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DREDGING IN SOUTH AMERICA MINING INDUSTRIES

Juan Rayo1

ABSTRACT

The mining industry in South America shows a growth of the material removal, in order to obtain valuable metals as
copper, gold, silver, iron, zinc and others, that means more than 10 million of tonnes per day, increasing the rate
over 5% per year. Currently less than 1% of the material removed is done by dredging, mostly in the Brazilian and
Peruvian Amazonian jungle. It should be pointed that between 50 and 98% of the ore treated by grinding is
disposed as tailings in saturated ponds. The main challenge for dredging is to remove some of the old tailing dams in
order to re-process the ground material to obtain the remaining metals and/or to solve safety or environmental risks.
In South America there are more than 20 billion tonnes of tailings deposited in more than 100 tailing deposits with
over 1 million of tonnes each. The author expects than in the next decades about 5% of the tailing deposits should be
removed. Currently there is definition to remove 80 million tonnes in Chile and high probabilities to remove other
400 million tonnes in South America. The dredging challenges in this industry are: i) operate at low costs (below 1
US$/dry ton) and ii) low water consumption (discharge over 40% by weight). The paper will clarify the comparison
with other alternatives; as well as the costs associated and the main characteristics of operations and processes as
compared.

Keywords: Tailings, tonnes, metallurgical, throughput, removal, dredging.

INTRODUCTION

South America (SA) is the most active mining region in the world. Outstanding mining activities are in Brazil (Fe,
Zn, Al, others), Chile (Cu, Au, others) and Peru (Cu, Pb, Au, Zn, others).

Mining means high throughput of material removed to be used in metallurgical process. SA’s total amount of
material removed is close to 10 million tonnes per day, with 40% in Brazil, 25% in Chile, 15% in Peru, and the
balance in other SA countries. Additionally, this huge amount of material removed and transported is growing at a
rate of 5% yearly.

Currently, the mining operational practice considers technology of blasting, shovel and trucks, and only below 1%
of the material removed uses dredging or other hydraulic technology, mostly to remove the sedimentary metal ore in
the Brazilian and Peruvian jungle, in comparison with South Africa where more than 5% mining process uses
dredging or other hydraulic removal method.

SA’s metallurgical plants produce tailings that are a portion between 90 and 98% of the ores processed and that are
stored in tailings ponds. In Chile the tailings ponds accumulate more than 12 billion dry tonnes and are growing at a
rate of 400 million tonnes per year. The total amount of tailings in Peru and Brazil is estimated to be similar to
Chile’s. Figure 1, shows “Piuquenes” tailings pond in Chile.

A remarkable portion of this huge amount of deposited tailing should be removed for a number of reasons, such as:

• Moved to a safe storage area (environmental issue)

• Removed to make a metallurgical reprocessing (profitable business)
• Moved because it is forbidden to abandon it in that position (legal restrictions)

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1
Technical Manager, JRI Ingeniería S.A., Luis Uribe 2343, Ñuñoa, Santiago, Chile, Tel: +(56-2) 3618200, Fax:
+(56-2) 3618362, E-mail: jrayo@jri.cl

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Figure 1. “Piuquenes” tailings pond, Chile.

It is estimated that about 5% of the current deposited tailings in Chile should be removed in the near future. That
means that at least 750 million tonnes of tailings should be removed in the next decades. For example, in that
country it was defined to remove close to 100 million tonnes in this decade and probably about 200 or 300 million
tonnes in the next decade.

Tailing pond’s removal using dredges seems to be an easy operation (well defined areas to remove, small particles to
disaggregate and very low quantity of big elements that could block the dredge). Unfortunately dredging old tailings
ponds has the following restrictions:

• Different material qualities (sand and slimes areas) to be blended.

• Low water availability
• Low operating costs are required
• High throughput of solids is necessary
• Adequate disposal for the removed tailings

In general, the expected total unit costs to remove a tailings pond should be between 1 and 2 US$/dry tonne in order
to be profitable (for metallurgical purpose) or feasible for environmental or legal restrictions.

Other options to remove tailings dams are more expensive (shovel and trucks) or present high risks in a seismic zone
(water jet in saturated deposits).

The paper presents the approach about how to do dredging in the South America mining industry in the near future.

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HISTORY OF TAILINGS DEPOSITION

A summary of tailings deposited in Chile during the last century is shown in Table 1:

Table 1. Tailing stored in Chile.

Company Current Throughput Total Deposited

(Million Tonnes Per Year (Million Tonnes)

Big Copper Mines (>50,000 Tonnes Per Day) 360 7,800
Med. Copper Mines (<50,000 Tonnes Per Day) 30 2,800
Gold/Silver Mines 10 500
Iron Mines & Others 10 500
Total 410 11,600

It is estimated that Peru and Brazil together probably have more tailings tonnage stored than Chile.

Potential Removals of Tailings

The main operation of successful dredging of an old tailing pond was Marcopper Mine in Philippines where 40
million tonnes of copper tailings were removed with two dredges in about 8 years during the 1980’s.

In Perez Caldera Pond, from AAC in Chile, 2 dredging equipments removed close to 10 million tonnes of tailings in
the last 6 years (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Dredging equipment in Perez Caldera Pond, Chile.

In Chile, it should be necessary to remove some tailing ponds due to potential environmental risk and/or legal
restrictions. A list, without names, of deposits that should be removed based on these reasons is shown in Table 2:

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Table 2. Tailing ponds to be removed by external reasons.

Tailings Dam 1 (balance) 40 Million Tonnes

Tailings Dam 2 (total) 30 Million Tonnes
Tailings Dam 3 (initial) 5 Million Tonnes
Tailings Dam 3 (final) 250 Million Tonnes
Tailings Dam 4 (periodically) 10 Million Tonnes
Total 335 Million Tonnes

Additionally, if the amount of metals remaining in the tailing is favorable, the deposit could be attractive to be
removed if the economic analysis result is adequate.

To be profitable the tailing should have at least one of the following metal contents:

• >0.20% Cu t, plus minor amounts of by-products (Mo, Au, Ag)

• >0.30 gr Au/t
• >0% Fe magnetic

From the deposited tailing in Chile, the balance of profitable tailing ponds is estimated in Table 3:

Table 3. Tailings to be removed for economic reasons.

Company Tailing Deposit Profitable Dredge Dredging Potential

(Million Tonnes) Removal Application (Million Tonnes)
Big Cu Mines 7,800 15% 60% 700
Med Cu Mines 2,800 25% 40% 280
Other Mines 1,000 10% 50% 50
1,030

As shown in Tables 2 & 3, there is a potential close to 1,365 million tonnes of dry tonnes to be removed by dredges
in the near future.

The expectation is that the Chilean mining industry could remove the following amount:

• Decade 0’s : 10 Million Tonnes Per Year

• Decade 10’s : 30 Million Tonnes Per Year
• Decade 20’s : 50 Million Tonnes Per Year

Additionally, the expected amount of tailings to be removed in Peru and Brazil could be of the same order of
tonnage as in Chile.

Dredging Operation of Tailings

The experience in Philippines and Chile related to define how to operate the dredging of old tailings could be
summarized in the following criteria:

• Tailings pond to be removed should be well analyzed geotechnically in order to define a safe removal
procedures in earthquake countries.
• High concentration of the slurry should be achieved in order to minimize water consumption in areas with
low water availability.
• Sand dam should be hydraulically removed and mixed with fine materials.
• At least two dredges should be considered for a continuous operation in case of large amount of material to
be removed and processed.
• Dredging operation should be helped with high pressure monitoring (jets), from the dredges and from
shore, in order to move the sand into the pond, where it will be dredged.

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• Training of dredges operators should be considered in order to optimize the tailing removal operation.
• High level of safety controls should be considered in order to accomplish the high mining company
standards.

Figure 3. The tailings pond in the Copiapó Region, Chile.

Dredging Economy in Tailings Removal

In order for dredging to be profitable for the mining company, the following criteria should be considered:

• Dredging operation should be outsourced in order to use experienced labor at lower costs than mining
operators.
• Mining company should supply water and power (electricity or diesel) for the dredges.
• Dredging scope of work only includes the tailings removal operations and mining industry should operate
metallurgical plant to re-process the refluidized tailings.
• Dredging contract should consider the throughput to be removed per day (in thousands of tonnes per day),
the availability factor (%) and the solids content of removed tailing slurry in order to define the water
consumption.
• Dredging operation costs should include all the pipelines and booster pumps to transport the removed
tailings to the processing plant or to the new tailing pond.

Normally, the dredging cost range for tailings removal should consider the items of Table 4.

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Table 4. Dredging costs for tailings removal.

Item Factor (%)

Dredge amortization 10 – 15
Labor & Supervision 20 – 25
Power (oil or electrical) 30 – 35
Maintenance (spares/others) 15 – 25
Administration 10 – 15
Profit & Contingencies 10 – 15
Total 100

CONCLUSION

Dredging in South America Mining industry should be a great market in the near future. A large volume of old
tailings should be removed for different reasons. Dredging technology oriented to tailing removal should be installed
in South America soon.

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