SRK 40th Anniversary

The Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality (BCMM) in East London, SA, faces strong demand for residential development in the Quinera area south of the N2 highway. This area, together with the Beacon Bay and Gonubie areas, is served by the Quinera (Gonubie) Wastewater Treatment Works. Aware that the works was nearing...

When the Bafokeng platinum tailings dam in Rustenburg, SA failed in 1974, liquefied tailings flowed into an adjacent shaft, killing 13 people underground. In 1975, SRK designed a new tailings impoundment to meet a probability of annual loss of life at less than 1 in a million. The complex has...

From the late 1970’s, SRK has been involved with numerous tailings disposal projects in the platinum-rich Rustenburg and Polokwane areas of SA. This work includes: Tailings dams and return water dams at Rustenburg Section, Union Section, Aquarius-Kroondal, Marikana, Everest and Blue Ridge Mines. Lonmin Western Platinum and Eastern Platinum Mines,...

Air Liquide appointed SRK for civil engineering, geotechnical and environmental aspects for an air separation unit at Highveld Steel, Witbank, SA. The plant will supply liquid oxygen, nitrogen, argon and gaseous oxygen. SRK designed concrete structures and containers for storing and moving the liquids and gases using approximately 7760t of...

In November 2013, Sable Mining appointed SRK to manage the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the Liberia iron ore export project. Sable is developing a 25-year Life of Mine plan for the deposit at Mount Nimba, Guinea, from where the ore will travel by rail to Port of Buchanan, Liberia...

Since 2009, SRK has completed multiple phases of work on the Garafiri project in Guinea. The first being the supervision and design of exploration drilling from 2009-2010. SRK implemented industry best practice logging and sampling protocols and quality control procedures and organised the final exploration database. Next, SRK completed two...

Early in 2012, SRK was appointed by the Dept. of Water and Forestry, now Dept. of Water and Sanitation, to assess the qualities and quantities of mine waste water in the northern Goldfields of the Witwatersrand Basin as part of the feasibility study to develop appropriate water treatment solutions. The...

In 2004, SRK was commissioned by the South African Government to report on the drivers and state of South Africa’s biophysical and social environments. The team hosted stakeholder workshops to solicit technical input, views and opinions from civil society, government business, NGOs and academia and reported on policy responses addressing...

This gold project in Burkina Faso involved the acquisition, analysis and interpretation of existing data to generate geotechnical drilling locations for rock mass characterisation studies. A detailed geotechnical and structural logging exercise was carried out and samples selected for analysis. A structural, kinematic and limit equilibrium analysis of data resulted...

Zanaga plans to mine, process and transport 30Mtpa of iron ore concentrate by slurry pipeline. This project is located in the Republic of Congo some 300km northeast of Pointe Noire. From 2009 to 2014, SRK managed the multi-disciplinary project and conducted geotechnical and hydrogeological investigations and analysis to support the...

In 2012, SRK inspected some multi-bench and bench-scale failures in the North and Central pits of this mine in Burkina Faso. The failure mechanism involved the interaction of foliation planes, basal planes and orthogonal joints. Also, daylighting of non-persistent basal planes interacting with steeply dipping westerly foliation planes which served...

Minco Silver Corporation retained SRK in 2007 to carry out a Preliminary Economic Assessment for its Fuwan Silver Project in Guangdong Province, China. Based on the information available at that stage, SRK concluded that the Fuwan Project is technically and economically viable as an underground mining operation with the capacity...

In 2007, SRK was appointed by Mongol Gazar to conduct a geotechnical assessment and provide open-pit design recommendations for the Olon Ovoot gold mine in Mongolia. The team carried out empirical and numerical analyses to assess appropriate preliminary geotechnical pit-slope design parameters. In order to develop and maintain pit wall...

In 2011, SRK produced an independent technical review report on Hanking Mining Ltd’s iron ore properties in Liaoning Province, China for their IPO listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx). Hanking, one of the largest iron ore producers in northeastern China, successfully raised $148 million in September 2011 even...

Balasore Alloys (BAL) commissioned SRK to undertake a feasibility study and prepare a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for its underground chromite properties in Odisha. SRK initiated the project in 2012 with a strategic analysis of the Kaliapani mine then guided an extensive program to generate new exploration data for the...

Citigroup, for the purpose of the project’s financing, commissioned SRK in 2008 to review the environmental and social performance of a nickel refinery operation in Shaanxi Province, China, according to the Environmental, Health, and Safety Performance Standards and Guidelines for the International Finance Corporation and The Equator Principles. The for...

SRK, in conjunction with the US Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, has been active in Afghanistan since 2011. This work has been undertaken to assist the Afghan government in developing and marketing their mineral deposits. The work involves field visits, technical reports, delivery of training courses and acting...

In 2010, when the Government of India divested 10% of its equity in CIL, SRK, as an Independent Engineer, conducted an audit of CIL’s coal resources and reserves and prepared an Independent Technical Report for CIL’s Initial Public Offering of shares to the public, following the guidelines set out in...

SRK was appointed by Crosslands Resources in 2010 to undertake a Definitive Feasibility Study of the Jack Hills expansion project in Western Australia. It is expected the project will produce more than 20 million tonnes per annum of iron ore concentrates and DSO (Direct Shipping Ore) products, with an expected...

In 2011, SRK prepared a series of Technical Reports in line with Canadian National Instrument 43-101 reporting standards, for mining activities for Inova Resources, formerly Ivanhoe Australia, at the Osborne copper/gold project in north-western Queensland. Over a three-year period the project advanced from a Preliminary Environmental Assessment to reporting Mineral...

During the period 2007 to 2014, SRK completed the feasibility design for Karara Iron Ore Mine’s filtered tailings storage facility in Western Australia, and provided detailed design, an operations manual and operational engineering assistance. After a comparative study, SRK designed a unique ‘dry stacking’ facility combining a conveyor and stacking...

SRK was commissioned by Jupiter Mines in 2011 to provide feasibility study proposals and resource reviews for their Mt Mason hematite deposit in the Yilgarn region of Western Australia. The proposals included the earth science technical disciplines of the feasibility study, including resource estimation, surface and groundwater, geochemistry, geotechnical engineering,...

Udokan is one of the largest undeveloped copper deposits in the world in terms of metal contained with a JORC Ore Reserve of 16Mt of contained copper in an open pit reserve. Since 2010, SRK’s work on this project in the Zabaikal region of Russia, has included supervising the drilling...

SRK began work with Koza in 2009, preparing a Competent Person’s Report for its initial listing on the Istanbul Stock Exchange, followed by annual audits of their mineral resources and reserves. Koza’s multiple mining assets are located in the Ovacık, Mastra, Kaymaz and Himmetdede Districts in Turkey. Mines are planned...

Sirius Minerals’ York Potash project will exploit the significant polyhalite resource located under north-east England. Among the largest underground mines in the world, York Potash will be the first underground mine to be developed in the UK for over a decade. In 2012, SRK undertook an independent review of a...

SRK has been involved in developing the Lisina phosphate project in Serbia since 2009. SRK has provided on-going advice and support to the Company owners as the project has advanced. We are developing the project from the exploration stage to the Serbian feasibility study stage. SRK’s input is intended to...

Since 2011, SRK has been involved in the geoscientific site evaluations for NWMO’s Adaptive Phased Management (APM) project. The NWMO is implementing APM, which is Canada’s plan for the long-term management of used nuclear fuel. The ultimate objective of APM is the containment and isolation of used nuclear fuel in...

The Sudbury Basin is the second largest nickel district in the world. In 2005, Vale Ontario Operations retained SRK to provide structural geological support to their Sudbury operations comprising six operating mines in the district: Totten, Creighton, Stobie, Garson, Coleman, and Copper Cliff Mines. SRK provides Vale with structural inputs...

SRK is providing geochemical advisory services to the Government of the Northwest Territories for the construction of the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway. The 138km highway will be a public all-weather road that provides access to the Arctic coast. It is being constructed using granular materials sourced from numerous borrow pits...

SRK has worked with Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. since 2006 on multiple properties, including but not limited to United Taconite, Northshore, Tilden, Bloom Lake, Wabush, and Hibbing. Services range from fatal flaw assessments, resource and reserve estimations, operations development, short and long-term mine planning, technical reports and related studies, and...

Since 2010, SRK has completed a comprehensive groundwater resource study to support water supply development, dewatering and permitting at the Hycroft Mine in Nevada, including the design and management of a field investigation and testing program to support hydrologic characterisation of multiple hydrothermally-altered volcanic rock packages and deep, penetrating hydrothermally-influenced...

Since 2011, SRK has worked with Cameco Corporation to quantify uncertainty in uranium grades for exploration and operation projects in Australia and Canada. This work involves geostatistical analysis for constructing conditional simulation models of grades. Often, these models are benchmarked against conventional resource models to determine the uncertainty distributions for...

From 1938 until its closure in 1976, the Madsen gold mine in Ontario produced more than 2.4 million ounces of gold. SRK was commissioned by Claude Resources in March 2008 to convert the mine’s wealth of historical, paper-based geological data into a modern 3D geological model for the Madsen Gold...

Doris North will be the first mine operating on the 80km Hope Bay Greenstone Belt in Nunavut. Since 2002, SRK has helped advance this gold project from the initial scoping study, through environmental assessment, regulatory approval, detailed engineering and construction quality assurance. SRK has also provided geotechnical (rock and permafrost),...

From 2010 to 2015, SRK undertook the feasibility, detail design and construction supervision of the Tap D in-pit tailings facility for the Tucano gold project in Brazil. After advising Beadell Resources on the efficient operation of the facility to maximise in-pit tailings occupation, SRK designed and prepared construction documentation for...

In 2013, the Miraflores field programme near Quinchia, Columbia, piggybacked the exploration drilling, gathering data on rock strengths and fracturing to determine variations in rock mass quality. The data was analysed to provide pit slope and bench design parameters, and pillar and stope dimensions for underground mine design. The programme...

In mid-2004, Minera Los Pelambres requested SRK to carry out the detailed engineering of 4 tunnels in Chile: Las Ánimas II, 3.5km; Coirón, 2.5km; La Guardia, 2.4km and Evacuador, 3.3km-long. Geotechnical and engineering design, technical specifications, bid and permit documents, as well as cost estimates and construction schedules, were developed...

In 2008, this copper project began in Chile at the pre-feasibility level. During the study, 26 alternative options were developed and evaluated in terms of the production rate of the expansion, underground and open-pit alternatives, process plant locations, associated infrastructure and impacts of the 70km-long tunnels in the project schedule...

SRK has been working on developing this iron ore mining project since mid-2013. The project, located in Peru, is owned by Jinzhao Mining Peru. Jinzhao’s detailed exploration work indicated that the project is amenable to open-pit mining. Recently, SRK completed a mine feasibility study using the IPCC system for ore...

From 2008 to 2012, the project included a technical audit of available hydrogeological data, and developing and implementing a field hydrogeological program in Colombia. The goal was to use 3D groundwater modelling to assess possible groundwater inflow rates, pore pressure distribution for pit slope analysis, and the potential impact to...