Mine Closure Planning
What if the key to slashing tailings closure costs and winning community trust is to start the work decades before the mine shuts down?
For Justin Walls, Principal Consultant (Tailings Engineering) at SRK Consulting, the best time to plan for tailings storage facility (TSF) closure is now – not when the mine is about to shut down.
When John Stacpoole, inspector of mines at the NSW Resources Regulator, took the stage at the Life of Mine | Mine Waste and Tailings 2025 Conference in Brisbane, he didn’t waste time on pleasantries.
When most miners think about tailings, they think about storage, risk management, and rehabilitation, but at the Life of Mine | Mine Waste and Tailings Conference 2025 in Brisbane, Clem Cahill, technical director - tailings at GHD, showed how the Kara Mine flipped that thinking on its head - turning its own waste stream into a high-performance construction material.
Tailings monitoring is a lot like health care - when it’s reactive, it can cost you dearly, but when it’s proactive, structured and consistent, it becomes a powerful tool for preventing failure, demonstrating stewardship, and building long-term confidence in your facility.
When it comes to tailings management, the mining industry is no stranger to technical standards, risk registers, or operational frameworks.
In one of Australia’s wettest mining regions, a carefully engineered soil cover has proven it can keep both water and oxygen out of acid-forming waste rock - even under two metres of rain a year.
When BHP needed a new Engineer of Record for one of Australia’s most complex tailings sites, the Olympic Dam handover became a masterclass in how to get it right.
From the outside, the conversation around digital mining often gets framed in broad terms - automation, Information of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) but for those working underground or in control rooms, the real question is more practical: how do these tools actually solve the daily challenges?
For Stewart Johnston, Account Manager - Mine Electrification and Automation at ABB Australia, the key lies in making information usable, timely, and connected across the mining value chain.
GV Price, senior staff consultant with KCB Australia, has spent a career helping mines grapple with the nuances of geotechnical standards.
As the mining industry edges closer to a tipping point on tailings management, a panel of global experts at the 2025 Life of Mine | Mine Waste and Tailings Conference in Brisbane issued a clear message: discipline in operations, humility in design, and a more adaptive mindset will be critical to preventing the next tailings disaster.
