Mining and Exploration

Cypher Environmental has been working hard to provide the mining industry with high quality dust control, soil stabilization and water treatment products that meet the growing requirement for sustainability, as president Todd Burns explains.

As hardware merchants in the California gold rush discovered, you can make money from mining either by discovering the mother lode or by selling picks and shovels. Jeff Daniel talks to a modern-day version of the hardware merchant.

Atlas Copco Ghana is at the hub of this global industrial technology group’s West Africa operations. Regional general manager George Apostolopoulos tells John O’Hanlon where the company is striking gold.

Indonesia has 17,000 islands and though PT Leighton Contractors Indonesia (LCI) works on just a few of those, logistics are a challenge. Mining Indonesian coal destined for China and India may be part of its core business; but diversity is LCI’s second name.

Richard Beazley, managing director of Peak Resources, talks to Gay Sutton about the discovery of a world class rare earths mineral deposit in Tanzania and how the company is transitioning from exploration to mining.

This is the sort of discovery that most geologists go into mining for, and the anticipation is palpable at Australian exploration company Peak Resources. On 29 February, Peak announced its first maiden resource at Ngualla in south-west Tanzania.

Stonegate Agricom Ltd. today announced the results of its pre-feasibility study for the development of an underground mine in its Paris Hills Phosphate Project in Idaho, USA.

The study projects production of 10 million tonnes of direct-ship, concentrate-quality phosphate rock (with no beneficiation required).

The report suggests total project financing requirements for development of $134.3 million, which includes contingency of $16.1 million and working capital of $6.5 million, with a cash operating cost of $72.99 per tonne of saleable product.

Large and small scale electricity storage is at the heart of a new green economy: by 2016 it will demand quantities of lithium not currently available, putting a fair wind behind Lithium Americas Corporation as it positions itself to exploit the salt lakes of northern Argentina.

Panama has become a land of opportunity for the mining sector. Zorel Morales of the Mining Chamber of Panama (CAMIPA) talks to Gay Sutton about the prospects for the industry, and a campaign to introduce environmental and social frameworks to the country’s mining code.

Panama has a fascinating geology, lying over four colliding tectonic plates. The presence of both tectonic movement and volcanic activity over a long period of time has created a very promising area for mineral exploration.

The new Aminpro-Chile metallurgical laboratory, part of Amelunxen Mineral Processing, has quadrupled in size in the 22 months it’s been operating. CEO Roger Amelunxen talks to Gay Sutton about the challenges of the earthquake of 2010, and managing rapid growth.

Osisko’s billion dollar Canadian Malartic mine is the single largest gold reserve in production in Canada. General manager Denis Cimon talks about the challenges and achievements of this unique project.

The town of Malartic, Quebec is sitting on a gold mine—literally. To be more precise, it used to sit on a gold mine until part of the town was moved to facilitate mining operations. But more of that later.