Risk and Resilience Mining Solutions 2016

The conference will provide an opportunity for professionals working in, and with, the mining industry to explore risk, tolerance, mitigation approaches, and the robustness and resilience of practices and procedures, designs, operational methods, and mine closure measures and plans. Those involved in engineering designs and operations, environmental controls, worker safety, mine financing, financial assurance, risk communication and management, and regulation of risk in the mining industry are invited to share their experiences and to learn from each other. Keynote presentations, technical papers, and short courses will explore current practices.

Themes

Risk identification and mitigation during site selection, design, construction and operation of mines

• Open pits and strip mines
• Underground mines
• Tailings dams
• Waste dumps and heap leach piles
• Water management and water management structures

Risk identification and mitigation for mine closure and long-term post-closure performance

Risk identification and mitigation of human health and environment

Risk assessment methodologies

• Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
• Pathway-dose-response analyses for human health and the environment
• Probabilistic event tree analyses
• Bayesian or other methods
• Extreme event and long-term degradation assessment

Risk costs, financing and assurance

• Financial risk
• Bonding
• Insurance and long-term risk monitoring
• Maintenance and mitigation plans

Risk management

• Corporate and regulatory governance
• Design standards and review
• Construction and operational quality control and assurance
• Review boards, engineer of record, audits, safety inspections and continuous improvement processes.

MINING IS NOT RISK FREE

This is true for resource estimates, feasibility studies, design, operations, closure, and post-closure. Risk assessment, risk management, and implementation of mitigation measures are ongoing activities throughout all phases of mining. The risks are numerous.  Some risks that public and regulatory authorities are increasingly concerned about are safety during operations and closure, such as pit slope and underground stability and failures or tailings dam breaches, and the operational and post-closure releases of substances deleterious to the environment (acid mine drainage, amongst others). The conference covers risk identification and assessment; development of mitigation measures; decision making methods allowing for risk, current practices for minimizing risk, and case histories at all stages of mine life from development through closure and for major mine facilities, and activities including open pits, underground workings, tailings facilities, waste rock dumps, heap leach pads, and water supply and treatment systems. The processes of regulatory and corporate governance are important to risk management and will also be examined. Sound risk management requires means for long-term risk prevention, and recovery from any failures should they occur, and includes monitoring, maintenance, bonding and insurance to achieve operating and long-term robustness and resilience in development, operations and closure plans.

The conference is an opportunity for those involved in mining to examine the basic issues of risk in mining:

• What are the hazards?
• What is the probability of the hazards becoming reality?
• What are the consequences of things going wrong?
• How can you mitigate the chance (make robust) and consequences (make resilient) of risks?
• What risks can you tolerate as the mine owner, engineer, regulator or public?
• What regulation, corporate governance, funding and insurance is required mitigate risk?