Implementing an Innovative approach to Tailings Dewatering

The speakers for the event are:

Mark Bruton, Senior Geotechnical Engineer, KCB

James Purrington, Associate Director – Tailings, WSP

Phil Newman, Head of Tailings Innovation, Anglo American

The future of tailings management is being driven by a higher degree of scrutiny and oversight than ever before, and for good reason. The need to design large geotechnical landforms that will stand up to the test of nature for the long term are not the type of geotechnical conditions that most geotechnical engineers are used to. The safe design of tailings storage facilities is not only critical to the mining industries success, factors including sustainable water stewardship and planning for closure are at the forefront of tailings management. These focus areas are driving change and innovation in the tailings space, but innovation in mining is hard, particularly at the back end of the process where the scale of waste management dwarf’s most industries. For the last 6 years Anglo American has been developing the proof of concept for an innovative approach to tailings management that aims to address the three key focus areas of safety, water stewardship and closure; without the cost of existing technologies such as filtered tailings. Hydraulic dewatered stacking (HDS) looks to utilise a specific by-product from the mining waste stream and repurpose it within the tailings facility design, to accelerate consolidation, increase the rate and desaturation and reduce the overall degree of entrainment of water in the tailings mass. The presentation will provide an oversight of the approach and the proof of concept to date, from laboratory to a 250,000 ton large scale field trial. We will detail some of the challenges of innovating at scale, the results from the trials so far, and where we can go from here. We look forward to seeing you all there.

Mark Bruton, KCB

Mark has over 25 years of experience in the field of geotechnical engineering applying his trade to civil infrastructure projects in sectors including highways, railways, airports, ports and power. Mark began his career in geotechnical engineering consultancy with Scott Wilson before moving to Ghana in 2010 to work for Knight Piesold. Since 2010 Mark has been practicing in the field of tailings management and has worked on mining projects across West Africa, the Nordics and Eastern Europe. Mark joined Golder (now WSP) in 2017, and recently joined KCB in their York office.

James Purrington, WSP

James has managed the design and construction of Tailings storage facilities in northern Europe and West Africa.  He has 8 years’ experience in the tailings field and 11 in geotechnics. He is deputy EOR on one facility, whilst working closely with EOR’s on other TSF’s and has spent prolonged periods supervising construction works on site, managing relationships with the client and contractor. His project experience ranges from project management through to undertaking detailed modelling and design.

Phil Newman, Anglo American

Phil has 35 years mining experience covering paste technology and innovative tailings solution.  A founding member of Golder PasteTec in 1996, he designed and built numerous paste backfill plants around the world and pioneered the use of geotubes for tailings management in the early 2000’s.  Since joining Anglo American in 2015, Phil has focused on innovation across the value chain with a focus on tailings innovation since 2023.

Tickets will be available for the meeting here.