The efforts of CEEC sponsors and innovation leaders have been recognised in the 2017 Mining Magazine awards, with Eriez taking out the Mineral Processing award, Metso the Service and Support award, and FLSmidth and GoldCorp the Editor’s award.
Each year the magazine celebrates excellence in the mining industry by inviting its readers to nominate people, companies or groups that they feel have demonstrated outstanding commitment to advancing the face of mining over the past 12 months. These advances can relate to outstanding new technologies, initiatives and equipment performance in the global mining industry.
CEEC CEO Alison Keogh said the awards highlighted exciting technological innovations that added business value and improved productivity.
“Some of these innovations, such as HydroFloat and EcoTails, herald a new approach, with capacity to significantly rethink how we process our minerals – reducing energy and water per unit of metal/mineral produced, and lowering the footprint of our operations, especially waste and tails. Imagine a future where no tailings dam is the norm, and the consumption and cost of energy and water dramatically lower,” she said.
“I commend those making this happen, and I look forward to seeing solutions taken up by more miners who are keen to invest in driving big changes – they will be the first to reap long-lasting value.
“Well done to the leaders and teams involved in driving positive change!”
CEEC shares the award announcements by Mining Magazine's Ailbhe Goodbody
Mineral Processing Award: Eriez Flotation Division Coarse Particle Flotation Technology
“Eriez Flotation Division’s HydroFloat recovers coarse particles up to 6mm by applying flotation in a fluidised bed, and the company says it offers a paradigm shift in copper sulphide processing. The primary benefit is the flotation of very coarse material that is lost using conventional methods. HydroFloat combines the advantages of froth flotation and gravity separation and produces higher throughput capacity and reduces reagents and air consumption” (Goodbody, 2018).
Service and Support Award: Metso Life Cycle Services
“Metso’s Life Cycle Services (LCS) can help mines by supplementing their current team or taking complete responsibility for key activities and offering a commercial model aligned to the mine’s business goals. Anglo American’s Los Bronces copper mine in Chile entered a LCS mechanical maintenance contract with Metso for the mine’s primary crushing plant in 2010. Under the LCS contract, equipment availability proved much better in 2016 than in 2015, with a 0.6% improvement on crushing line 1 and a 2.1% increase in availability on line 2. This is equivalent to a 22% cut in corrective maintenance time in 2016 compared with 2015, and a 69% reduction in total maintenance time. The improvements were achieved with zero accidents” (Goodbody, 2018).
Editor’s Award: FLSmidth and Goldcorp Ecotails
“FLSmidth and Goldcorp are co-developing EcoTails, a system for co-mingling dewatered tailings with waste rock in a continuous process that produces a new type of waste called GeoWaste. Designed for large-scale mining applications, the system is expected to be environmentally safer for managing tailings and waste rock storage and has the potential to eliminate conventional slurry tailings dams completely. The system is also designed to increase water recovery and reuse by as much as 90–95%” (Goodbody, 2018).
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