CEEC International (Coalition for Minerals Efficiency) has released a new white paper, Transforming the Flowsheet for Tailings. The paper argues that the industry's persistent tailings problem cannot be solved by better containment alone, and that the biggest gains lie upstream of the dam, in how the process plant prepares tailings for dewatering and storage.
The mining industry generates roughly 13 billion tonnes of tailings each year, most of it stored in facilities that are approximately half water by volume. That stored water is both the largest risk to facility stability and one of the largest opportunities for improvement. Standards and governance have been substantially strengthened in recent years, yet facilities continue to fail. At the same time, declining ore grades, growing water scarcity, permitting timelines of five to ten years for new storage, and limits on upstream construction are putting existing operations and new projects under increasing pressure.
Developed through CEEC's Global Tailings Initiative (GTI), the paper challenges the conventional practice of treating tailings as a single waste stream and explores how earlier decisions in the mineral processing flowsheet can improve water recovery, reduce costs and support safer, more sustainable tailings management.
Drawing on industry expertise and outcomes from CEEC's Adelaide and Santiago tailings workshops in March and September 2026 respectively, the paper examines opportunities to separate tailings by particle size and apply dewatering technologies suited to different material characteristics.
It identifies the influence of ultrafine particles, clay characteristics and water chemistry on dewatering performance, highlighting alternatives to conventional wet storage and whole-of-stream pressure filtration. These approaches offer the potential to reduce water retained in tailings facilities while improving project economics.
Heather Ednie, Executive President of CEEC International, said the white paper highlights the importance of looking beyond common approaches and bringing different areas of expertise together.
“Most of the technology we need already exists. What’s been missing is thinking about tailings early enough and getting the right disciplines in the same room to connect the pieces. If storage and closure are decided at the start of project design, and the flowsheet is built to suit them, operators can lower both risk and cost. CEEC’s role is to bring the right people together to test these ideas, share what we learn, and help the industry move faster than any one company could alone.”
The paper also highlights the need for stronger collaboration between mineral processing, geotechnical engineering and mine planning disciplines, alongside a common framework for understanding and classifying tailings.
Building on its findings, CEEC is progressing collaborative test work to address knowledge gaps and evaluate opportunities to improve dewatering performance and tailings management.
CEEC invites mining companies, technology providers, researchers and other industry stakeholders to contribute expertise, operational experience and case studies to support the next phase of the initiative.
Read the white paper: Transforming the Flowsheet for Tailings