Directing Member of the Executive Committee of Paste 2016 and Professor of the School of Civil Engineering, Environmental and Mining at the University of Western Australia, Andy Fourie, believes that there is room for improvement in the area of thickened tailings such as strengthening safety of storage facilities and waste volume reduction.
What is the status of major mining tailings around the world?
The number one issue would be the bigger volumes every year because the grade is going down so they have to produce and process more material to recover the valuable products, so the volumes of waste are increasing.
There are also concerns about the safety of tailings storage facilities. We have had some big failures recently as well as opposition from communities, who sometimes are unhappy and also concerned about the potential failures of the tailings dams, contamination from water or dust.
What new technologies exist for managing thickened tailings?
High density tailings and paste and even filter tailings are options that are on the table now even though they are not going to provide the solutions for everything.
There is still a very strong place for conventional tailings but with better management. We see different ways of depositing, maybe using old open pits that are no longer being mined and much better techniques for managing, instrumenting and monitoring is necessary.
You will be part of the committee Paste 2016, what do you expect for this version of the seminar?
For people to share experiences of what they are working on. It is essential to share experiences of what didn’t work as well as experiences of what did work, but sometimes that is more difficult because people don´t want to admit to things that have not worked. However, it is necessary to keep learning and improving. Definitely to share experiences of what did work and what didn´t because that exchange is always useful.
How do these seminars contribute to the discussion of important mining issues?
The networking that takes place in the conferences is very important, to share ideas and experiences from around the world. You make new contacts, find about new technologies and exchange ideas.
The conference moves around the world and there are people attending that may not have the opportunity to travel that much, so these conferences are their chance to find out what is happening around the world in mining so that is very useful.
