Mining

It has been suggested that up to 50% of operational costs for open pit mines can be attributed to haulage costs. Therefore steps that can be taken to improve efficiencies in these areas can be paramount to producing operational cost savings. While proper road design cannot be ignored, the use of the correct road dust palliatives and road stabilization agents can significantly enhance the performance of haul roads. Cypher has a variety of solutions, including ROAD//STABILIZR® to provide long term stability of road materials in the subgrade, base and running course layers, as well as DUST/BLOKR® and DUST/BLOKR® Liquid Concentrate, to provide long term reductions in emissions. Better stability of the running course and underlying layers, as well as dust reductions, offers significant reductions in operational costs for road management due to reduced maintenance requirements and higher efficiencies for the haul trucks using these roads.

It is true that proper road design and the choice of the correct road building materials can have an impact on reducing dust on haul and access roads. However, since these roads are always unpaved, additional measures must be taken to reduce road dust emissions, and the old fashioned method of just using water is highly outdated due to the amount of water being consumed, not to mention fuel burned by the constant use of the heavy water trucks. Therefore a proper dust control product should be applied, such as DUST/BLOKR® or DUST/BLOKR® Liquid Concentrate, to provide for long term dust reductions. Both products are designed to be applied with typical water trucks found at mine sites, and are engineered to withstand heavy and frequent haul truck traffic, providing for long term results.

Due to the location of urban centres and communities closer to mining operations, a greater focus is being projected on reducing the impact of erosion and dust emanating from tailings piles. Typically the longer a mine operates, the more potential tailings it generates, creating further demand for reducing their impact on nearby communities and the environment. Due to the non-soluble film that DUST/BLOKR® Liquid Concentrate produces once applied, it is the ideal solution to dramatically reduce wind and water erosion of tailings. This minimizes any accidental release of these tailings into the nearby environment, and helps play a profound role in a mine’s CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) plan, by reducing their impact on the environment. Because there is no traffic on tailings piles, DUST/BLOKR® Liquid Concentrate offers a long term solution at a fraction of the cost of road applications, since it is applied in a highly diluted form.

Due to the location of urban centres and communities closer to mining operations, a greater focus is being projected on reducing the impact of erosion and dust emanating from tailings piles. Typically the longer a mine operates, the more potential tailings it generates, creating further demand for reducing their impact on nearby communities and the environment. Due to the non-soluble film that DUST/BLOKR® Liquid Concentrate produces once applied, it is the ideal solution to dramatically reduce wind and water erosion of tailings. This minimizes any accidental release of these tailings into the nearby environment, and helps play a profound role in a mine’s CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) plan, by reducing their impact on the environment. Because there is no traffic on tailings piles, DUST/BLOKR® Liquid Concentrate offers a long term solution at a fraction of the cost of road applications, since it is applied in a highly diluted form.

Many mines are built in areas with limited resources, in terms of adequate road building materials. In cases where abundant materials that are rich in clay content exist, ROAD//STABILIZR® is very well suited to significantly enhance the engineering properties of these materials. ROAD//STABILIZR® works to stabilize soils with approximately 20% or higher passing the No. 200 (75 um) sieve, which are normally known for swelling when wet, and having characteristically low CBR (California Bearing Ratio) values. The use of ROAD//STABILIZR® reduces this swell potential of the clay material, providing for enhanced performance of the road in wet weather, and for significantly higher soaked and unsoaked CBR values. These high clay content materials are typically much cheaper than traditional road building aggregates, and therefore the use of ROAD//STABILIZR® allows for significant cost savings on materials used to build haul roads.