Sustainable Practices
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 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.
In a sector where “take-or-pay” contracts have long dictated how miners move their commodities, one new entrant is promising a more flexible model that puts the needs of producers first.
For an industry under mounting scrutiny and regulatory oversight, there is perhaps no role more critical - or misunderstood - than that of the Engineer of Record (EoR).
If you think tailings facility monitoring is just about choosing between drones, LiDAR, or satellites, think again – the real power lies in combining them.
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.
In an era where emerging technologies promise to transform mining operations, from AI-driven optimisation to fully automated systems, the real challenge is not finding the next breakthrough.
In a world-first approach that sounds more like science fiction than geoscience, Ideon Technologies is leading a charge to reduce geological guesswork in mineral exploration using cosmic rays generated by exploding stars.
GV Price, senior staff consultant with KCB Australia, has spent a career helping mines grapple with the nuances of geotechnical standards.
In a mining landscape increasingly defined by lower ore grades, ESG scrutiny, and complex feedstocks, recovery performance has never been more critical.
