A guide to leading practice sustainable development in mining

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During this stage of a mine’s life cycle, activity on site is often at a peak.. The skills required in both management and labour can be significantly different to that required once the mine is producing. The project management team during construction and development is focused on achieving, often under high pressure, budgetary and infrastructure completion goals. Their focus isn’t always on sustainability aspects. Moreover, the project team often has a handover to a new team once their role is finished. This in itself can present challenges. It is during the development and construction phase of a mine’s life that many of the decisions are made for the long-term, influencing and impacting on the sustainability of the mine. This chapter provides guidance in managing the sustainability aspects during this critical, pre-production phase The Business Case for Sustainability in Development and Construction The purpose of this book and the earlier handbooks is to highlight leading practice. However it can be argued that the most valuable lessons are learned from the mistakes of the past. The Mt Todd mine in the Northern Territory provides one such example. The case study is included here to highlight the wide breadth of sustainability issues and the need for management to be aware of all these issues. Due to a multiplicity of reasons, the mine with an expected life of around 15 years closed after a year resulting in: the company Pegasus Gold losing its investment of around US$350 million in this project and filing for bankruptcy protection in the USA a large rehabilitation bill of tens of millions of dollars which was funded by the taxpayer significant environmental damage including heavy metal pollution poor community relations with the local Indigenous and business community loss of numerous jobs Clearly and with the benefit of hindsight, there was a strong business case for not opening the mine. A GUIDE TO LEADING PRACTICE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN MINING 63
MINE: Mt Todd LOCATION: Near Katherine, Northern Territory, Australia BRIEF DESCRIPTION: Open pit gold mine AREA OF LEADING PRACTICE: Acid Rock Drainage; Waste rock dump; TSF; Biodiversity; Resource efficiency; Mine closure HANDBOOK(S) REFERENCE: Acid Mine Drainage; Mine Rehabilitation; Mine Closure DESCRIPTION OF OPERATION: Resource utilisation/efficiency: This is a classic case of what can go wrong technically did go wrong. The resource was not utilised optimally. Head grade Metallurgy – harder ore than expected; flotation problems; OHS – dust hazard A summary of the technical statistics is provided below (Rudenno, 1999) MT TODD GOLD PROJECT, NORTHERN TERRITORY Owner, Pegasus Gold Inc. Close down, November, 1997 Write offs Acquisition costs US$ 122.6 million Deferred preproduction and development costs US$ 49.4 million Property and equipment US$ 181.3 million Total write off. US$ 353.5 million TECHNICAL DATA FORECAST ACTUAL CHANGE Reserves 94.5Mt - - Reserves grade 1.07g/tAu 0.96g/tAu -10% Met. Recovery 84% 74% -12% Tonnes/year 8Mt 6.7Mt -16% Crushing costs $1.36/t $2.49/t +83% Contract mining $1.00/t $1.15/t +15% Power costs $0.058/kwh $0.075/kwh +29% Cyanide usage 0.68kg/t 0.86kg/t +26% Total cash costs 11.86/t $13.58/t +15% Tonnes ore/oz. Au recov. 34.6 43.8 +27% Exchange rate A$1.00=US$ 0.7 0.74 +6% Cash costs/oz Au recov. US$287 US$440 +53% Gold price/oz US$385 US$315 -18% 64 LEADING PRACTICE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM FOR THE MINING INDUSTRY
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LEADING PRACTICE SUSTAINABLE DEVELO
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Disclaimer This publication has bee
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3.0 DEVELOPMENT AND CONSTRUCTION 61
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Leading Practi
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viii LEADING PRACTICE SUSTAINABLE D
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1.0 INTRODUCTION The Purpose and La
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Airborne Contaminants, Noise and Vi
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Water Management (LP Water) This ha
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Site water team Corporate managemen
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Sustainable Mining There is no one
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Mining the resource efficiently. Th
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Page 26 and 27: LOCATION: Vilabouly District, Savan
Page 28 and 29: Leading Practice The handbooks in t
Page 30 and 31: 2.0 PRE-DEVELOPMENT: MINERAL EXPLOR
Page 32 and 33: The application of high standard en
Page 34 and 35: The Business Case for Sustainabilit
Page 36 and 37: The information obtained from these
Page 38 and 39: conditions are appropriate. In NSW,
Page 40 and 41: Such richness also brings challenge
Page 42 and 43: The dunefields of Shelburne Bay had
Page 44 and 45: Community Engagement in the Early S
Page 46 and 47: Baseline studies and social impact
Page 48 and 49: Upon completion of the study, resea
Page 50 and 51: The scenarios envisaged for the Wat
Page 52 and 53: 2. Reflections on the significance
Page 54 and 55: Engaging with Indigenous communitie
Page 56 and 57: Figure 2.9 - A New Township under C
Page 58 and 59: Geochemical assessment aims to iden
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Page 62 and 63: Evaluating Performance: Monitoring
Page 64 and 65: For these reasons, it is important
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Page 68 and 69: Post-mining & closure Resource deve
Page 70: level of family diversity was maint
Page 73: Introduction The development and co
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Page 79 and 80: Biodiversity Management During Deve
Page 81 and 82: Rather than taking a generic approa
Page 83 and 84: Step 2: Working in collaboration On
Page 85 and 86: course was designed to train and pr
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Page 89 and 90: indicators of high importance durin
Page 91 and 92: Operating major mining projects pre
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Page 95 and 96: Watercourse diversions In order to
Page 97 and 98: Figure 3.7 - Morwell River after di
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Page 121 and 122: Figure 4.9 - Geological control to
Page 123 and 124: highest rating group for the whole
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Figure 4.13 - Beverley uranium mine
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from 2.5 - 3.0 tonnes/man-shift to
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Figure 4.17 - Sunrise Dam TSF Taili
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Dry stacking bauxite residue is now
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Once the water is used underground
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The Rio Tinto “Excellence in Wate
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Background Image: Sourced from GOOG
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Company policies and government reg
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5.0 MINE REHABILITATION AND CLOSURE
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Closure involves the implementation
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Biodiversity and Closure Introducti
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e better than the high standard bei
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Figure 5.7 - Pasture and shelter tr
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The Argyle Diamonds case study (see
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support and on site accommodation a
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Having the right information to mak
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Figure 5.13 - Misima after rehabili
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In January 2011, the PNG government
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MINE: Former lignite mines LOCATION
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Fig 5.16: Former Minister Stein Coa
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Figure 5.19 - Rehabilitated mine si
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Figure 5.21 - Pit water treatment p
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Final Rehabilitation Rehabilitation
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Figure 5.23: Aerial view of Area 4
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Landform construction In general, e
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The Hsin-Chen Shan quarry terrain i
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Figure 5.29 - Spreading topsoil at
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Risk Management Risk at closure and
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During the 1980s and 1990s, a numbe
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An example of direct vegetation is
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Water Management Central to a mine
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Department of Resources, Energy and
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GLOSSARY AND ACRONYMS Abandoned min
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Biodiversity offsets Conservation a
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Cultural heritage Cultural heritage
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Engagement At its simplest, engagem
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High rate thickener A thickener thr
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NAPP Net Acid Producing Potential,
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Product stewardship This is perhaps
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Risk management process The risk ma
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Sustainable development Sustainable
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A guide to leading practice sustainable development in mining

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