Modernization of operational equipment and technologies - major requirement for the contemporary mining operations

摘要

In future, the mining activity has to make significant progress regarding the complete and efficient recovery of useful elements and the reduction of production costs. Progress has to be made in the field of geological knowledge; exploration and production drilling operations and methods to work with such machines; utilization of explosives; mechanical rock cutting; automation; utilization of mathematical and electronic computer modeling, etc. In the coming decades, the automated drill rigs which prepare the working faces for blasting will accurately indicate the location, direction and sizes of the drilled holes and will be provided with mechanical and geophysical sensors and which will contribute to the determination of the rock characteristics found in each drill hole. Many mining units will use the rock mechanical excavation from the working faces. Most equipment will be provided with automatic running system and the further equipment breakdowns will be very rare as the machine condition is permanently monitored. The consequence of these technological improvements leads to a better recovery of the useful deposits under exploitation, better work safety and diminution of the real price of the mined out ores and energetic goods. In the field of ore processing, the classical or modern methods will be applied so as to provide efficient economic recoveries of more or even all useful metals - chemical components of the raw materials delivered for processing which will require low investment and less power consumption resulting in low cost of the concentrates. The mining units which will not pay particular attention to the equipment and technological modernization will not be compatible any longer and the production cost curve will reach the highest point and thus the activity becomes inefficient in terms of costs and finally it leads to their cessation. From another perspective, the technological modifications will offer every country an extraordinary chance to ensure themselves an ever higher percentage of the required raw materials from domestic markets at prices comparable to the world market to the benefit of the -overall mining sector and national economy. In the mining field, particular attention will have to be paid to the environment issues and to the environmental rehabilitation as the quality of the life of the future generations can be achieved only by complying with the sustainable development principles.