Engineering Assignment On The Mineralisation Of Uranium Ores

Question

Task: To pass this Supplementary Assessment you are required to gain an overall mark of 50% or greater. The maximum mark you can gain for this Supplementary Assessment is a Pass mark.
1. You are undertaking an Environmental Impact Assessment for a new Uranium Mine tenement that lies adjacent to Kakadu National Park. What legislation do you have to adhere to and briefly provide an overview of what the legislation is about? Your answers can be placed in a 2-column table i.e. that in column 1 names the legislation and column 2 describes it.

2. Complete the following table to gain an understanding of the major forms of mineralisation found in Australia. Provide examples of such mines, along with their geographic location (include state or territory), from the literature. Your answers must specify the major ores types mined at each of these mines, and the rock types (geology) that hosts the ore.

Table 2.1 Styles of mineralisation, ores and associated geologies found in Australia

3. Adani has recently gained the requisite legislative and other approvals to start its mining operations in the Galilee Basin in Queensland. What were the major issues this company had to address before it could proceed? What was the State and Federal Government legislation that had to be addressed?
4. Describe a longwall coal mining method where the panels are mined on retreat. Use correct terminology to describe the various types of development. What is a typical panel size? How far should development be kept ahead of the producing panel? Why is this important? What are the engineering factors that limit the production capacity of the longwall mining method?
5. Research Kalgoorlie gold mining operations. How much gold is produced annually from the Fimiston Super Pit? Describe the mining method used by KCGM to produce gold from the Fimiston Super Pit? Discuss the depth of the mine, the size of the haul truck fleet and the key pieces of equipment used. How much longer is the pit expected to produce gold? Looking at the history of gold mining in the Kalgoorlie region what has influenced the choice of open cut or underground mining methods over time?
Please use the CQU Harvard referencing style guide to correctly reference all sources of information and provide a Single Reference list at the end of the assignment for ALL the references you have used.

Answer

Introduction
Uranium mine can emit heavy pollution to the country. The mining should be done by maintaining different legislations effectively. Environmental impact of Uranium mining is too high. In this report different methods of mineralisation of Uranium ores and the methods of environment-friendly mining will be described. The environmental impact of mining will be described with the remedies that can be taken to save the environment will be provided. The issues to be addressed before proceeding with the new Uranium mining business will be provided and the report will provide a detailed idea of the Uranium mining business and the environmental side of this business. The protection of environment is the primary importance of this report and by protecting the environment how the mining can be continued will be discussed in this report. This report is highly beneficial for the people to get a deep learning about this matter.

Question 1

Table 1: List of legislations for the Uranium mining company near Kakadu National Park

Question 2

Table 2: Different styles of mineralisation

Question 3

Major Issues to be addressed by the Company before proceeding
Land issues
Mining can affect nearby societies in several ways adversely. Whereas constructive impacts such as occupational and communaldevelopmentschemes are authoritative, they do not off-set the possiblerefusals (Aliet al.,2017). Opening new companies lead to forcing the people for leaving their land and the compensation and benefits might not be enough for leading a healthy and happy life for them.

Tax challenges
In order to synchronise with advancing charge situation, companies ought to take phases to get it the money related suggestions of these unused assess rules, survey their operative and business structures, take a new see at their administration and lock in with government partners — particularly where charge rules related to soundness or generation understandings undermine to alter (Spearing and Hall, 2016).

Preparation for change
The industry of mining is experiencing a period of to some degree powerful move, the ancient ways ofcommencing now not be sufficient as the prominence of social licenses to function gotten to be higher and economical commerce hones and vitality advancement gets to be predominant. The worldwide move towards renewable has debilitated the viewpoint for warm coal (Zhenget al.,2016). In spite of the fact that fossil powers are likely to proceed playing a basic part within the worldwide vitality blend, the move to elective control sources is unavoidable.

Starving for finance
The mining speculation showcase is set to collapse over following a long time. Mining speculation in Australia is set to decay strongly over following three a long time, coming about in 20,000 work misfortunes. An unused report by BIS Shrapnel – Mining in Australia 2015 to 2030 – predicts the current state of compression to proceed in mining, falling an assist 58 per cent over the following three a long time. Pulling in capital has gotten to be harder than ever, as portions of the industry proceed running at a misfortune. In reaction, companies will likely proceed to look for out elective sources of financing — indeed when the terms aren't totally in their support (Adhikary and Guo, 2015).

State and federal legislation to be addressed before proceeding
Before proceeding with the project dealing with the State and federal laws is highly important for the companies. It will help them to increase sustainability of the business. The first authorisation that should be acquired by the company is Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Department of the Environment and Energy, 2019). It is the main law of Australia related to the environment. Before opening the Uranium mining company, following this legislation is essential for the companies. The matters that are protected under this act are heritage properties in the country, the places that are heritage nationally and worldwide, the wetlands and the importance of agreements that are international, the migratory species of the international places, the community of threatened species in the ecological communities in the world and the commonwealth areas of marine. In this act the permission is taken from the minister of the Australia and the request of approval is taken from the authority and the permission is given by judging the impact on the decision on the environment in long term. This act states that the decision related to open new company related to mining industry should be taken by the government of Australia. The entire responsibility of taking decision is taken by the government (Woods and Rifici, 2019). Some of the other acts that are needed to be considered by the company have been described above in the report.

Question 4
Size of the panel
The wall of long wall coal mine is about 0.6 to 1.0m thick and the wall is about 3 km to 4km and the width of the wall is 250 m to 400 m (Undergroundcoal.com.au., 2019). The wall of this method can be relocated from one place to another but relocation method consists of higher cost. Some of the initial developments are needed to open the long wall mine and the rate of cutting the face is slowest. Rest of the part can be cut at a higher rate and speed in this method.

Span of time the development to be kept ahead of the producing panel
The long wall mining is capable to produce a high amount per annum. It is one of the greatest advantages of the method and the capability of this method is to produce near about 8 tonnes per annum. In the face of the system, the haulage system is installed and the armoured face of conveyor is considered as the modern face of this system (Le et al.,2017). The face receding commencement is done after the installation of the face equipment in the method. The gate roads in this process are longa and more than two face equipment are driven under this method. The access of main road gateway can be gained by going through the roadway of this system. In this method the sets of other road ways than the main road gateways are called tailgate roadway.

Importance of Long wall Mining
In this method the permanent supports are only required at the first time and the rest of the time the face equipment and the other equipment can be relocated in this system. Significant amount of production can be done by this system and it is capable to produce more than 8 tonnes per annum (Undergroundcoal.com.au., 2019). It is one of the most systematic methods of mining and it is ideal for strata control as the process is system is repetitive and continuous. Labour cost under this method is relatively lower than the other methods of mining.

The engineering factors to limit the production capacity in this method
Though the labour cost under this method is low but the cost of capital is higher under this method and miners are required continuously at the time of production. In this method the concentration of the operation is very high and it becomes too hectic for the workers. Flexibility of the method is low and the gate roads need to be driven to the higher problems. The face condition of this method mainly depends on the less continuous method of production(He et al.,2016). The less flexibility of the walls makes the necessity of experiences labour very high. It can in return increase costing of labours sometimes.

Question 5
Amount of Gold to be produced annually
The Fimistone Super Pit Mine is one of the largest Gold mines of Australia. It is situated in Western Australia in Kalgoorlie. Length of the pit is near about 3.5 kilometres and the width of this mine is about 1.5 kilometres. This company has two owners with 50:50 shares each. Name of the 1st owner is Barrick Gold Cooperation and the name of the 2nd owner is Newmont Mining cooperation. According to the last record, it has produced 628000 troy Ounces of Gold in 2018. It has around 1100 employees to manage the entire system.

The mining method used by KCGM to produce gold from the Fimiston Super Pit
The main method of mining that is used in this mine is drilling and blasting via face sholves and dump trucks. On an average 15 million tonnes rocks are moved per year. The gold is recovered from thee ore and crushed in the mill of Fimistone. The gold is mainly present in the higher-grade lodes and the concentration of gold is treated with the Ultra-Fine Grinding mill at Fimistone and it is in a cyanidised form. This process is done at Gidji, which is 20 kilometres North from Kalgoorlie. The processing systems that are used in this method are gravity separation, flotation, concentrate leach, carbon in pulp, carbon adsorption-desorption-recovery, solvent extraction and electro winning, cyanide and roasting.

Discuss the depth of the mine, the size of the haul truck fleet and the key pieces of equipment used
The depth of this mine is near about 600 metres and the numbers of truck fleet in the mine is 40. Several pieces of equipment are used in this mine and truck and shovel are used in this mine. The Carbon in Pulp (CIP) readies another sort out inside the recovery circuit. In a game plan of enormous, precisely bothered tanks, a 30% cyanide course of action, lime, oxygen and lead nitrate are incorporated to the slurry, or "mash", since it is when in doubt called, to sift the gold through. The slurry moves into the adsorption tanks which contain granules of sanctioned carbon to adsorb the gold which has separated into course of action. Carbon for use in gold dealing with is when in doubt produced using coconut husks and is impelled by warming the husks to around 900ºC without talk about and inside the closeness of steam to drive off synthetic substances.

Looking at the history of gold mining in the Kalgoorlie region what has influenced the choice of open cut or underground mining methods over time
Open cut mine is used in Kalgoorlie region as the amount hard rocks is very high in the company. The rocks need to be moved using different systems and no other mining can be used in the region other than this method. Open cut mining is more compatible with the environmental protection law and the cost of environmental protection is low for this method. Much remedial methods are not needed to be taken for the open cut mining as this method does not harm the environmental balance. Economic sense is another reason of the open cut mining of Kalgoorlie, this method does not take much cost and it helps to make the entire process more economic and environment friendly (Hebblewhite, 2016). These are the key reasons for using pen cut mining method in this region.

Conclusion
From the above report, the methods of mining can be understood in detail. Different methods of mining and the technology behind the methods have been explained in the report. It has been stated in the report how an opening of uranium mining can impact the environmental factors of the country. Several techniques of mineralisation and the origins of the techniques with the name of ores are given in the report. It can provide a detailed learning account the details of mining and engineering of uranium in Australia. ?

Reference List
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