Engineering and Consulting
An uptick in continuity projects generates strong business
Engineering, construction, and consulting firms have had a busy 2022, despite the lack of new projects. With a need to optimize operations and expand existing mines, mining companies have a slate of projects for which they need extensive support.
“After the release of restrictions by health authorities, we observed a very high activity in Stay-In-Business projects (SIB), from mining companies catching up on expenditures that were deferred (everyone was holding on to their cash),” confirmed Patricio Maguire, mining & metals director Latam lead of digital transformation at Turner & Townsend.
The demand for development projects has been a boon for engineering and consulting firms. Ausenco, for example, experienced steady demand and started 2023 with a robust backlog. The company is working on the EPC contract for Mantoverde, planning to finalize construction during Q3 2023 and then begin the commissioning process. It is also carrying out studies and engineering services for a variety of major mining companies, including the implementation of the Spence concentrator upgrade.
Across the board, clients are seeking engagement with new technologies and a reworked approach to engineering and consulting. Claudio Lesch, president South America at Ausenco, stated: “Our clients expect a new approach to projects, focused on introducing new technologies to lower the carbon footprints of the mines and to increase the cost effectiveness of the projects.”
This forward-looking approach must be incorporated from the very beginning, at the study stage, and carried on throughout the project. Tailings is one area where companies must comply with extremely strict regulations. Juan Ríos, general manager of WSP, said: “The area that has adopted more standards, restrictions, and regulations in the last 20 years is tailings management, both in filtered and conventional tailings. Specifically, the standards imply greater precision in the basic studies required for tailings management, as well as more multidisciplinary work.”
“As the mining industry has become more complex because minerals are located deeper underground and have more complex properties, creating a deductive formula has become impossible in some areas. Analytics help to generate outputs or insights that cannot be reached through deductive processes.”
Juan Ignacio Guzmán, CEO, GEM
Hugo Andrade, CEO of Shimin, which has operations in both Brazil and Chile, noted that Chile has significantly stricter regulation and, therefore, safer tailings dams than Brazil. Brazil, reeling from the Brumadinho collapse, is changing its tailings completely. “Currently, solutions in Brazil are filtering everything and transitioning to dry tailings deposits,” stated Andrade. “However, this is extremely expensive, so much so that it could dramatically raise production costs. I do not expect the Chilean mining industry to transition to dry tailings en masse for a long time.”
Rosario Urrutia, country manager at Stantec, agreed that although conventional tailings waste significant water, such a switch will be slow: “Other alternatives, such as thickened tailings, considerably reduce water consumption. However, these trends involve significant investment as they imply fundamental engineering and energy consumption challenges.”
Conventional tailings also come with a significant regulatory and technical burden. Juan Castaño, CEO of the engineering and consulting firm Amphos 21, explained: “In Chile, the authorities require companies to assess the impact of water tailings to groundwater.”
Amphos 21 offers technology to classify water under tailings deposits, enabling customers to differentiate which water they have the right to exploit. Castaño noted that dry tailings reduce the risk of contaminants in groundwater.
“The main trend is the dewatering in tailings, which allows the recovery of water and reduces the possibility of infiltration of pollutants into groundwater aquifers.”
Juan Castaño, CEO, Amphos 21
JRI Ingeniería was awarded three major engineering projects for tailings dams during the second half of 2022, one of the many companies benefiting from this focus on this area. Highlighting the technological development in tailings, Iván Rayo, general manager of the company, described new trends in the area including the use of tailings for other purposes like construction and the move to reprocess tailings for increased extraction. “We are developing a geo-polymers project, which consists of the production of cement from tailings and polymers. This project is in addition to an initiative carried out by the Pontificía Universidad Católica de Chile to use tailings in brickmaking.”
The potential to make tailings useful provides a vital alternative to the current status quo. The key focus is on making these projects economically viable at large scale. Projects such as these have the potential to be transformational. Seven billion tons of mine tailings are generated each year globally. Restoration techniques are a major focus due to their environmental benefits. Recycling techniques, in which waste is reintroduced to serve as a raw material for other products, has significant benefits for employment, environment, and costs. Copper waste has been used both in brick production and in road and highway pavement by using copper ore tailings as an additive mixture in concrete preparation. Copper slag can also be used for roof tiles, mine filling, and other granular materials. As investment flows into these projects, both in Chile and globally, the potential to reuse metal waste opens a new door to sustainable operations.
“The mining industry is increasingly expressing the importance of technology in the early stages of projects. Technologies such as cybersecurity or additive manufacturing using 3D printing are becoming essential to engineering solutions.”
Fernando González-Valdés, Founder and General Manager, ICP Ingeniería
Article header image courtesy of Ausenco