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Posts Tagged ‘Suncor’

Cover Technology in Mining: Wismut to Suncor’s Pond 5

Posted in Europe, North America, Oil sands, Reclamation, Tailings, tagged , , , , , on March 13, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Clap! The sound a big volume of mining proceedings made when it landed on my desk this morning. Dropped from on high, this volume is the collection of technical papers from an International Symposium on closure of uranium mines at Wismut in Germany. If you haven’t heard of Wismut, then I suggest you get a quick bit of background information from a previous posting on ithinkmining . I have trawled the internet in search of an electronic copy of the preceedings but I can’t seem to come up with any. If anyone has a link, let me know and I’ll repost it. (more…)

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Cooking for Miners. Eating at Mines

Posted in brandy, consulting, Gold, health, Jobs and Salaries, Mining history, Oil sands, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 8, 2012 | 1 Comment »

Most mines have a place where the miners eat.  Let us celebrate the cooks at these places by telling of the many fine meals we have enjoyed in these mining canteens. In celebrating cooks at mining canteens, I also seek to describe a job in mining that most do not write about.  If you like cooking, then maybe a job at a mine canteen is for you. (more…)

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Lost in the Woods: Eagle Mine Superfund Site

Posted in Mining history, Oil sands, Software, Tailings, tagged , , , , , , , on June 23, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Yesterday we walked in the forest behind the town house.  The sun shone through the trees and the boys ran with glee along the bright paths.  Their father stayed on the  dock vainly fishing.  The picture shows some of the fun. (more…)

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Wapisiw Lookout: The First Reclaimed Oil Sand Tailings Impoundment

Posted in Oil sands, Reclamation, Tailings, tagged , , , , , on September 23, 2010 | 1 Comment »

    For years we have watched as the bulldozers and backhoes laboured to fill in and shape the topography. Today they are done and the landscape is rolling and green, with small creeks meandering amongst boulder clusters and bird-nesting sites.  Pond 1 at the Suncor oil sands mine is officially reclaimed and the Alberta Premier today attended the official opening ceremony. He said it make him proud to be an Albertan to see what has been achieved. (more…)

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Weekend Musings: Goldcorp, Suncor, and Other Core Mining Concerns

Posted in British Columbia, consulting, Investing & Finance, opera, Tailings, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 26, 2010 | 1 Comment »

   It has been a good weekend, although some mining issues have caused me concern—not enough to induce worry, but enough to merit record in this posting.  Thus let us go through the main events of the weekend and follow the concerns that arise in the course of weekend pleasure.

On Saturday night, we went to see the Marriage of Figaro, put on by the Vancouver Opera.   I once again commend Goldcorp for being a corporate sponsor of the opera in Vancouver.  This is admirable and impressive.  (more…)

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Suncor prepares for the worst and so should you

Posted in About the news, Investing & Finance, Oil sands, Software, tagged , , , , , on January 21, 2009 | 1 Comment »

At midweek let us pause to decide if you should buy, hold, or sell your mining stock.  This enquiry is brought on by news that Suncor is “preparing for $40 crude…getting ready for the worst.”  The issues is should you prepare for the worst and how should you prepare? (more…)

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Mining jobs for and not for women in 2009

Posted in Jobs and Salaries, Oil sands, tagged , , , , , , , on January 6, 2009 | 2 Comments »

Where angels fear to tread!  That was my first thought on the idea of a blog posting on the issue of how many new jobs are out there for women in mining.

The idea came from reading a fine series of blog postings on The Republic of Mining on the history of women in mining primarily in the Sudbury area.  Their postings tell  of the beginnings of what is now a relatively uncontentious issue.  By extension, I wondered if job losses are likely to affect women in mining more than job losses are likely to affect men—in short are layoffs going to be equal-gender?   Or maybe just gender-neutral?

I have no way of knowing or establishing the ratio or percentage of women-not-in-mining in 2009 as compared to men-not-in-mining in 2009.  So I did another simpler count. 

(more…)

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Oil Sands Tailings Characterization

Posted in Oil sands, tagged , , on December 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »

A short note to direct your attention to one of thePowerPoint presentations from the First International Oil Sand Tailings Conference.  I am grateful to the presenter for allowing us to make this more readily available to a wider audience than will ever see the proceedings.  The presentation is Application of Block Modeling to Suncor Tailings Characterizatiionby P. Sean Wells and Chengmai Guo.

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Oil sands tailings conference covers mining, history, and technology

Posted in About the news, Geotechnical, North America, Oil sands, Reclamation, Tailings, tagged , , , , , , , on December 8, 2008 | 1 Comment »

At the website www.ostrf.com are (or soon will be) Powerpoint presentations from this morning’s session of the First International Oil Sands Tailings Conference, currently underway in Edmonton, Alberta. 

I recommend them to anyone interested in the history and development of mining and technology. 

As a geotechnical engineer, my instinct is to go with Ed McRoberts of AMEC Earth & Environmental who tells how the geotechnical engineer has always sought to build water-retaining structures to impound the essentially-fluid tailings.  And a fine job he and his fellow engineers have done over the years.  I liked his sucession of slides showing how the cross section of the water-retaining dike has changed over the fifty years of oil sands mining from the years when legendary Canadian names like Hardy designed the embankments to the current day when he is in the lead. 

(more…)

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Buffalo symbolize Oil Sands mining reclamation: why we like the man-made landscape

Posted in Oil sands, Reclamation, tagged , , , , , , on July 24, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Buffalo On route 63 past the Suncor turnoff and north past Syncrude, buffalo come in two types:  concrete statues and real.  The concrete statues look like what you see at Splash Mountain and the real ones look happy and randy. 

Stop at the concrete buffalo statues, and there is a park, where the mined land has been reclaimed.  It looks like it too: a diversity of plants not seen where the arboreal forest and its uniform dullness dominate the landscape.  You can almost see the layout plans, the watercolor renditions, and the romantic notions made real as you peer from a shaded enclosure. 

Far more real and interesting is a short distance north, where you find an old bucket wheel excavator and an old dragline.   They stand almost as though abandoned in place; made redundant by backhoes and trucks.  You have to go back south of Fort McMurray to the Oil Sands Discovery Center to see those. 

(more…)

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