Reducing mine water requirements

Abstract

Mining is a water intensive activity, and reducing water consumption is a key requirement in moving toward a more sustainable mining industry. This paper identifies mine water reduction, reuse and recycle options, and demonstrates cases where these options have been implemented around the world. A mine water system model is developed and used to show potential water saving strategies through six scenarios. Apart from the base case, these scenarios include the introduction of evaporation reduction strategies, paste tailings disposal, filtered tailings disposal, ore pre-sorting and a combination of the most effective options. The results of the modeling show how an open-pit copper mine with a traditional layout can move from having an average water withdrawal of 0.76 m 3/t of ore processed to 0.20 m 3/t of ore processed or lower. A key result of the modeling is the discovery that a combination of ore pre-concentration and filtered tailings disposal can reduce water consumption by 74% or more. This finding demonstrates an opportunity to significantly lower water consumption on mine sites.