Mining Engineering - Interview with Search Magazine

1. How do you decide on the feasibility of recovering the mineral deposit?

Feasibility of a mineral deposit is established mainly from technical and economic perspectives. Technical feasibility establishes whether a mineral deposit under consideration can be mined using available technology options including surface mining or underground methods, availability of appropriate sizes of equipment, safety and work environment requirements, availability of resources and such other parameters. Economic feasibility is established with a view on return on investments, break even volumes of production, pay back period and wealth creation. Another angle may be of legal permissibility, which establishes whether the law of the land permits mineral exploitation and allows usage as envisaged. An example for this could be how a coal block can be technically and economically feasible for a multinational mining company but may not be legally permissible since the regulation requires captive consumption of coal.

Sustainability of the mining venture needs to be assessed as well – from environmental and social perspectives. Without due consideration to sustainable development, the venture can fail in long run even when mineral deposits are technically and economically feasible and it is permissible to mine.

2. Please enlist the equipment necessary for mining?

Equipment for mining varies, depending upon mining method chosen. In the surface mines, the major heavy earth moving equipments currently used are rope and hydraulic shovels, draglines, dumpers and drills. The surface miners are also used where the ore is relatively soft, for example, for coal and limestone. The lignite mines have been using bucket wheel excavators for mining in conjunction with flexible conveyor transportation systems. Aside these production equipment, there are auxiliary equipment like dozers, water sprinklers, motor graders, and several others.

Underground mining methods usually employ side-discharge-loaders (SDLs), load-haul-dump (LHDs) machines, drill jumbo, continuous miners, raise borers, shaft sinking equipment, haulage tubs and others. Longwall coal mining methods employ shearers, armored face conveyors (AFCs), powered supports, road headers, and others. The auxiliary equipment for underground mining is used for rock bolting, water pumping, ventilation and safety.

3. What are the technological advancements taking place as far as manufacturing equipment are concerned?

With large sized surface mines planned and the level of mechanization already improving, the equipment sizes are going to be larger. Currently, rope shovels of sizes 4.5 to 20 cubic meters are common in Indian coal mines, but larger production capacities in deeper and higher stripping ratio mines will necessitate use of 55 and 70 cubic meter shovels. Matching the size of shovels, the dumper capacities are also expected to be 240 and 360 tonnes. Surface miners are useful for selective mining and have improved control on quality and eliminate the processes of drilling and blasting. They have used in Thalcher area of Mahandi Coalfields Limited for coal winning and for limestone mining in Gujarat Ambuja Mines.

Longwall technology for coal promises high productivity and coal recovery (more than 75%) but the technology does not have a good record in India. Apart from lower than expected production and productivity, there have been failures at Charcha and Kotadih mines. Several factors have contributed to these, including geo-mining conditions, hard roof strata, compatibility with other equipment, lack of adequate maintenance systems and lack of trained staff. The technology has been quite successful in several countries, particularly so in China, where about 90% of the annual production of around 2 billion tonnes per annum comes from underground mines.

The advancement in technology is directed towards greater flexibility, better safety features and larger capacities. On all these fronts, the mining equipment industry has made good progress.

4. Are you satisfied with the kind of equipment available today? (Please give an elaborate response)

There are wide ranges of equipment available today to meet new geo-technical challenges. However, every mineral deposit is unique and may challenge the engineers. Hence, the research and development efforts are on. The key to success of a mining venture is to involve equipment suppliers as partners in mine planning and design. This may result in nuts and bolts type of innovation in mining technology and equipment quite often, and breakthroughs in some cases. By and large, the advancement in mining equipment is satisfactory. Although in Indian context, we hear about technology failures and low productivity and efficiency of equipment, which, however, may be resultants of wrong technology selection, lowest-bidder procurement policies, poor maintenance practices, sub-standard spare parts and replacements.

5. Is the government providing enough safety gear for mining engineers?

Government has provided the legal and regulatory framework for safety of engineers and workmen, and for prevention of occupational diseases. Every mining project is bound to comply with these. Directorate General of Mines Safety, a regulatory arm of the Ministry of Labour, is entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring compliance with safety rules and regulations. By and large, these provisions have been effective in ensuring lower levels of safety breaches and fatalities. The safety standards in Indian mines can be higher provided the implementation of safety regulations is not compromised. It must be appreciated that loss of life, production, working hours and trust heavily overweight any compliance cost, and safety culture needs to be built in our industry practices.

6. What is your wishlist as a mining engineer to improve the conditions of working and the gaps that are present today?

I wish mining engineers were better paid! Mining has risks that not many professions have but the compensation structures of mining engineers do not always reflect this.

Shortage for human resources is likely to be one of most critical factors for mining industry. The lack of skilled resources is caused by a number of factors, including an ageing workforce, a levelling of number of labour entrants into the industry, a steady number of people exiting the industry. Currently, young talent may not be particularly attracted to the resources or minerals industry for a number of reasons. Although the opinions are divided but most of the mining graduates consider brand value and remuneration offered by a company as the two most important factor for accepting a job offer from a mining company. Mining companies need to address these needs and market their employment as those with potential for innovation and daily challenges. Reward is often looked at as only monetary payments; however it should be approached from a “Total Reward” perspective, including nature of work, projects, and relationships.

Lack of social life and remote location are the two most important factors which make career in mining industry an unattractive option. The difficulty in balancing work and family life forces mining engineers to explore and choose alternative career options. It may be surprising but some of the mining engineers and industry leaders acknowledge that mining engineers find getting a good life-partner difficult due to the work location.

It is appreciated that minerals occur where they do. But the industry may do well to provide for improved social affiliation, creation of facilities for recreation, create facilities for providing support to families, create vocational opportunities for spouses and family members and support them in their endeavours, and such other steps that may make stay at mine locations comfortable.