Social licence to operate and the coal seam gas industry : lessons from social issues in established mining operations?

The recent growth of the coal seam gas industry has increased pressure on regional communities. Debate surrounding the industry is intense and a social licence to operate has yet to be granted to the industry in its entirety. This article presents an analysis of social issues surrounding the coal seam gas industry, making comparisons between two case studies: the Ranger and Jabiluka mines and the Yandicoogina mine. It presents the results of a desktop study, focussed on three topics: community identity; procedural justice and distributive justice, which provides a means for comparison and draws attention to central concerns. It is found that: power imbalances; changing community identities; potentially inequitable distributions of long term benefits and the process to distribute those benefits and negative perceptions of the industry as a whole serve to undermine the provision of a social licence to operate by communities and has the potential to impose significant negative impacts on companies within the industry.

Investigating the potential of thecamoebians (testate amoebae) as bio-indicators of impact of oil sands mining operations on freshwater environments in Northeastern Alberta, Canada

Thecamoebian (testate amoeba) species diversity and assemblages in reclamation wetlands and lakes in northeastern Alberta respond to chemical and physical parameters associated with oil sands extraction. Ecosystems more impacted by OSPM (oil sands process-affected material) contain sparse, low-diversity populations dominated by centropyxid taxa and Arcella vulgaris. More abundant and diverse thecamoebian populations rich in difflugiid species characterize environments with lower OSPM concentrations. These shelled protists respond quickly to environmental change, allowing year-to-year variations in OSPM impact to be recorded. Their fossil record thus provides corporations with interests in the Athabasca Oil Sands with a potential means of measuring the progression of highlyimpacted aquatic environments to more natural wetlands. Development of this metric required investigation of controls on their fossil assemblage (e.g. seasonal variability, fossilization potential) and their biogeographic distribution, not only in the constructed lakes and wetlands on the oil sands leases, but also in natural environments across Alberta.

Complex simulation of stockyard mining operations

Conflicts between resources in stockyards cause mining companies millions of dollars a year. An effective planning strategy needs to be established in order to reduce these operational conflicts. In this research a stockyard simulation model of a mining operation is proposed. The simulation uses discrete event and continuous strategies to create a high detail level of visualization and animation that closely resemble actual stockyard operation. The proposed simulation model is tightly integrated with a stockpile planner and it is used to evaluate the feasibility of a given production plan. The high detail visualization of the simulation model allows planner to determine the source of conflict, which can be used to guide the elimination of these conflicts.

Environmental solutions of recovery of Amazonian forest mining operations

In order for the projects of recovery of degraded areas to be successful, it is necessary to have a perfect recovery of the soil where the revegetation will be implanted as an initial action in the recovery of the whole process. The use of native forest species fully adapted to these types of terrain is another aspect of great importance, once the non-selection of these species, even if abundant in the surrounding areas, as it is in our case, implies great mortality of individuals during the planting and their low fixation during the process. The establishment of a monitoring program that contemplates the advancements obtained in the soil, the vegetation and the return of wild animals also collaborate in the evaluation of the success of the process. And, finally, the effective participation of the mining company, accepting and applying the techniques tested and indicated by research, even if, initially, the return time is longer than expected, also guarantees the success of the process. The mining company not only implemented a partnership with important universities in Brazil to obtain solutions for the environmental problems but also applied the developed techniques and the monitoring program. In the present work, we have attempted to summarize important aspects to evaluate the advancements in the rehabilitation plan for those areas, being here presented some results of the monitoring of areas under different levels of recovery, in accordance with the techniques adopted. Biological parameters of the soil were used to verify the efficiency of these different techniques in the recovery process. This work is part of the monitoring program of areas in rehabilitation by the mining company, implemented as of 1999 and in partnership with universities. The microbial activity was determined through the quantification of the carbon and nitrogen microbial biomass (BMC and BMN) and the activity of the dehydrogenase evaluated in the mining floor and tailing areas in different levels of soil preparation and planting of native species. The analysis of the parameters studied revealed that the preparation of the soil, following the three years proposed by the methodology, was important for the success in establishing the rehabilitation process. Some of the areas analyzed already show some parameters with values close or superior to those found in the capoeira (secondary forest), the latter being the non-treated area. © 2010 WIT Press.

Efficient management of available technologies. Aplication to mining operations for industry supplies

Nowadays, processing Industry Sector is going through a series of changes, including right management and reduction of environmental affections. Any productive process which looks for sustainable management is incomplete if Cycle of Life of mineral resources sustainability is not taken into account. Raw materials for manufacturing are provided by mineral resources extraction processes, such as copper, aluminum, iron, gold, silver, silicon, titanium? Those elements are necessary for Mankind development and are obtained from the Earth through mineral extractive processes. Mineral extraction processes are operations which must take care about the environmental consequences. Extraction of huge volumes of rock for their transformation into raw materials for industry must be optimized to reduce ecological cost of the final product as l was possible. Reducing the ecological balance on a global scale has no sense to design an efficient manufacturing in secondary industry (transformation), if in first steps of the supply chain (extraction) impact exceeds the savings of resources in successive phases. Mining operations size suggests that it is an environmental aggressive activity, but precisely because of its great impact must be the first element to be considered. That idea implies that a new concept born: Reduce economical and environmental cost This work aims to make a reflection on the parameters that can be modified to reduce the energy cost of the process without an increasing in operational costs and always ensuring the same production capacity. That means minimize economic and environmental cost at same time. An efficient design of mining operation which has taken into account that idea does not implies an increasing of the operating cost. To get this objective is necessary to think in global operation view to make that all departments involved have common guidelines which make you think in the optimization of global energy costs. Sometimes a single operational cost must be increased to reduce global cost. This work makes a review through different design parameters of surface mining setting some key performance indicators (KPIs) which are estimated from an efficient point of view. Those KPIs can be included by HQE Policies as global indicators. The new concept developed is that a new criteria has to be applied in company policies: improve management, improving OPERATIONAL efficiency. That means, that is better to use current resources properly (machinery, equipment,?) than to replace them with new things but not used correctly. As a conclusion, through an efficient management of current technologies in each extractive operation an important reduction of the energy can be achieved looking at downstream in the process. That implies a lower energetic cost in the whole cycle of life in manufactured product.

Structural survey of private mining operations.

Project Sedan.

The states and territories of the great West : including Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minesota [sic], Kansas and Nebraska ; their geography, history, resources ... comprising their local history, institutions, and laws ; giving a table of distances, and the most direct routes ... also, pointing out the best districts for agricultural, commercial, lumbering, and mining operations /

Mode of access: Internet.

A short review of mining operations.

Mode of access: Internet.

A Review of mining operations in the state of South Australia during the half year ended .

Title varies slightly.

Female employees nonfatal days lost, injuries at coal and metal/nonmetal mining operations, 1996-2000 /

Shipping list no.: 2002-0451-M.

Regulation of surface mining operations. Hearings, Ninety-third Congress, first session, on S. 425 ... [and] S. 923 ..

Hearings held Mar. 13-16, 1973

On the Dynamics of Mining Operations in Open Pit Mines

In this paper, mining dynamics is defined as the relationship between the mining rate and movement of mining operations conducted on the benches of a surface mine. This relationship describes the intensity of the pit development in space, in order to meet ore demand at the mill over time. Meeting the mill ore demand is a key factor in optimizing production scheduling in surface mines. Displacement velocity of mining operations within cutbacks, or independent pit units, is introduced in the context of long-term mine planning. Displacement velocity allows the place and time of transition of the mining operations from one independent pit unit to another to be determined as the condition for meeting the mill ore demand. An application using data from Mt Keith Nickel Operations in Western Australia is used to elaborate on the methods presented.

Dragline automation - a decade of development : shared autonomy for improving mining equipment productivity

Draglines are massive machines commonly used in surface mining to strip overburden, revealing the targeted minerals for extraction. Automating some or all of the phases of operation of these machines offers the potential for significant productivity and maintenance benefits. The mining industry has a history of slow uptake of automation systems due to the challenges contained in the harsh, complex, three-dimensional (3D), dynamically changing mine operating environment. Robotics as a discipline is finally starting to gain acceptance as a technology with the potential to assist mining operations. This article examines the evolution of robotic technologies applied to draglines in the form of machine embedded intelligent systems. Results from this work include a production trial in which 250,000 tons of material was moved autonomously, experiments demonstrating steps towards full autonomy, and teleexcavation experiments in which a dragline in Australia was tasked by an operator in the United States.