Integrating Mining & Closure – Does Language Matter?

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Topic Presenter: Mike O'Kane, President, Okane Consultants

Date: 10 November 2021

Time: 9:00 am to 10:00 am (Australian Western Standard Time)

Presentation Overview: 

Often, in our busy personal and work lives we are challenged with effectively communicating our needs, wants, and priorities. In addition, if we think about the challenge of communicating with each other whether it be in one language, or if we were from countries with different languages, the challenge remains the same.

In the context of mine planning and closure planning, and in particular integrated mine planning and closure planning, what is our common "dictionary"? How are we defining "integration" or “to be integrated"?

This presentation defines integrated mine planning and closure planning as the process of considering both the extraction plan and the closure plan concurrently. For example, a change to one plan must directly affect the other. This requires development and implementation of a "one source of truth" tool, which when different input factors are considered, leads to influences on environment, social and financial risk/opportunity that can be transparently communicated.

We look forward to providing the framework around the need for an integrated mine planning and closure planning approach during this presentation; more importantly, we will provide the technical background, as well as a detailed case study, to not only define "integration" but illustrate its example with a case study that focuses on a key environmental risk in the mining industry; namely, mine rock stockpiles.

Presenter Profile:  Mike O’Kane founded Okane Consultants (Okane) in 1996 after completing his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Saskatchewan.  Okane provides integrated mine planning and mine closure solutions to the mining industry internationally with offices in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the USA. Mike received the University of Saskatchewan Alumni Achievement Award in 2014 for “Global Development of his Business and Corporation, and Philanthropy”.

Mike continues to work with Okane as a senior technical advisor, using his wide-ranging technical expertise and knowledge on risk management best practices as tools for the development and communication of project objectives and designs. He utilises a life of asset value framework that incorporates evaluation for optimising the “best” next land use with an acceptable level of residual risk while maximizing incremental net present value and achieving progressive ESG outcomes.

Mike provides independent peer review to mine operators and owners, as well as State, Territorial, Provincial, and Federal government agencies, and is a member of a number of closure planning and/or technical advisory panels. Mike is the lead author on numerous documents pertaining to cover system and landform design, implementation and performance monitoring. He also provides landform and cover system design workshops / short courses at leading mine waste management conferences around the world.