Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr
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LOCAL POLITICS 44 E&MJ; • FEBRUARY 2018 www.e-mj.com Russell said. "Last year (2016) marked the fourth consecutive year of globally declining exploration expenditure, with the U.S. showing the sharpest pullback in exploration last year, with its budgets falling more than 30%," he said. Growing dependence on imports leaves many key domestic industries unnecessarily vulner- able to supply chain disruptions, he said. "The length of time it takes to secure per- mits in the U.S. is a key reason behind this dependency on foreign sources." A couple of examples illustrate how the length of the permitting process is slowing the development of new Ameri- can sources of base metal supplies. In Arizona, south of Tucson, is a cop- per, molybdenum, silver and porphyry de- posit on a 20,000-acre property acquired by Canada's Hudbay Minerals in July 2014. The company reports the open-pit mine, known as the Rosemont Project, would be "one of the largest copper mines in the United States, accounting for ap- proximately 10% of total U.S. copper pro- duction." The permitting process for the mine was launched more than a decade ago. The final approvals now must come from the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). "These federal permits are currently in the review process," the company reported in a tech- nical report published in March 2017. Similarly, Tintina Resources, head- quartered in Vancouver, first leased the roughly 12,000-acre Black Butte proper- ty, containing copper, cobalt and silver, in Central Montana in 2010. The deposit, reportedly discovered in 1985, is locat- ed on a property that spans some federal acreage and about an acre of wetland. Exploration there climaxed in 2012. The company reported the deposit contains roughly a billion pounds of copper in 12 million mt of ore, "making this the high- HYDRA-U Underground Safety and Stability Monitoring Re-defined IDS GeoRadar Srl Part of Hexagon Via Augusto Righi, 1-2 -56121 Ospedaletto, Pisa, Italy Tel: +39 050 89 34 100 sales.mining@idsgeoradar.com www.idsgeoradar.com Remote monitoring of non-accessible areas of underground openings. No markers required High spaঞal resoluঞon to detect moving rock elements with sub-millimetric accuracy Results provided in real-ঞme with onsite processing and alerts set on specific velocity thresholds 3D data representaঞon and infrared visual imaging of monitored areas to ease data interpretaঞon Compact and portable soluঞon, easily transportable and installed by one person Minimal moving parts and low profile design guarantee robustness and maximum availability in all mining condiঞons Monitoring system for early warning and real-time monitoring of ground fall hazards in underground mines From feasibility study to port in five years. Above, potash from K+S's Bethune mine, via a new rail spur, reaches Port Moody, where the company opened a storage facility in August 2017. (Photo: K+S Potash Canada)