NARROW VEIN & LOW PROFILE MINING
angle of the hole. In our field test, we intend to initially go down to 50-100
m depending on how much drill string we want to acquire.
IM: Speaking of your field test, what application are you looking to test
SMD on?
DA: The deposit we are looking at trialling this on – called Romeo & Juliet –
is, so far, measuring around 3.5-4 g/t Au, which is roughly three times the
grade we have been mining in the area at Point Rousse. This is significant
for us in terms of grade.
What we’re trying to do with the trial is test the imaging technology and
the ability to steer; the ability to put the pilot hole down the hole, roughly
half way between the hanging wall and footwall of the vein, and then bring
the pile-top drill rig in to enlarge that pilot hole. It is a proof of concept
from that point of view.
We’re going to try and select areas of the deposit to test where the dip
angle and width of the vein is representative of where we want to be
mining. The drill rig we are proposing to use right now for the trial is
smaller in diameter to what we propose you can ultimately use SMD for.
It’s a 1-1.3 m diameter drill rig, so we are looking for a portion of the vein at
Romeo & Juliet with that thickness for the trial.
IM: Aside from the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science at Memorial
University of Newfoundland, are there any other partners you are working
with on SMD?
DA: Because of the notoriety we got from being a finalist of
#DisruptMining, it has accelerated development of this technology in the
sense we have had a lot of interest from gold producers and drill
manufacturers – we are talking to them about potential partnerships,
strategic investments and field trials.
The common theme among all these conversations is that SMD makes a
lot of sense and many companies could see it being applied at their sites.
While we haven’t signed any specific agreements with drill
manufacturers, if this is a concept that takes off and there is lots of
demand for it, it would make sense for them to be involved. They want to
sell drills and we’re not going to manufacture drills, so it is an opportunity
for them to have another product to sell. We want to licence our
technology and the SMD process, while providing services to optimise the
system by end users.
IM: Have you been surprised by the industry response to SMD since it has
been more widely publicised?
narrow vein deposits all over the world – we’ve had interest from Russia,
South America, South Korea, Ghana, the US, Australia, all over the place.
We’ve been focused on gold deposits, but it is certainly applicable in other
deposits where there is narrow vein mineralisation, too.
One of the interesting things to come out of this exercise, which we
didn’t necessarily foresee, is that the imaging technology could also be
applicable in mineral exploration, especially with the imaging and GPR
capabilities.
IM: Because the technology is new and unproven within a mining context,
how do you see companies modelling resources based on SMD to a 43-
101-compliant status?
DA: We’re not sure, from a regulatory perspective, how this technology
could impact that. I would imagine, at this point, we would need a longer
track record to prove its ability to transform uneconomic mineral resources
into economic reserves. Once you start to build a history, companies can
use that as a legitimate way to delineate reserves that they previously had
to leave behind.
That’s the whole purpose of SMD; there are mineral resources in the
ground, whether it is whole deposits or certain zones of existing mines
that cannot be mined by conventional methods. You can use this
methodology in certain cases to extract the ore. If you can do that
economically, by definition, it should be a reserve.
Up to this point, most exploration has been about trying to find
orebodies to match conventional mining methods; your risk factor here is
finding the ore. With SMD, we’re flipping it round; you know where the ore
is because you’ve already outlined a mineral resource. It just so happens
that it is not economic using conventional mining methods. So, you just
need to find a technology that can mine it, which we think we have for
narrow vein deposits and zones.
From an exploration standpoint, you can use that image and extrapolate
out better than with a conventional drill hole, so, in theory, you can carry
out less drilling. Depending on the bandwidth and the GPR, you can look
out five metres from where you are currently drilling. This allows you to get
a better representation of the orebody and model it more accurately with
less drilling.
IM: What is the timeline on SMD demonstrations? And, will the first trial
take place at Romeo & Juliet?
DA: It would be Romeo & Juliet first, and we’re targeting late-
August/September with the trial lasting around two months.
DA: It’s not surprising to us that there is global interest, as there are
for easy assembly/disassembly in a mine. It
“sneaks wherever our L130 and L150 miniLoaders
go”, Aramine said. This means the new machine
is ideal for sections between 6 m 2 and 12 m 2 .
With an existing partnership between Aramine
and Epiroc, the company can offer an exclusive
option with Epiroc Feed and Drifter, it said. “As
most of Aramine machines are, the DM901 HDE
complements perfectly the Epiroc range,” Arnaud
Paul, Aramine Equipment Sales Director, said.
Aramine is preparing its fully-electric battery-
powered version for 2020, with innovations due
at all levels of the machine, the company
concluded. IM
Aramine’s diesel-electric hybrid miniDriller DM901 HDE drill rig uses the diesel engine for tramming
and electric motor for drilling
JULY 2019 | International Mining 45