier to move,” he says. “To do this, we designed a cyclone cradle that could be attached to a long wooden pole, giving much greater height, allowing the customer to leave the cyclones in the same position for a much longer time.”

With Multotec’s experience and facilities for custom design and manufacture, the hydrocyclones were then modified to be lighter. This made them easier to handle and manoeuvre, it said.

“Constructed with a lighter metal, these tailor-made units are industry leaders in terms of being lightweight and are rubber-lined to ensure long wear life,” he said. “We also made some innovative improvements to the vortex finders and the cone sections, which are now metal spun.”

Other changes were made to speed up the changing of a spigot, and the moving of the hydrocyclones from one point on the TSF wall to the next. The design now includes a threaded spigot coupling and quick-release connections on the cyclone.

The solution has been so successful to date that over 250 of Multotec’s modified GV hydrocyclones have been installed.

“Just as we collaborated closely with the customer in developing this solution, so we continue our partnership in monitoring the performance of our hydrocyclones as the project goes on,” Enslin says. “An expert applications engineer from our Johannesburg head office visits the site regularly, while our Zambia office in Chingola offers solid technical and field service support. We don’t just sell process equipment, but rather process solutions.”