Agenda

Day One | Tuesday 24 February 2009

DAY ONE | DAY TWO

8.30 Registration and Morning Coffee

9.00 Welcome from IIR Conferences

9.10 Opening Remarks from the Chair

WATER BALANCE AND RECOVERY

9.00 CASE STUDY: Cadia Valley Operations
Central Western New South Wales is drought prone and on-site water storages at Cadia Hill and Ridgeway are closely managed

Optimising Water Recovery from Tailings Dams

• Reducing evaporation from tails dams
• Decant management
• Dealing with drought conditions on site
• Maximising water recovery from dams
• Dealing with stringent environmental conditions

Joel Fossilo, Concentrator Operations Coordinator, Newcrest Mining

9.40 Water Balance as a Design and Management Tool
This presentation will look at design factors including: Decant type and size, return water storage/evaporation pond/source of seepage, return water pump capacity and reduced water supply requirement. Management factors will also be discussed.

Clive Saunders, Principal Consultant, Australian Tailings Consultants

10.40 Morning Tea

MINERAL RECOVERY

11.10 Diagnostic Separation of Sulphide Tailings
The presentation will describe a fundamental and simple separation methodology for the use of standard mineral processing techniques to recover products from the tailings streams. The concept is one of zero waste where the tailings are seen as a resource rather than a waste stream.

David McCallum, Senior Experimental Scientist, CSIRO Minerals

11.50 The Intec Process: Unlocking Value from Stranded Assets
A competitor to conventional smelters, the Intec Process offers better economic and environmental performance, with greater flexibility of feedstocks. This can be valuable for unlocking value for tailings retreatment operations, where margins and recoveries are often a lot tighter.

Dave Sammut, Corporate Development Manager, Intec Ltd

12.30 Lunch

PASTE TECHNOLOGY

1.40 PANEL DISCUSSION: Paste Technology and its Application for Mine Tailings
Delegates will be treated to a 60min Q&A session with experts in the field of paste technology. In a Parkinson style format, the panellists will answer pre-prepared questions from the chair before taking on viewpoints and experiences from the open floor.

MEETING REGULATORY STANDARDS

When designing and planning for tailings facilities, there are fundamental safety and environment guidelines to be met in order for your project to be approved. This session will focus on key aspects of regulatory requirements for tailings processing, storage, disposal and safety.

2.20 Russ McConnell, Manager Dam Safety, Environmental Operations Division, Environmental Protection Agency

3.00 Afternoon Tea

3.30 Jay Ranasooriya, Senior Geotechnical Engineer, Department of Consumer Employee Protection

4.10 Sustainable Mine Fills: Replacement of OPC by Geoplymer Cements
Arie Van Riessen, Geopolymer Project Leader, CRC Sustainable Resource Processing

4.50 Closing remarks from the chair

5.00 Networking Drinks

6.30 Conference Dinner

Day Two | Wednesday 25 February 2009

DAY ONE | DAY TWO

PLANNING, DESIGNING AND MAINTAINING TSF

9.00 INTERNATIONAL CASE STUDY: Kennecott Utah Copper
Predicted versus observed geotechnical behaviour; A Case Study for the Kennecott Utah copper tailings facility

Imran Gillani, Principal Engineer, URS, Perth
Richard R. Davidson, Senior Vice President, URS, Denver (co-author)

9.40 TSF Design, Construction and Operation Equal Levels of Importance

• Design guidelines
• Design control and reviews
• Construction control (QA/QC)
• Operational guidelines\
• Operational management requirements

Gerrie LeRoux, Principal Tailings Engineer, GHD

10.20 Morning Tea

DUST EMISSIONS FROM TAILINGS

10.50 Understanding and Managing Air Quality Impacts from Mine Tailings Storage Facilities
Yvonne Scorgie, Manager Air Quality, Environ Australia

ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS

11.30 Groundwater Quality Impacts from Tailings Storage Facilities

This presentation will discuss controls that affect the groundwater quality below a TSF and management strategies that are used to mitigate impacts.

Pierre Rousseau, Senior Geochemist, Golder Associates

12.10 Information Gaps: Increased Costs and Risks of Failure for TSF Closure
This presentation will look at strategies for TSF closure and the need to obtain all necessary information in a timely manner. It will highlight essential information which often is neglected during this process.

Dr Rob Loch, Principal Consultant, Landloch

12.50 Lunch

2.00 PANEL DISCUSSION: Environmental Management
Delegates will be treated to a 60min Q&A session with experts in the field of environmental management. In a Parkinson style format, the panellists will answer pre-prepared questions from the chair before taking on viewpoints and experiences from the open floor.

3.00 Afternoon Tea

3.30 Mine Tailings Possibilities for Sustainable Long Term Management

• Geochemical problems affecting environmentally sustainable tailings storage
• Stability of high sulphide tailings
• Long term tailings management and end-use
• Use of thin covers in storage of sulphide bearing mine tailings
• Geochemical behaviour of oxidising tailings

Dr Ron Watkins, Associate Professor, Curtin University

DISPOSAL OPTIONS

Increasing environmental and economic pressures on mine tailings disposal is driving a shift towards methods to create higher disposal concentration
Carlos Martinez, MiningNews.com

4.10 With strict environmental regulations to abide by, tailings disposal options are challenging. This presentation will focus on the options for disposing of mine waste best suited to individual operations.

4.50 Closing Remarks from the Chair