First Quantum Minerals (FQM) will scale back its operations at its Ravensthorpe nickel mine in Western Australia.
The company said the decision is a result of the significant downturn in nickel prices experienced during 2023, combined with the currently high operating costs in WA.
Approximately 30 per cent of the 420-person workforce will be let go, with contractors to be redeployed by their employers.
FQM said it will lean on ore stockpiles to continue producing nickel, which are expected to be processed over the next 18 months.
Mining is set to resume at the Hale Bopp and Halley’s ore bodies when prices recover as part of the company’s three-year plan.
“Transitioning to a new operating model will allow us to continue to produce and export our nickel product, which is a critical mineral and has a lower carbon footprint than other suppliers,” Ravensthorpe nickel operation general manager Scott Whitehead said.
“The operational changes will ensure Ravensthorpe remains viable longer term and we will retain most of our residential and FIFO workforce, thereby supporting the communities of Hopetoun and Ravensthorpe and providing income for the region and Western Australia.
“It’s important we position ourselves to respond in a timely manner to future improvements in the nickel price by being able to reactivate our mining activities at the preferred time.”
FQM expects Ravensthorpe will produce approximately 16,000 contained tonnes of nickel per annum over the next three years.
Dewatering pump solutions company Sykes Group has announced the launch of the Skyes/Primax XH250.
The Skyes/Primax XH250 was developed with the requirements of the mining and quarry industries in mind, specifically to address challenges these industries face, including the need to reach greater depths and widths and the need for reliable dewatering solutions.
The Sykes XH250 steps in to address this challenge by delivering higher heads and flow rates. This ensures consistent equipment access to all areas of mining and quarry sites.
Key features of the Sykes XH250:
1.Versatile drive options: The XH250 is available in both diesel and electric drive configurations, and it can be mounted on skids, trailers, or pontoons.
2.Impressive performance: The XH250 is engineered to deliver 200L per second at 220m or 250L per second at 200m, ensuring reliable and efficient dewatering.
3.Innovative pump design: The pump’s design incorporates several key features to enhance its longevity and performance, including shaft stiffness ratios, multiple priming options, advanced bearing arrangements, and sealing solutions.
4.Front and rear wear plates: Sykes Pumps’ inclusion of wear plates offers the ability to make fine adjustments to the impeller-wear plate clearance, enabling customers to restore pump efficiency without the need for extensive overhauls.
5.Material pptions: The Sykes XH250 is available with various material options to suit specific applications, including 316 SS Impeller, wear plates, and SG iron Volute, among others.
“The Sykes XH250 is a testament to our commitment to providing efficient and reliable dewatering solutions for the mining and quarry industries,” Skyes Group said.
BHP has signed a deal with one of the world’s largest steelmakers for a major decarbonisation collaboration.
Together, BHP and China’s HBIS Group will trial direct reduced iron (DRI) production aimed at lowering blast furnace carbon emissions.
The companies will use BHP iron ores in blends at HBIS’s newly commissioned DRI plant and then evaluate the performance of the DRI in downstream steelmaking steps.
The DRI plant uses hydrogen-rich gas by-products in the steelworks to convert ore into a metallic iron product that is further refined for steel.
“HBIS Group is a key partner to BHP and an industry leader in assessing and demonstrating a range of potential pathways to reduce GHG in steelmaking,” BHP chief executive officer Mike Henry said.
“Our work with customers like HBIS Group, together with our own actions, aims to accelerate progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions right along the value chain.”
An enhanced lump second stage trial will commence focusing on the existing blast furnace steelmaking route.
This stage aims to reducing carbon emissions by increasing the use of direct-charge lump and reducing the need for agglomerated feed which requires fossil fuel energy.
As the latest collaboration agreement between BHP and HBIS, the project will tap into the investment of up to $US15 million over three years proposed by BHP and HBIS in an earlier memorandum of understanding signed in 2021.
“HBIS and BHP are aligned in their aims to help develop greener, low-carbon solutions that can reduce emissions in steelmaking, leveraging on our long-standing and trusted relationship that we have forged over several years,” HBIS chair Yu Yong said.
“The agreement signed today is another landmark following our substantive cooperation in areas such as CCUS, and highlights HBIS’s efforts to build a low-carbon raw material supply chain.”
Kayasand-manufactured sand uses up to 20 per cent less cement than natural sand to create concrete of the same strength.
Kayasand believes quarries are critical to the construction industry’s goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The United Nations warning of a global sand shortage was described by United Nations Environment Programme’s Pascal Peduzzi as the “elephant in the room” for the 21st century.
The world’s second most consumed material is used to make roads, bridges and houses. Given the world’s reliance on natural sand in concrete creation, the “elephant in the room” left many searching for sustainable alternatives.
Manufactured sand is often used as a substitute for natural sand in concrete, especially in areas where accessible natural sand sources are scarce or of poor quality. This is also true in countries where heavy government regulation limits companies mining natural sand for construction.
Manufactured sand used to be solely about repurposing surplus quarry materials, like crusher dust. It was often labelled unequal to natural sand in concrete production, especially in developed construction industries. However, it has come a long way since it first entered the market.
Kayasand believes with the innovative technology available today, it’s more consistent in quality and performance and can be precisely engineered for specific construction applications.
When processed well, this ‘engineered’ sand has many advantages over traditionally manufactured sands: precise shape, good particle size distribution, no contamination, and regular consistency. In fact, it produces stronger concrete than many natural sands with less cement.
Kayasand trials show that concrete made with Kayasand-manufactured sand uses up to 20 per cent less cement than natural sand to create concrete of the same strength.
While most countries support the future of manufactured sand, not all of them have embraced its potential. New Zealand Green Investment Finance delivered $3.5 million earlier this year to support Kayasand’s first V7 high-technology manufacturing demonstration plant in the Waikato region of New Zealand.
Global bodies, including the United Nations, have warned about the shortage of natural sand and the need to reduce carbon emissions, so manufactured sand is set to become an increasingly critical construction material.
A United Nations Environment Programme report suggests that 50 billion tons of sand and gravel are used yearly. This makes it the second most used resource after water.
In an interview with Quarry, Kayasand’s national sales manager, Frank Grech, said the opportunity for quarries selling manufactured sand is better than ever.
Kayasand-manufactured sand uses up to 20 per cent less cement than natural sand to create concrete of the same strength.
The process
Innovative technology, like Kayasand’s Kemco quad-deck air screens and V7 sand plants, makes the process dust-free, low-noise and uses no water for washing. This means quarries no longer need sediment ponds or water tailings and there are no hidden costs for water management.
Kayasand’s unique design combines the accuracy of mesh screens with the high throughput of air classification system. Their equipment specialises in screening materials that have high fines content. The fully enclosed nature of the V7 plant limits dust exposure, while its negative pressure from the built-in dust extractor keeps dust contained and away from operators.
Waste glass can be recycled into concrete sand. Cement substitutes can be created from limestone filler and waste slag using Kayasand’s V7 plant.
Grech says this versatility allows quarries to reduce their environmental impact while increasing revenue opportunities and enabling a circular economy
Researchers are exploring ways to enhance the properties of manufactured sand for use in sustainable concrete mixes.
By incorporating manufactured sand in innovative concrete formulations (such as carbon-sequestering concrete or high-performance, sustainable concrete), the construction industry can reduce its carbon footprint per unit of construction material.
Grech said engineering sand to have highly consistent properties, allows for more precise and optimised concrete mix designs.
This can lead to reduced material wastage during construction, which, in turn, facilitates a project’s overall carbon footprint.
ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS
Using manufactured sand enables the construction industry to minimise waste generation and maximise resource utilisation to align with sustainable development principles and carbon reduction reporting requirements.
It helps to conserve natural resources by reducing the riverbed and coastal sand demand. Preserving these ecosystems can help mitigate carbon emissions associated with habitat destruction.
Manufactured sand produced in quarries is often closer to construction sites, reducing the need for long-distance transportation. Producing sand locally allows quarries to help reduce transportation emissions.
Grech said transporting natural sand over significant distances can result in higher emissions due to fuel consumption.
Given this and companies are trying to
find ways to lower costs, it makes sense to
embrace sustainable materials, like high
quality, ‘engineered’ sand, and move
towards a circular economy.
Peduzzi, who coordinated the United Nations Environment Programme’s report on the sand shortage, has supported the push for such an economy.
“If we can get a grip on how to manage the most extracted solid material in the world, we can avert a crisis and move toward a circular economy,” he said.
“To achieve sustainable development, we need to drastically change the way we produce, build and consume products, infrastructures and service.”
The environmental benefits, lower carbon footprint, repeatable design quality, and circular economic potential make manufactured sand a viable and scalable solution.
By embracing manufactured sand, the construction industry across the value chain can build a more sustainable future.
As the construction industry sets its sights on achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, quarries that sell quality manufactured sand are essential to the vision. •
Newcrest Mining disappears from the ASX, having been officially swallowed-up by gold giant Newmont.
The takeover creates a veritable gold behemoth in control of over half of the world’s Tier-1 gold assets. The enlarged Newmont, which sees foreign ownership of Australian gold assets rise above 50 per cent, will oversee 10 “large, long-life, low-cost Tier-1” operations across the world.
Newmont already owned the Boddington and Tanami gold operations in Australia and will now add Cadia and Telfer to the fold. This puts Newmont in control of four out of six of Australia’s largest gold mines.
Other additions include the Brucejack and Red Chris operations in Canada, which are located nearby Newmont’s Saddle North project. Newmont president and chief executive officer Tom Palmer called this combination of gold assets a “golden triangle”.
The Lihir operation in Papua New Guinea will also fall under Newmont’s control.
Newmont expects to generate pre-tax synergies of $500 million, and at least $2 billion in cash improvements, in the first two years after closing the deal as it optimises its portfolio of assets.
“Today marks a historic milestone in our company and the industry with the successful completion of this transformational acquisition of Newcrest by Newmont,” Palmer said.
“Our attention now turns to safely, efficiently, and responsibly integrating Newcrest’s assets and people into Newmont’s proven operating model, so we can accelerate the delivery of our value-focused strategy for all our stakeholders.”
Newcrest Mining disappears from the ASX, having been officially swallowed-up by gold giant Newmont.
The takeover creates a veritable gold behemoth in control of over half of the world’s Tier-1 gold assets. The enlarged Newmont, which sees foreign ownership of Australian gold assets rise above 50 per cent, will oversee 10 “large, long-life, low-cost Tier-1” operations across the world.
Newmont already owned the Boddington and Tanami gold operations in Australia and will now add Cadia and Telfer to the fold. This puts Newmont in control of four out of six of Australia’s largest gold mines.
Other additions include the Brucejack and Red Chris operations in Canada, which are located nearby Newmont’s Saddle North project. Newmont president and chief executive officer Tom Palmer called this combination of gold assets a “golden triangle”.
The Lihir operation in Papua New Guinea will also fall under Newmont’s control.
Newmont expects to generate pre-tax synergies of $500 million, and at least $2 billion in cash improvements, in the first two years after closing the deal as it optimises its portfolio of assets.
“Today marks a historic milestone in our company and the industry with the successful completion of this transformational acquisition of Newcrest by Newmont,” Palmer said.
“Our attention now turns to safely, efficiently, and responsibly integrating Newcrest’s assets and people into Newmont’s proven operating model, so we can accelerate the delivery of our value-focused strategy for all our stakeholders.”
Charles Pratt is the new CEO of Kinder Australia. Picture: Kinder Australia
Kinder Australia has announced a major step for the company by unveiling a new chief executive officer.
The Australian company has appointed long-time employee Charles Pratt to take the top job after starting his journey with Kinder more than two decades ago.
Kinder Australia founders Neil and Christine Kinder have transitioned into managerial roles on the company’s advisory board. Neil will maintain his role as a managing director.
In a statement, Kinder welcomed the promotion of Pratt as the company prepares to celebrate its 39th anniversary in the bulk handling industry next year.
“Charles Pratt is characterised by his unwavering diligence and diplomatic approach to achieve the best possible outcomes and practical solutions,” they said.
“He encourages a culture of inclusiveness and upskilling – qualities that have played a pivotal role in his rapid rise within the company.
“His hands-on experience and profound understanding of heavy process industries make him a remarkable problem solver, not only for Kinder but also for the company’s valued customers.
“Charles has an uncanny ability to dive deep and uncover issues, often identifying challenges that even the most discerning customer might overlook.”
Pratt previously served Kinder as the operations manager and is remaining as a company shareholder.
With its next generation of ground-engaging tools, supported by intelligent digital offerings, Bradken is driving the future of surface mining.
Bradken has evolved over the past 100 years to become a leading wear solutions provider to the global mining and resources market, delivering ground-engaging tools (GET), bucket and undercarriage solutions that equip customers to achieve their production objectives.
The company’s range includes mining buckets for excavators, face shovels and front-end loaders. Its buckets have long been known for their proven quality, reliability and performance.
The cast beam bucket, the latest in Bradken’s bucket range, takes that proven history of success and dials it up to 11.
“Buckets are traditionally fabricated and that inherently means you have structural welds in areas that are highly stressed and fatigue prone – particularly around the upper structure or beam of the bucket,” Bradken head of product and marketing, Simon Burgoyne, told Australian Mining.
“This results in a lot of bucket maintenance cost and asset downtime.
“We have leveraged our foundry expertise to design a new bucket that converts the entire beam into a casting. The cast structure gave us the freedom to design smoother and more organic transitions, placing steel where it’s needed to reduce stress throughout the beam. Importantly, the design eliminates welds from fatigue-prone areas and that, along with Bradken’s proprietary alloy, has produced a structure with significantly longer fatigue life that is more durable and reliable.”
Bradken is delivering an optimised future.
The result is a bucket that delivers a stronger, safer, and more productive solution than a fabricated counterpart.
“We’re projecting that the cast beam will last up to 2.5 times longer than a fabricated bucket,” Burgoyne said. “This gives the customer a reliable asset, less downtime repairing buckets, and better productivity as the shape of the bucket has been optimised for dig efficiency.”
The Zenith plate lip GET system is also new to Bradken’s range. Engineered to minimise dig energy and extend the wear life of its points, the Zenith design is reliable and intuitive to use.
“Zenith is a next-generation plate lip GET system from Bradken and has been engineered to suit excavators from 100-tonne up to the 250-tonne class,” Burgoyne said.
The Zenith plate lips currently come in standard, long and heavy-duty options, to suit all application requirements.
Beyond efficiency, Zenith is designed to keep workers safe.
“Once GET has been used for a long time, it can become fused to the bucket and requires tools like sledgehammers and oxy torches to remove it,” Burgoyne said.
“This exposes operators to all sorts of hazards, including burns, hammer strikes and dangerous metal shards.
“The industry has been trying to move away from using hammers with GET for a while now. A lot of vendors have been able to introduce locking systems that don’t require hammers to remove points, but very few have been able to produce a truly hammer-free GET system like Zenith.
“Zenith has been designed so that it doesn’t require a hammer on the lock or in the removal of any part from the lip. It stays on when you want it to stay on, and it’s easily removed when you want to take it off.”
In support of these innovations and building on its longstanding digital product, SmartLiner, used in fixed plant for asset management and condition monitoring, Bradken is further expanding its digital offerings to include a range of solutions that enable customers to get the most out of their GET.
Bradken’s GETVision solution provides a remote monitoring system that detects GET on mining buckets and alerts operators if they become lost, delivering an operational benefit that reduces downtime and costs related to delayed production.
“Through the use of a vision system and object detection algorithms, GETVision detects the loss of GET on a machine, which can be quite disruptive to production were it to fall into plant equipment,” Bradken principal product manager, digital, Tim Radbone told Australian Mining. “It’s a huge problem when an uncrushable bit of steel falls off and gets stuck inside a crusher, for example.”
GETVision alerts operators in the event of GET loss, helping mine sites avoid catastrophic and expensive disruptions.
Bradken Inspect is another digital tool the company has developed.
Bradken Inspect is a mobile app allowing operators to digitally capture wear-life data for GET, helping to efficiently coordinate change-out timing for maintenance scheduling and monitor wear trends for forecasting maintenance programs.
“GET wear-life data has historically been captured on paper which is easily lost and difficult to collate for any useful analysis or insights,” Radbone said.
“Bradken Inspect allows workers to capture that information digitally to provide sites with a more detailed level of understanding of their GET usage.”
Bradken Inspect can be used both online and offline to capture information and supply detailed reports. Report outcomes allow the operations to determine wear metrics relevant to conditions and maintenance requirements.
“Whether a site’s GET is lasting three months or they’re chewing through parts on a daily basis, Bradken Inspect can help customers understand GET wear rates and performance across their fleet,” Radbone said.
The latest additions to Bradken’s range of GET, along with the supporting digital tools, are helping to make operations more predictable, safer and efficient. From its traditional manufacturing origins to today’s mining solutions brand, Bradken is constantly pushing the envelope when it comes to surface mining technology.
Atlas Copco has launched a next-generation electric submersible dewatering pump, the WEDA D95, incorporating state-of-the-art Wear Deflector technology.
The robust and reliable pump delivers a best-in-class performance over a longer lifetime than comparable pumps in heavily abrasive environments such as mining, tunnelling and construction, and enables operators to improve their sustainability and productivity.
WEDA D95 has a power rating of 37–43 kilowatts (kW) and is the latest pump in the WEDA D drainage range to feature the innovative Wear Deflector technology designed to minimise wear and provide consistent performance over a longer operating life.
Features such as a high chrome wear resistant impeller combined with solid-redirecting auxiliary vanes contribute towards its performance. The pump also features re-adjustable hydraulics which allow the pump to be simply realigned to compensate for any wear, thus prolonging its life.
All these elements have a significant positive impact on the overall operational productivity, meaning users can achieve a lower total cost of ownership.
“There are often many suspended solids in harsh applications which can cause excessive abrasion and wear to the internal workings of the pump,” Atlas Copco Power and Flow product marketing manager – submersible pumps Bart Duijvelaar said.
“At Atlas Copco, we are driven by innovation, and so we have taken the fundamental design of the drainage pump back to the drawing board. We have optimised the hydraulic design using computational fluid dynamics and applied 21st century manufacturing techniques combined with decades of experience to produce this new long-lasting and reliable pump.”
The pump has also been built with maintenance and serviceability front of mind. Thanks to the clever design, users can also carry out inspection and maintenance on site themselves and reduce downtime and associated costs. For example, the mechanical seal is a unique stainless-steel single cartridge, rather than many separate components, and so it is easy to replace in one piece.
For Atlas Copco Power and Flow achieving a more sustainable future is crucial. Therefore, facilitating the repairability of its pumps has been at the forefront of the design to ensure less time-consuming maintenance and best-in-class service support. It gives a second life to these pumps with increased uptime.
WEDA D95 also features external oil inspection screws. Operators can easily access the screws to check the quality of the oil and the health status of the seal without having to dismantle the whole pump. This makes preventive maintenance easy so users can detect problems before they lead to failure.
Overall, with the ease of service, it is possible to readjust the pump to the original performance without changing many parts. The pump’s repairability prolongs the life of the pump, giving it a second life and contributing towards a more sustainable future.
Additionally, the pumps in the D range are available with various accessories including different types of discharge connections, pump rafts and zinc anodes to provide extra corrosion resistance.
The new WEDA D95 pumps are backed by Atlas Copco’s service team and supported by a wide network of local dealers and technicians worldwide with readily available parts to help users keep their operations up and running to improve productivity.
With state-of-the-art manufacturing and 3D modelling tools, Atlas Copco is addressing product performance and technical challenges at the design stage. The WEDA D95 submersible pump is the latest example of a well-crafted and thoughtfully designed pump range, with more models expected in the company’s portfolio in the coming years.
Keramos is located in Port Kennedy, Western Australia in the heart of the Western Australian mining industry. We have customers throughout all states of Australia and supply throughout the world to countries including New Zealand, Laos, Dominican Republic, Solomon Islands, Senegal, South Africa, Mali, Tanzania and Ghana.
Keramos acquires C-Tech Engineering, a metal fabrication business located in the industrial hub of Canning Vale, Western Australia. C-Tech will be fully integrated into Keramos, and we are excited to welcome the experience and expertise of the C-Tech team to Keramos.
Read about Keramos silicon carbide ceramic cyclone overflow pipes and how we can extend the wear life and increase the reliability of pipes in slurry wear applications.
As the ink dries on Whitehaven Coal’s $US4.1 billion ($6.5 billion) acquisition of two of BHP’s Queensland coal assets, movement on the ASX shows that stakeholders are mulling over the broader significance of the deal.
Following the announcement of the deal on Wednesday, Whitehaven opened on the ASX with a bang at $7.79 per share (up from $6.69 on Tuesday), its highest share price since the coal boom at the beginning of the year.
The purchase of BHP’s Daunia and Blackwater coal mines comes with a price tag of $US2.1 billion in cash up front, $US1.1 billion in cash over three years after completion and the potential for up to $US0.9 billion in a price-linked earnout payable over three years. This comprises a total sale price of around $6.48 billion, with completion of the deal expected in the June 2024 quarter.
Whitehaven chief executive officer and managing director Paul Flynn called the acquisition of the two metallurgical coal assets ‘transformative’ for the company.
Metallurgical and thermal coal differ in quality and carbon content. Thermal coal is traditionally burned to generate electricity, but as Australia and the world transition to cleaner energy, thermal coal is heavily regulated and arguably falling from relevance. Metallurgical coal, on the other hand, is a higher quality coal used in steelmaking with strong global demand.
The deal will mean 70 per cent of Whitehaven’s coal production will be metallurgical, giving the miner some much needed longevity in the heavily regulated realm of coal mining.
“Daunia and Blackwater produce metallurgical coal that is in high demand across Asia… where population growth and economic development is expected to drive strong demand for steel production and metallurgical coal through to at least 2050,” Flynn said.
The two mines also expand Whitehaven’s coal assets outside of NSW, where the company currently operates four mines in the Gunnedah Basin.
But BHP seems to feel differently when it comes to the longevity of Daunia and Blackwater – at least under its own capital investment model. The mining giant first flagged the two Queensland mines for sale so it could focus on producing higher quality metallurgical coal, a move it views as more sustainable.
“A key route for steelmakers to be able to reduce their carbon intensity will be through more efficient blast furnace operations. That requires the highest of quality coking (metallurgical) coal. And that’s what we have in assets like Peak Downs, Goonyella, Saraji and Broadmedow,” BHP said.
“And so those assets we see as having both sides through the energy transition. What we’re doing here is further concentrating our portfolio on the best of the best assets.”
