Miners have always faced the challenge of how best to safely and sustainably manage the vast amounts of uneconomic material left over from the mining process, known as tailings. A new global standard charts a path for the industry to further improve its management practices.

In this podcast, Emerson’s Steve Brewer joins me to discuss some of the challenges in adopting the new standard and the role of valve technology in managing tailings successfully.

Give the podcast a listen and be sure to visit the application pages on Emerson.com for tailings pipeline & spigot isolation and tailings pump isolation. Here, you will find more information on the solutions engineered specifically to support more sustainable tailings management.

Transcript
Jim: Hi, everyone. I'm Jim Cahill with another Emerson Automation Experts podcast. Today, we'll be discussing tailings in mining operations. What they are, what miners' challenges are in dealing with them, and what are some ways these challenges are being solved.

I'm joined today by Steve Brewer to discuss all these topics and more.

Welcome to the podcast, Steve.

Steve: Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Thanks for hosting.

Jim: Well, we're glad to have you here today to get a lot smarter about tailings. So, let's begin by asking you to introduce yourself and share some of your background with our listeners.

Steve: Okay. Right. Well, my name's Steve Brewer, and I'm a business development manager for Emerson. I cover North American mining. So, I've been working with the mining industry for 25 years, and specifically with the Clarkson slurry gate valves and knife gate valve products. I’ve been involved in a variety of roles, regional product sales manager, export sales manager, and, like I said, now business development for North American mining.

Jim: Well, that's great background for our discussion. Let's start. Can you give us a brief overview of what tailings are and their role in the mining process?

Steve: Sure. So, tailings are basically a byproduct, or a waste material generated by the mining processes. So, simple way that this would work, miners extract ore from the ground, and they provide that ore to the mill. The mill goes through the processes of extracting the metals or minerals that they want, and everything left over is waste product, or tailings. And that tailings has to be moved or transported from the mill to a tailings storage facility.

The vast majority of the ore going into the mill will end up as waste material. So, for example, a typical copper mine might have a 1% recovery rate, meaning that they're recovering 1% copper, and 99% of the material that entered the mill will end up in the tailings storage facility.

Jim: Well, that sounds like the majority of everything is this tailings in there. So, why is the management of tailings so critical to both the productivity and sustainability of a mine?

Steve: Right. So, again, you have so much of the material going into the mill that ends up as waste product. If you don't have a way to dispose of the waste, or if you can't move the waste from the mill, production stops. So, that's the first part.

I mean, you have to be able to get rid of the waste material to continue production. Environmentally sound and cost-effective disposal of the waste material is just critical to the operations.