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Silo Busting for Better Tailings Decisions: Bridging & Optimizing Technical, Money & Sustainability Risks

Level: Intermediate 

Facilitators:  

Karen Chovan, Enviro Integration Strategies Inc.   
David Clarry, Innotain Inc. 

This workshop will highlight the challenges of current evaluation methods for long-life investments. We’ll explore key shifts in practice, metrics, and other processes that can support designing and selecting optimal solutions in the context of tailings design and related water management. This will include the role of financial and risk analysis in evaluating alternatives and determining the feasibility of solutions in the context of overall projects.

Context: Balancing the values and expectations from multiple stakeholders is particularly relevant in the areas of tailings and water management. Choosing the most optimal solutions for technology and design is challenging for organizations and communities alike. Given their enduring lifecycles, the inherent long-term impacts and benefits of such facilities don’t show-up in traditional financial evaluations, being discounted in time value of money analysis such as NPV or IRR. 

Developing and agreeing on optimal designs combining long-term stability, safety, impact and benefit requires collaboration across groups that may bring different timeframes, experiences and priorities. Good collaboration in such circumstances requires clarity and alignment on aspects such as:

• External factors, and associated risks, performance criteria, and standards that should be considered and/or prioritized

• Potentially viable, relevant solution options

• Performance expectations for solution alternatives, and their salient risks to performance

• Key decision criteria and the process to choose between alternatives

• Environmental and socio-economic costs and benefits, as translated into financial terms

• Financing sources and mechanisms for long-term benefits that may not appeal to typical sources of mining investment, and

• The structures, processes, resources, and supports available for implementation  

Short Course Objectives:  

To help participants understand how better decisions can be made for waste management and closure in mining, by considering objectives and holistic options earlier, thinking systematically, including more stakeholders, considering economics, and incorporating sustainability and risk factors from the start.

Target Audience:  

We invite multi-discipline practitioners and managers involved in options and economic analyses, design and decision-making for mine waste management systems.