A 2020 World Bank Report, "The Mineral Intensity of the Clean Energy Transition," found that the production of minerals, such as graphite, lithium and cobalt, could increase by nearly 500% between 2020 and 2050, in order to meet the growing demand for clean energy technologies. This is driving new mining and mineral extraction across the globe in the race for the raw materials required for electrification, alternative energy and digital devices. The remining of legacy waste storage facilities in concert with a greater focus on rehabilitation is also increasing, leading to a more sustainable approach to critical mineral extraction.

Impacts

• Predicted mining waste of over one hundred billion tons of solid waste annually and growing;  
• Mine disasters across the globe witnessed in recent years resulting from mine tailings facilities failures;  
• Environmental damage including air, soil and water contamination; biodiversity and habitat loss; and
• Negative impacts on local communities and heritage.

Our solution

Working with the global mining industry, global customers, subject matter experts, engineers of record and ICMM stakeholders, Insight Terra brought a scalable and extensible mine tailings monitoring solution to the market. The Tailings Insight Platform is designed specifically to assist a mine operator achieve compliance with national and international standards, such as the Mining Association of Canada (MAC) Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) standard, the South African Code of Practice for Mine Residue Deposits SANS 10286, and the recent Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM).  In this way, Tailings Insight delivers a comprehensive value proposition towards the goal of zero harm to people and the environment.

Tailings Insight is currently being used in global mining operations to monitor, in real time, geotechnical risks associated with mine tailings facilities.

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Interconnected risk factors

A mining organization’s 'Licence to Operate' may be dependent on multiple and interconnected risk factors - transparency of risk management systems; compliance with standards and legislation; and maintaining sufficient insurance coverage. Managing these risks effectively demands meaningful insight into the data an organization generates from monitoring its critical infrastructure and related environment.

In particular, mine owners and operators are under significant pressure to improve the monitoring and risk management of their tailings storage facilities (TSFs) and water in order to:

• Comply with national standards and codes of practice, and with the new Global Industry Standard on Tailings Management (GISTM);
• Secure or reduce the cost of insurance cover for their TSFs;
• Comply with new legislation on TSF management;
• Comply with the requirements of a host nation's regulator; and
• Meet investors' ESG compliance demands.