Our South Australian team have gone above and beyond to deliver a challenging and urgent order to BHP’s Olympic Dam mine, home to some of the world’s most significant copper, gold, and uranium deposits.
In July 2022, BHP advised they needed 25,000 tonnes of fine toe drainage product for a tailing dam. The fine toe drain collects the tailings water seepage and is part of the tailings storage facility and buttress. The tailing seepage that the toe drain is designed to intercept is acidic (around three on the pH scale) and contains high concentrations of dissolved solids. The specification was difficult to achieve, having to be very coarse, below the 600-micron fraction in size as well as being of very low plasticity in the fine fraction below 425 microns.
With Olympic Dam located nearly 600 kilometres from Adelaide, our Whyalla Quarry was the closest location, despite still being a three-hour-plus drive away. Whyalla also had over 30,000 tonnes of each stock of sand and 10/7mm, which were the two likely product blends for this project.
The Boral team—made up of quarry operations, technical and sales staff—collaborated to determine how the project could be delivered and worked closely with BHP to get it done in the tight timeframe. Numerous meetings between Boral, BHP and BHP’s consultant, Golder, were held, with various trail blends and options discussed.
The South Australia Quarry operations team transferred a newly acquired dual bin blending unit from Salisbury Quarry to Whyalla Quarry. The blending plant provided different options for blending with settings of variable speed conveyors for each bin. Each bin has an adjustable door setting that also had to be set correctly at different heights for each material. After a lot of attentive adjustments and the good fortune of some dry weather which also impacted the grading, the site eventually produced a compliant product that satisfied the consultant and BHP.
A big shout out to:
- Wayne Barker, Whyalla Quarry Manager
- Phillip Mitchell, Whyalla Supervisor, and the Whyalla quarry team
- Andrew King, Technical Manager
- Glyn Gale, Technical Supervisor
- Malik Kasumovic, Accounts Manager.
Well done to everyone involved for their effort, tenacity and commitment to make this project a success.
