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DRY STACK TAILINGS? DON'T BOTHER WITH FILTERS - A CASE STUDY

Conference Paper · February 2017

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 DRY STACK TAILINGS?

DON’T BOTHER WITH FILTERS

– A CASE STUDY

Antonio Accioly, WesTech Engineering, Salt Lake City, UT

Mick L McCaslin PE, WesTech Engineering, Salt Lake City, UT

B.P. Misra, WesTech Process Equipment India P. Ltd., Mumbai

Subhash Patra, WesTech Process Equipment India P. Ltd., Mumbai

Abstract
This paper presents a simple solution for dry stack
tailings without the use of an expensive filtration stage.
The concept involves well proven paste technology and
an inexpensive, widely applicable air-drying scheme to
permit bulk handling of the tailings using mobile
equipment or traditional conveyors. A case study is
addressed where the approach was planned and is
feasible. Low-risk tailings management need not be
horrendously expensive.
Introduction
Dictionary doesn’t help us; at least not yet. What is clear
is that paste underflow from a high density thickener is
not considered “dry stack” material; with the possible
exception of few creative paste thickener sales efforts.
Certainly the argument can be made that a primary
goal of dry stacking is to minimize free water in the
tailings. Paste and thickened tails accomplish that goal
quite effectively. They do however produce a non-
Newtonian slurry that can be pumped, and transporting
paste thickener underflow via truck or conveyor belt is
more challenging than with filtered tails. Of course few, if
any, installations outside of our case study have
considered relocating a stack after it has dried.

We begin by acknowledging that our title is a bold
claim and further concede that our proposition is not a
solution for every site. However, as the case study
illustrates, air-drying of paste or thickened tails is a viable
option for dry stacking.
In tailings management, the term “dry stacking” is
most often interpreted as filtered tailings or possibly as
tailings that cannot be pumped (Davies & Rice 2001).
While it is not a loosely defined term, there is certainly
flexibility of the meaning since the Merriam-Webster
Leaning on the definition of dry stacking as “tailings
that cannot be pumped”, we present a case study in which
thickened tails are air dried to where they may be easily
relocated using bulk handling equipment. The method
requires low capital expenditure (CAPEX) and
operational expenditure (OPEX), substantially less than
required by filtration.
Background

1
 Shri Bajrang Power and Ispat Limited (SBPIL) is Figure 2 shows a tower with newly deposited paste
located near Tilda, about 35 km (22 miles) from Raipur, and Figure 3 a second tower where the paste stack has
Chhattisgarh, India. SBPIL’s parent is GOEL Group, a dried.
leading producer of steel, sponge iron, pellets and power
in Chhattisgarh. The Tilda site is an integrated steel
facility producing 1.4 million metric tons per year (1.5
million short tons per year) of iron pellet and 500 tons per
day (551 short tons per day) of sponge. The complex
includes a 16 megawatt power plant. The mill processes
2.0 million metric tons per year (2.2 million short tons per
year) of high and low grade iron ore that results in 60-70
dry metric tons per hour (mT/hr) (66-77 short tons per
hour) of tailings. Original design of the system was to
deal with as much as 150 mT/hr of solids. (Misra, et al,
2016)

Mill tailings at SBPIL contain enough fines to

support thickened tails with yield stresses of 50-80
Pascals (Pa); high enough that there is little to no free
water in the underflow, but low enough for deposition
with 1-3% angle of repose. The latter means monsoonal
rains will drain away without eroding the stack.
Precipitation averages 1,188 mm (47 inches) annually, but
over 95% of that comes in a four month period between
June and September.
In 2015, SBPIL replaced their high rate tailings
thickener with a 14 meter (46 foot) WesTech Deep Bed™
paste thickener. Deposition is in an existing 3.6 hectare (9
acre) tailings pond, accomplished by pumping paste to
three towers located in different zones of the
impoundment as illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 2 - Deposition tower 2 Figure 3 – Tower 3
Alternate Method to Filtered Tails
SBPIL sequences deposition of paste through one
tower after the other. Their plans were to seek a market
for the tailings and ship the solids by reclaiming them
from dried stacks.
A suitable buyer for the tailings has not been found,
but SBPIL is currently considering blending the dried
tailings with high grade run of mine ore for reprocessing.
Meanwhile, conversion to paste has substantially
extended the theoretical life of the tailings impoundment.

Years of experience with paste and thickened tails

has shown that lack of surface water means the stacks dry
very quickly. This is illustrated by the series of photos in
Figure 1, showing a paste sample air drying over four (4)
days.

Figure 1 - Tailings Impoundment at SBPIL

The towers in Figure 1, and their surrounding stacks,
are marked with red arrows and rain runoff is clearly
visible in the background, as the photograph was taken
near the end of the monsoon season. The stacks have
suffered no visible erosion, attesting to the success of the
low-angle deposition.
Figure 4 - Drying: Day 1, Day 2 and Day 4
SBPIL has found that once paste deposition has been
moved to another tower, stacks will support personnel and
some equipment after about a week; during the dry
season. Those studies correlate with observations at other
installations, where experience has shown that dry-time is
much more dependent on depth of deposited layers than it

2
is on other factors, such as rain events. Further study will
be needed to:
 Determine dry time during the monsoons.
 Optimize the deposition and dry cycle.
 Address the inevitable unintended consequences of a
new process.
However, SBPIL’s successes in their first year of
operation, coupled with experience at other facilities,
suggests that their original plans are functionally sound.
Justification
“Functionally sound” does not always translate to
economically sound. Therefore, we also attempted a
financial assessment of the proposed method.
Capital cost for SBPIL to design, build and install the
entire system was approximately US$700,000. A
thorough study for a filter plant has not been done; but
purchase of local pressure filters for the same tonnage
would be perhaps US$600,000 to US$900,000. Attendant
filter plant costs for auxiliary equipment, design and
construction are assumed to be another US$1,000,000. So
using filtration to achieve dry stacking calculates to about
2½ times the CAPEX. Given the accuracy of estimates, a
range of 2-3 times would be more appropriate.1
Designing the system around filtered tailings would
likely require some sort of intermediate transport and
storage of filtered solids, where that is not necessary for
the air-dried tailings at SBPIL. However, a different air-
dry configuration at another site might also require
intermediate transport and storage; so we will simply
acknowledge that there is no one-size-fits-all answer to
such a complex issue and consider the cost of the filter
plant to be the major variable in this analysis.
Because India is one of the most cost-effective places
in the world to build such a system, we also deemed it
appropriate to do a CAPEX evaluation for design, build
and construct in North America. Table 1 has the results of
the alternate comparison of a paste thickener circuit
followed by air drying versus a high-rate thickener
followed by filtration.
An attempt was made to estimate OPEX (see Table
1). While those values are also approximate, they are
1Other variables like a high-rate thickener versus paste, costs of
piping system differences and costs for the deposition towers are
within the margin of error of other estimates.
3
sufficient to illustrate the point; operating costs for a filter
plant would be much higher than for air-dried tailings.
Table 1 - Comparative costs based on North American
estimates. (Approximate values only.)
Paste/Air-Dry High-Rate/Filters
Thickener US$1,000,000 US$ 600,000
Dewatering - US$3,000,000
Installation US$ 400,000 US$4,000,000
Total CAPEX US$1,400,000 US$7,600,000
Est OPEX US$ 120,000/yr US$ 700,000/yr
The numbers are general in nature and the economic
analysis clearly incomplete, but it illustrates that there
must be substantial costs saved or revenue generated to
economically offset the filtration step.
Qualifiers
A drawback to air drying thickened tails, as a method
for dry stacking, may be the required size of the
deposition area. Of course that disadvantage is largely site
dependent. In SBPIL’s case, the area is 3.6 hectares (9
acres); but the old tailings pond was a space readily
available. Deposition methods could be optimized and the
deposition towers, which were designed and built locally,
are an atypical configuration. Addressing those issues
would offset some of the space concerns.
Perhaps the greatest disadvantage to air drying
thickened tails is the loss of process water due to
evaporation. If one considers the SBPIL yield stress curve
in Figure 1, and knowing that the planned operating range
was 50-80 Pa, then solids in the thickener underflow
would range 55-62% by weight; or conversely residual
water would be 45-38%. SBPIL processes 60-70 mT/hr
(66-77 sT/hr) of dry solids. As can be seen in Table 2, the
low range estimate of water in the underflow would be 37
mT/hr (41 sT/hr) and the high range would be 57 mT/hr
(63 sT/hr).
 total water and filters could be expected to lose only 1-
15%.

Table 4 - Estimated water in thickener feed.

Total Water
Low % mT/hr High % mT/hr
Solids 7% 60.0 Solids 22% 70.0
Liquid 93% 797.1 Liquid 78% 248.2
Slurry 100% 857.1 Slurry 100% 318.2

Table 5 - Water loss from different options

% of % of
Losses mT/hr Inflow mT/hr Inflow
Figure 5 - SBPIL Yield Stress Curve Water In 797.1 248.2
Out with Paste 36.8 4.6% 57.3 23.1%
Out with Filter 6.7 0.8% 37.7 15.2%
Table 2 - Estimated water losses with air-dried thickened tails.
Thickened Tails As is well recognized in tailings management
Low % mT/hr High % mT/hr decisions, each site must be evaluated for its own
Solids 62% 60.0 Solids 55% 70.0 challenges and our water loss assessment is only general
in nature. Still, for sites where water costs are high, a
Liquid 38% 36.8 Liquid 45% 57.3 filtration plant may be economically justifiable compared
Slurry 100% 96.8 Slurry 100% 127.3 to air-dried tailings.

Residual cake moisture in filtered tailings can vary Conclusions

widely. A range of 6-50% by weight, or 94-50% solids,
covers most operations (Robertson, et al 1982), (Watson
When the abstract for this paper was first submitted,
2010) and (Fiscor 2010). However moisture content less
it was the authors’ understanding that SBPIL was
than 10 or 15% is rare and, in the event of high moisture
operating as intended; regularly removing air-dried solids
filter cake, it is unlikely that filters would be selected; so
from their tailings impoundment with mobile equipment.
for comparative purposes we will assume a practical
Having learned that their plans were evolving, we
range of 10-35% moisture. Applied to the slurry at
considered canceling the paper. Upon further reflection,
SBPIL, the hypothetical range of cake moistures would be
we felt there was sufficient merit in the concept to present
7-38 mT/hr (7-42 sT/hr), as can be seen in Table 3.
it to a wider audience.
Table 3 - Estimated water losses with filtered tails.
Certainly the proposed approach is not a panacea.
Filtration Like any engineering decision, one must consider the
Low % mT/hr High % mT/hr compromises involved. However, air drying thickened
Solids 90% 60.0 Solids 65% 70.0 tails to achieve dry stacking appears to be a practical
option in many situations.
Liquid 10% 6.7 Liquid 35% 37.7
Slurry 100% 66.7 Slurry 100% 107.7 References
Subtracting residual moistures in Table 3 from Table Davies, M.P. and Rice, S. (2001). An alternative to
2 suggests that a filter plant could recoup 20-30 mT/hr conventional tailing management – “dry stack” filtered
(22-33 sT/hr) more water than the paste thickener. tailings, AMEC Earth & Environmental, Vancouver,
Canada
At SBPIL, the influent to the thickener varies from
7% to 22% solids by weight, which means 248-797 mT/hr Misra, B.P., Upadhyaya, P.S., Biesinger, Mark T., and
(274-879 sT/hr) of water in the thickener feed (see Table Goel, Pawan (2016), Start-up of India’s first ever Paste
4). Compared to values from Table 2 and Table 3, we can Disposal System for Iron Ore Tailings Management at
see in Table 5 that the air-dried tailings lose 5-23% of the

4
 Shri Bajrang Power and Ispat Ltd. using a WesTech Deep
Bed™ Paste Thickener, Federation Of Indian Mineral
Industries Conference – FIMI-2016

Robertson, A. MacG., Fisher, J.W. and van Zyl, D.

(1982). The Production and Handling of Dry Uranium
and Other Tailings, Symposium on Uranium Mill Tailings
Management, Colorado, December.

Watson, Andrew (2010), Alternative Tailing Disposal –

Fact and Fiction, International Mining Supplement, April

Fiscor, Steve (2010), Filtration Becomes a Viable Option

for Environmental Compliance, Engineering and Mining
Journal, 11 August 2010

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