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Recently, all suppliers in InfoMine's Buyer's Guide were sent an email requesting news and editorials regarding their products or services. The response has been overwhelming and has added tremendously to the quality of the Buyer's Guide home page, which is viewed over 10,000 times per month. In addition, each month, 70,000 visitors conduct 80,000 Buyer's Guide searches, and view over 500,000 Supplier listings.
InfoMine would like to thank all the suppliers that responded by updating Star Rating to 3 Stars, the highest rating for complimentary listings. All supplier's news and editorials are free and is a great way to support your marketing efforts and get your message to the mining community.
Please continue sending your news directly to cobregon@infomine.com, and for editorials, please use the following form.
World-record lift succeeds with pinpoint precision - By Enerpac
One of the world's largest precision lifting applications of land-based equipment has been successfully completed in Australia. G&S Engineering Services in Queensland used an Enerpac synchronous hydraulic lifting system to lift, within tolerances of .02", a huge mining dragline weighing more than 3500 tons.
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Understanding the Financial Statements of a Mining Company
This EduMine course by Beverley Morgan is a must for corporate stakeholders of any description. By the end of the course you will have developed an awareness of the relevant financial information you can discover about a mining corporation from its audited financial statements.
You will also have an appreciation for how accountants are challenged with exercising professional judgement on qualitative issues and balancing this with numerical precision. Over the last 5 years Beverley Morgan has led graduate courses in accounting and financial management for engineers and operating managers in the mining industry More...
New Versions of the Mine Safety and Rescue Courses Now Available
The Mine Safety and Rescue courses have been extensively revised and upgraded. There are three courses in the new series, covering "Underground Gas Hazards", "Underground Fire Hazards" and "Terrain, Cold and Other Hazards".
The courses cover safety and rescue procedures to be used in prevention, preparedness and rescue operations for accidents or disasters at surface and underground mining operations. They also serve as a guide to good practice at any time when people are working in physically dangerous mining situations More...
Young At Heart!
A guy comes into a little mining town and sees an old timer sunning on a bench.
They visit for an hour and the visitor is impressed by this old miner.
"Say, old timer", he says, "what's your secret to a long life anyways?"
The ancient looking miner says, "...all my life I've partied hard, chased women hard, drank whiskey hard, worked hard.
I've lived that way every day right up to the present."
The visitor is amazed and asks the craggy faced miner, "How old are you anyways?"
"Twenty Nine", the miner replies.
What Did I do Wrong?
Did You ever wonder what those error messages that come up on your computer mean? Check out this link to decode computer error messages.
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Here's a sample of the information on "Granite" available on InfoMine. This is just an example of how our search provides excellent and pertinent results for any topic you wish to explore. Why not try your own favorite topic now? |
By Adrian Manlagnit, InfoMine Research
Fuelled mainly by booming steel industry in China, metallurgical coal has consistently remained British Columbia's (BC) top dollar earner for the years 2002 through 2004.
Figures compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers Canada (PWC) show that the net mining revenues for combined metallurgical and thermal coal rose 9% to USD1,048 million in 2004, compared with USD964 million for the previous year. The growing needs for steel by the construction sector, especially in China, has increased the demand for metallurgical coal, the fuel feed of the steel-making blast furnaces. BC is home to Elk Valley Coal, the world's second largest producer of metallurgical coal, located in the East Kootenay region.
Even though coal topped the list, improved prices of copper has narrowed down coal's lead, with the metal earning USD718 million last year, up by 55% from USD463 in 2003. There was also a significant jump in revenues for molybdenum to USD398 million in 2004 from USD129 million and USD85 million in 2003 and 2002, respectively. Molybdenum is an important alloying agent in steel and cast irons to enhance toughness and corrosion resistance.
Both zinc and lead posted improved revenues at USD530 million and USD104 million in 2004, compared with USD362 million and USD63 million in 2003, respectively. However, gold revenues last year dipped 4% to USD309 million against USD322 million the previous year.
For the combined minerals produced in BC, Japan remained the province's biggest market, generating 22% or USD775 million of the total net revenues in 2004, followed closely by the United States at 21%, Korea and Taiwan taking a total of 9% share, and the UK at 2%.
Average metal prices of all commodities in the study have improved significantly, with gold registering the highest increase of $45.59 to USD409.21/oz from USD363.51 (LME Final). Copper rose an average of $0.49 to USD1.30/lb in 2004 from USD$0.80 (LME Grade A) in 2003 while zinc gained 10 cents to USD0.60/lb last year. Coal moved up by a modest USD4.50 to 2004 from previous year's price, but jumped to USD132.5 at the close of the first quarter of 2005.
PricewaterhouseCoopers expects commodity prices to remain strong in 2005, especially for molybdenum and coal. With an average market price of USD125/tonne of coal as of April 1, 2005, the price should translate to improved results, boosted further by contribution in output by new coalmines due to be opened in the province within the current year.
For complete survey results, see the PWC website.
This article is copyrighted by and all rights reside with the author P.L. McCarthy
 Although the method Agricola* described for breaking rock might be regarded as the most primitive imaginable, the origins of metal mining in fact go back much further. There is little doubt that bronze tools were being used for mining purposes 6,000 years ago, with the Egyptians removing hard rock by building a fire against the face, then throwing water on the heated rock - the sudden contraction causing the rock to crack.
This "fire-setting" method, first mentioned by Agatharchides in the second century BC, was reportedly used until the seventeenth century and the advent of gunpowder. The concept of drilling holes in rock for blasting purposes was first proposed by Martin Weigel, the mine superintendent at Frieberg Germany, in 1613 with the first successful use of the said method attributed to Casper Windt, at Schemintz, four years later. But it was to be two centuries later before a practical, mechanised rock drill was demonstrated.
Drilling - using the "hammer and tap" method - and blasting were introduced to England in 1670, adopting either the "single jack" (one-man) or "double jack" methods for deeper holes. Even faster drilling became possible in 1749 when Hungarian miners introduced the chisel-bit drill in the Hartz mountains, but the use of black powder for blasting remained highly risky in the absence of a reliable fuse. Poor ventilation and dust added to the risk. Whereas 200 years had passed since Agricola had noted that "there were women in the Carpathian mountains who had married seven husbands, all of whom had died from consumption", blackpowder accidents in the 1700s more often mangled their victims than killed them outright.
 Much of the danger of premature explosions, hangfires and misfires was overcome with the invention of the safety fuse by William Bickford, of Tuckingmill in the UK, in 1831. Electric detonators had been invented two years earlier - by Moses Shaw in New York - while nitroglycerine was discovered by Sobrero 16 years later, in 1847, all of which made blasting a far more effective (and less dangerous) procedure.
But a superior method of drilling than hammer and tap was necessary if mining was to become more efficient. The idea of fastening a detachable tool to a mechanically moved piston rod dates from the invention of the steam hammer in about 1842. Its drawback, however, was that the steam delivery lines had to be kept short and well insulated to prevent the steam from condensing before it reached the cylinder, effectively limiting steampowered rock drills to surface (and not underground) use.
It was in 1844 that Brunton, an Englishman, suggested using compressed air in a rock drill, naming it the "wind hammer". It was five years later when J W Fowle, in Boston, took out a patent for a modern rock drill with many additional features. Despite further enhancements of the Fowle drill - by Bartlett in 1855 who tested it in the first of the major tunnelling projects, the Mont Cenis tunnel - the steam-driven drills continued to be extremely unreliable until further modifications -by Sommeiller in the 1860s - saw a machine of the same name go into regular use, including use in underground mining at Moresuet, Belgium in 1863.
 Fortunately, following worldwide publicity given to the drill used in the Mont Cenis project, there was a boom in research and development over the next decade with the Haupt drill and a number of others, including the development of the rifle-bar and ratchet-wheel piston assembly, being released and tested in mines and tunnels across the world.
Notwithstanding numerous claims, most of the drills referred to were crude and a source of troublesome dust. Because of the primitive metallurgy at the time, the metals used were inadequate and machining tolerances not sufficiently fine. The invention of dynamite in 1867, whilst making blasting safer, aggravated the dust problem by its shattering effect.
The use of compressed air aided ventilation in mines as it was breathable when exhausted by the drill and the expansion of the exhaust air helped cool the atmosphere.
* Georgius Agricola (1494-1555). German scholar and physician, known as the father of mineralogy. His work, the first to be based on practical knowledge and direct observation, initiated the development of modern geology and the study of metals. In his book De Re Metallica, published in 1555, he summarised all that was known of mining and smelting at that time. An unfortunate by-product of the same process saw the exhaust ports of the rock drill grow extremely cold, often freezing over. The water forming this ice came in through the compressed air delivery line with the air, having been added deliberately at the compressor! The early designs of air compressors all required water injection, with many having water-filled cylinders to remove the heat of compression. Meanwhile, attempts to build compressors for 'dry' air resulted in explosions when the cylinder lubricant vaporised and was ignited by the high temperature. The concept of the multi-stage air compressor with intercooling and water jacket had not yet arrived. Nevertheless, by the close of the 1860s, several promising rock drills - many of which were operating successfully in underground mines - and a reliable, powerful and safe explosive had been developed.
At the same time, new goldfields were opening up in Australia, with mining companies ready to embrace this new technology.
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