An Analysis of Impacts on Mine Planning, Land, GHGs, Costs, Site Water Balances and Recycle Water Chloride Concentrations. COSIA requested Norwest to develop generic models to examine the relative impacts of different FFT management processes on mining and tailings capital and operating costs (capEx and OpEx), reclamation and closure costs, and environemtnal impacts. The models were based on two virtual mine scenarios selected to represent a range of conditions typical of the surface mine sites of the Athabasca oil sands region.
Until mid-2020, the Newmont Éléonore mine cemented paste backfill (CPB) recipes were chosen from charts comparing binder contents and strengths at specific curing ages up to 56 days. However, these charts were based on Mitchells method using Éléonores biggest stope dimensions. They also did not consider any rheology, maximum surface pump pressure capacities or mix density. Using the new system, and its resulting template, backfill personnel can tailor a recipe for each stope to meet the latest sequence and environment conditions. This paper explains how the new paste recipes are selected, as well as the costs savings and productivity increases they enabled.