CANADIAN TECHNOLOGY
process chemicals, including anionic and cationic
collectors, frothers, surfactants, pH modifiers,
promoters, depressants, flotation oils and
polymers, to maximise lithium grade and
recovery while improving cost performance and
production rates.
“ArrMaz has been able to develop flotation
reagents to selectively float either the lithium-
containing mineral, or undesired gangue
minerals such as quartz and iron silicates, mica,
amphibole and more away from the lithium to
achieve grade and recovery targets,” the
company said.
ArrMaz’s new suite of CustoFloat ® flotation
collectors are engineered specifically for lithium-
bearing spodumene, lepidolite and
petalite/castorite ore applications in Canada,
China, Australia, and certain regions of Europe
and Brazil, the company said. In North America,
ArrMaz’s new CustoFloat collectors have
delivered 1-2% Li 2 O grade improvement in
spodumene concentrate, while cutting collector
consumption by one third, ArrMaz said. “The
company has achieved similarly impressive
results using its new CustoFloat collectors on
other lithium resources globally.”
ArrMaz lab results have also demonstrated
that, with very little sacrifice – or no change – in
grade, substantial increases in recovery of as
much as 3-6% are possible. “With robust
spodumene prices in the $600-800/t range,
ArrMaz’s new CustoFloat lithium collectors will
deliver millions of dollars in recovery value to a
mineral operation’s bottom line,” the company
said.
Award winner
ANDRITZ, and its artificial intelligence-backed
mineral processing facility operation concept,
was recently named #DisruptMining 2019 winner
at an event on the sidelines of the PDAC
convention in Toronto, Canada.
The company was one of three finalists
selected to pitch to a panel of judges at the live
finale, which took place on March 3.
ANDRITZ, a leading supplier of machines and
automation solutions worldwide, won the award
through the development of a unique and
continuous way of training artificial intelligence
to operate a mineral processing facility using
ANDRITZ’s digital twin, Goldcorp, which hosted
the event, said.
“The AI is trained to respond to a variety of
situations, making it capable of adapting to
changing inputs and improving upset recovery
time,” Goldcorp said. The trained AI’s ability to
quickly process information and recommend
data-driven solutions will allow for the
improvement of the operation, such as start-up
and shutdown, and assist operators to achieve
plant-wide optimisation, the company added.
84 International Mining | APRIL 2019
ANDRITZ beat off
stiff competition
from Anaconda
Mining, which has
developed a two-
stage drilling
method to enable
economic mining of
narrow-vein
deposits, and Voith
Turbo, a division of
Voith GmbH & Co
KGaA, whose IoT
application,
BeltGenius, creates a digital twin of belt
conveyors providing real-time insight into the
behaviour of the operation.
Canadian contracting
Last year saw Canada-based mining contractor
and engineer, Redpath, achieve much success at
projects around the globe.
Among the highlights was playing a major role
in the recently commissioned 7,200-panel solar
farm at South32’s Cannington silver-lead mine in
northwest Queensland, Australia, safely
completing the material handling shaft
excavation at Goldcorp’s Musselwhite gold mine
in Ontario, Canada, and, in the case of subsidiary
PT Redpath Indonesia (PTRI), after 14 years of
development, achieving the excavation blast of
the first production drawbell at the Grasberg
Block Cave (GBC) mine.
On the latter achievement, the company said:
“This represents only the first of more than 1,200
planned drawpoints to be constructed in order to
reach full production and foretells the enormous
challenges of mining this world-class ore deposit
with an equally challenging and impressive block
cave mine. The GBC mine will become one of the
greatest mines in the world, and everyone that
has played a role in developing this mine should
feel a true sense of pride and accomplishment.”
The GBC is planned as a 160,000 t/d mine and
requires a highly efficient ore handling system to
support planned production rates, according to
Redpath. Ore is moved from the extraction level’s
numerous drawpoints via LHDs to a system of
ore passes descending to the rail haulage level
loading pockets, and then loaded into the train
cars. The system permits safe and high
productivity levels using efficient automated
systems, Redpath said.
The total GBC rail haulage system will entail
over 20 lineal kilometres of track, three
unloading stations, 20 chute galleries and 120
loading chutes. To date, PTRI has completed two
unloading station excavations (12 m wide x 12 m
high x 45 m long), five chute galleries; mass
excavations reaching 8 m in width, 9 m in height,
and more than 3 km of train rail tunnels.
In total, there will be three crusher chamber
complexes in the Grasberg Block Cave mine,
according to Redpath
The GBC ore handling system consists of
primary and secondary crushing plants receiving
run-of-mine ore from the haulage level trains and
delivering <50 mm of crushed product to the
concentrator. The ore is delivered by trains into
ore bins and passes through the primary gyratory
crushers and onto feeder conveyors to the twin
3-m long, 1.8-m wide inclined conveyors.
The material then travels to the surface
secondary cone crusher complex and, from there,
to the concentrating plant. In total, there will be
three crusher chamber complexes in the GBC.
PTRI completed the first crusher chamber
complex (601 Package) in 2015 with total
excavation volumes of more 20,000 m 3 , reaching
heights of just over 42 m. The crusher 602
excavation/construction package is currently in
progress and on schedule, according to the
company.
On the GBC production level, Redpath said:
“The GBC orebody has a large footprint reaching
a diameter of over 1 km, requiring a planned
2,400 drawpoints to cover an area of 700,000 m 2 .
The cave initiation approach uses a ‘crinkle-cut’
undercutting system similar to that successfully
employed at Freeport’s Deep Ore Zone block cave
mine (a previous Redpath project).
“The GBC orebody is located directly below
the 2-km diameter Grasberg open pit, with the
pit bottom elevations only 200 m above the
extraction level, according to Redpath. “The GBC
project design team selected an advanced-
undercut approach, with the leading edge of the
undercut located at a minimum of 20 m ahead of
drawbelling on the extraction level,” Redpath
said, adding the overall footprints are divided
into five different production blocks.
“To date, PTRI has undercut 4,100 m 2 and will
maintain a rate of 1,000 m 2 /mth in the undercut
level 2850L. Three solo production drill units are
busy drilling the undercut level for the slot and
drill drift.”
The extraction level (2,830 m elevation) is a
Chile El Teniente-style layout in terms of