Competitive Advantages of SORDMiner
- Why is the SORDMiner cheaper to operate?
- What are SORDMiner’s substantial advantages?
- What are the alternatives to the SORDMiner?
- If it uses known technologies, why is it so different?
Why is the SORDMiner cheaper to operate?
The SORDMiner does not crush the ore, uses no human labour underground, removes little or no waste and uses slurry as the ore delivery method. The outcome is ore enriched at the head and has minimal labour cost and energy usage.
What are SORDMiner’s substantial advantages?
It accesses rich resources that are often inaccessible to traditional mining methods.
SORDMiner has minimal environmental impact when compared with traditional mining alternatives.
SORDMiner mines at high production rates.
SORD Miner enriches the ore at the head prior to removal by screening out oversize material.
What are the alternatives to the SORDMiner?
In deep collapsing environments there are generally no economic alternatives to SORDMiner. Open pit mining in such environments tends to be uneconomic due to ground stability problems and the volume of waste required to be removed. Underground mining is similarly restricted by ground stability problems, which require such extreme ground support that mining becomes uneconomic and dangerous. Both open pit and underground mining require dewatering of the aquifer before mining can commence - a costly and environmentally undesirable requirement. Dredging may be used in such environments only to shallow depths of up to 30m and suffers from the generation of large amounts of waste material and environmental disturbance.
If it uses known technologies, why is it so different?
It is the combination of the use of these traditional technologies that make the SORDMiner different. The key to utilising tried and tested methodologies used in the SORD head is the Shield which for the first time enables delivery of the ore to the surface from the mining face in collapsing environments.