Operational Challenges of Thickened Tailings

Planning at Centinela Mine

Carlos Calderón1, Erwin Cortés1, Joaquín Martínez2, Miguel Palape2 and Carlo Cooper3
1. Minera Centinela, Antofagasta Minerals, Chile
2. MineBridge, Chile
3. MineBridge, Canada

ABSTRACT
Since its commissioning in 2010, tailings planning of thickened tailings disposal at Centinela Mine
has been an ongoing operational challenge. The unforeseen magnitude of the impacts provoked by
the underperformance of high density thickeners triggered a cascade effect starting with large
volumes of tailings produced with lower concentration of solids, flatter beach slopes, additional
water in the thickened tailings storage facility (TTSF) system and the need to implement emergency
and contingency plans to contain tailings quickly and safely.
The commissioning of three new paste thickeners together with the implementation of distributed
spigot systems have allowed the increase of both average solids concentration, from 62 % solids in
2012 to 65 % solids in 2016; and beach slope profile from 1.0 % to 2.8 % in the steepest areas.
In addition, the TTSF has been discretized to distribute tailings in different zones accordingly to their
rheological behavior: thicker tailings would form steeper slopes and stack on higher ground and
lower solid content tailings would form flatter slopes, run and settle further down the valley. The
zones also allow discretising the deposition of tailings giving time for evaporation and consolidation
of tailings to increase stability and safety.
As part of the methodology, the TTSF is geometrically characterized, considering the evolution of its
beach slopes and the volumetric capacities in its zones. It also defines where, when and for how long
to dispose tailings based on the volume availability of different sectors, rheological properties of the
slurry, the spigot configuration and the actual slopes of the TTSF, using mathematical optimisation
and 3D modeling tools.
As a result, the methodology shows the maximum capacity that tailings planning could achieve given
the construction of new dams and new spigot locations; records the predictions of deposited tailings
to facilitate an operational follow-up; minimize operational uncertainty and facilitate communication
among stakeholders.

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INTRODUCTION
In 2007, three years before the commissioning of the thickened tailings deposit at Centinela Mine, all
the economics and available reports indicated that thickened tailings technology had a clear
competitive advantage over conventional tailings, mainly due to the more efficient use of water that
this technology offered (Luppnow, 2008).
The local environment of Centinela mine (See Figure 1 below), which is located in the driest desert of
the world where annual average rainfall is about 1mm and there are no nearby sources of fresh water,
promoted the use of sea water in the mining processes.

Figure 1 Centinela Mine Location, II Region of Antofagasta, Chile

Pumping a large amount of sea water through 150 km of pipelines and to an elevation of 2300 m.a.s.l.
required large amount of energy. Thus, the most water and energy efficient technology for tailings
management was the preferred choice. In this case, a thickened tailings storage facility (TTSF).
The chosen technology also offered environmental benefits such as better seismic stability, lower
infiltration to the ground, better closure opportunities, and the possibility to form steeper beach
slopes compared to conventional slurry deposition.
Beach slope formation would, theoretically, allow for the creation of TTSFs with minimum
containment structures and smaller water reclaim systems compared to conventional TSFs. However,
what was demonstrated in small to medium size scale mining operations was not necessarily
comparable to a large-scale mine operation such as Centinela, where many operational challenges
were not foreseen due to the new complexities that scaling up thickening technologies brought to the
project.

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BEACH SLOPE PREDICTION
The prediction of beach slopes is paramount in tailings planning as these define the resulting shape
of a TTSF, which then defines the sequence of the facilities construction, distribution systems location
and pumping requirements through the life cycle of a project. These items are relevant to trade-off
and feasibility studies as well as operational decision-making processes. Understanding the impacts
of beach slope prediction therefore becomes critical.
The first predictions made for the beach slope profile at Centinela Mine indicated a 4% slope for the
short and long-term tailings management plans. However, the beach slope at Centinela has not yet
reached beyond 3% since its commissioning in 2010.
The Figure 2 below shows a model of Centinela TTSF storing 1 Mm3 (one million cubic meters) of
tailings using a 4% beach slope. The Figure on the right shows the cross section and the layers of new
deposition. Note the slope of the natural ground (is about 3%) where the first discharge line was
placed.

Figure 2 A million cubic meters of tailings stored at Centinela with 4% and 1.6% beach slope (vertical
exaggeration: 20 x)

The main problem designing a 4% beach slope on a 3% terrain slope is that any tailings slurry with a
beach slope flatter than 3% will run off down the terrain until reaching flatter ground or containment.
Figures 3 and 4, show the reality of having a beach slope profile lower than 3%.

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 Figure 3 Centinela Thickened Tailings Storage Facility (Source: Google Earth)

(a) Plan view of Centinela TTSF. Black (b) Cross section along Centinela TTSF
dash line represents cross section in (b)

Figure 4 Beach slope profile at Centinela TTSF (vertical exaggeration: 20x)

The deposition of tailings at Centinela Mine has shown that beach slope is a critical parameter in the
relationship with the natural ground slope. If the predicted/designed beach slope is steeper than the
natural ground slope, minimal containment structures are typically required. If the predicted beach
slope is flatter than the natural ground slope, larger containment structures and alternative
deposition techniques are required (in this example).

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The potential range of the beach slope, coupled with the length of the tailings beach (in this case,
more than 4 km long) increases the sensitivity to beach slope, where a small variation in the beach
slope can cause a significant impact into dam height, embankment raising technique, and
containment requirements.

RISK REALISATION

Although risks of failure during operation were correctly identified during the design stage of the
project (Luppnow 2008), the magnitude and impact of these risks were not determined sufficiently.
Among some of the challenges identified during the design stage were:
x Non-performance of the thickeners
x Significant bleed water from deposited tailings due to low density thickener underflow
x Beach slopes flatter than designed beach slopes
x Associated costs for unforeseen containment or interception measures
These risks were all apparent during the commissioning stage of the facility and exceeded all
predefined mitigation or contingency measures.
Thickening performance has improved with the implementation of two additional paste thickeners
(Gaete & Bello, 2013) which process 30% of the total tailings throughput, and the beach slope has
increased through the use of an improved tailings distribution system (McPhail et al, 2017) which
now handles a throughput of 105,000 tpd including a third additional paste thickener (bringing the
total to six).
Containment of significant run-off water from the deposited tailings and the associated costs were
dealt with as part of the Operational Adaptation Plan. The plan included the commissioning of a
reclaim water system and the construction of temporary internal paddocks for the containment of
tailings, which allowed sufficient time for the design, construction and commissioning of the
additional three paste thickeners.

BEACH SLOPE OBSERVATIONS

Beach slope prediction is a complex process that depends on many variables such as rheology, pH,
flow rate, particle size distribution, the morphology of the natural ground, and whether the tailings
flow regime is laminar or turbulent. Figure 5 below indicates the change in solids concentration (%
w/w) during operation. The observed underflow solids concentrations are caused by the variability
in mineralogy, maintenance of thickeners, variability of throughput tonnage, or even different
thickener operating strategies.

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 Figure 5 Annual average solids concentration at Centinela TTSF

Despite this intrinsic variability, there are trends patterns that improves the understanding of beach
slope behaviour.

Flow rate versus beach slope

The statistics of thickened tailings deposits around the world indicate that beach slopes are flatter
when the tailings flow rates are higher. Figure 6 below (Quelopana, 2016) depicts how the flow rate
impacts the measured beach slopes for 40 different projects.

Figure 6 Flow rate versus measured beach slope (Source, Quelopana 2016)

During the design stage, the proposal to achieve the designed beach slope was to split the throughput
via several spigots in order to reduce the flow rate per spigot, thus, increasing the beach slope.

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However, due to the topography of the Centinela Valley and the close spacing of spigots, soon after
the tailings were discharged, the separate tailings streams recombined downstream, therefore
increasing the flow rate, thus decreasing the resulting beach slope. It is clear, from observing any
hydrographic system, water flows or streams will tend to get together to minimize energy loses
through the contact with the soil. Figure 7 below depicts the natural topography and streams within
the TSF site.

Figure 7 Water streams at Centinela valley, Preferred directions in natural ground topography

Energy dissipation

After the commissioning experience at Centinela TTSF, it was clear that tailings will always gravitate
towards lower ground through the steepest path. Different channels will tend to combine to minimize
energy losses and the operation should focus on energy dissipation and even distribution of tailings.
The current implementation of a distribution system with spigots well apart from each other (60 m
spacing) has allowed for an even distribution of tailings with the formation of separate channels,
resulting in steeper beach slopes ranging on average from 1.3% to 1.7%.
However, when solids concentration and rheology decreases, if the tailings are discharged directly
onto steeper slopes toward the top of the TTSF it can lead to erosion of these slopes. Instead, it is
preferable to discharge this material directly into the zones at the bottom of the TTSF.

ZONIFICATION OF THE TTSF

One of the paramount benefits of using thickened tailings technologies in the driest desert in the
world is the possibility of creating a dry stack facility, with almost no infiltration to the ground. This
is a critical aspect for Centinela Mine, especially considering that the plant uses sea water for most of

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its processes and there is an environmental commitment with communities and government entities
to lower the impacts of tailings dams in the long term.
To achieve these requirements, a zonification of the TTSF has been implemented to produce cyclical
deposition of the tailings. Thickened tailings are disposed in thin layers that allow for drying time
before new tailings are deposited in the same place. This way, the moisture content of the overall
deposit has a better chance of remaining unsaturated, also reducing the risk of infiltration,
liquefaction and stability failures. Figure 8 below shows schematically how this strategy works.

Figure 8 Schematic sequence of deposition and drying periods of time

The scheme above can be summarized and generalized under the following expression:

(1)

where:

tsec = drying period.

tdep = tailings discharge time.
n = number of discretised independent zones.
i = specific zone
Centinela TTSF has been divided into five different zones, indicated in Figure 9, where zones Z1 and
Z2 are at the head of the spigotted discharge line with the steepest beach slopes (1.6% to 2.8%). Zones
Z4 and Z5 have been used for lower solids concentration tailings, which form flatter slopes (0.3% to
1.0%) and zone Z3 also has a spigotting distribution system to increase beach slopes and smooth the
transition between upstream steeper tailings and downstream flatter tailings.

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 Figure 9 Deposition zones at Centinela TTSF

One of the challenges of this configuration occurs when thicker tailings are sent to flatter zones
causing the blocking of the distribution gravitational channels designed to conduct low solid
concentration tailings and vice versa, when thin tailings are deposited in steep zones such as Z1 or
Z2, as these tailings erode the formed slope. The solution to this is to use zone Z5 only when solids
concentration is less than 62% and although this phenomenon does not happen as often as it used to,
there is still a chance for unforeseen occurrences.

Thickened tailings commissioning is about levelling off

Regardless of where tailings are going to be disposed, there will be a natural ground slope and
therefore a preferred course for tailings flow. This will mean that, in the beginning, the rate of rise
will start at its maximum slowly decreasing until a certain available area is achieved.
The area required to level off the natural ground slope to a flatter tailings slope will depend on the
flow rate, energy dissipation required and the relationship between weather conditions (rainfall and
evaporation), drying cycles and thickness of layers.
If the purpose of thickened tailings is to maximize evaporation, then maximizing available area is
mandatory. Even though the solids concentration of tailings is lower than expected, it is still possible
to implement a disposition strategy that uses the zonification system to alternate deposition to
complete a raising cycle.

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PLANNING METHODOLOGY
The following cyclical sequence is the resulting proposed methodology to manage tailings at
Centinela Mine and take into consideration the operational variability.

TTSF geometric characterization

Periodic topographical survey is updated to define the geometry of each Zone. The available area,
volumetric capacity and beach slope within each zone are the main characteristics required.

Tailings characterization and baseline comparison

The following information needs to be recorded and evaluated:
x The rheology and solids concentration of the latest period of distributed tailings
x The total in-situ volume of tailings that has been deposited in last period, based on the
previous topographical survey update
x Where the tailings have been deposited

Volumetric analysis
With the 3D base line updated, future deposition is modelled considering a range of beach slopes
from 0.5% to 4.0% including consideration of the placement of the spigot discharge lines. This is
illustrated in Figure 10 below. On the charge, the labels Mov.1 – Mov. 7 refer to spigot location.
Mov.1 is the lowest spigotting elevation, with Mov.7 being the highest elevation.

Figure 10 Projected beach slope evolution at Centinela TTSF – Zone Z3

Tailings planning
The projection of tailings is forecasted monthly and weekly in terms of the volume of tailings
produced during that time frame and the volume available in each TTSF Zone. Then, there is a

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prediction of tailings rheology and solids concentration for the coming period of discharge which
helps to allocate different tailings densities to their specific zone. Table 1 shows the relationship used
at Centinela to associate an estimated beach slope with the known solids concentration and rheology
of the slurry.

Table 1 Estimated beach slopes associated to yield stress and solids concentration

Solids concentration, Cp (%) Yield stress τ, (Pa) Estimated slope

Cp <= 61 τ <= 8 0.5%

61 < Cp <= 62 8 < τ <= 10 1.0%

62 < Cp <= 63 10 < τ <= 11 1.5%

63 < Cp <= 64 11 < τ <= 15 2.0%

64 < Cp <= 65 15 < τ <= 19 2.5%

65 < Cp <= 66 19 < τ <= 24 3.0%

Monitoring
This stage is based on the operational control of the parameters influencing the decision-making
process of tailings planning. For example: the plant production, solids concentration, tailings
characteristics, zones used, time records and reporting to operations weekly to update tailings
deposition plans.
Monitoring also includes the geotechnical control (dry densities on site, particle size distribution
curve and specific gravity of solids), volumetric control (slopes and capacity) as well as the visual
inspection of daily operation on site.

Feedback loops
Calibration of the relationships used to correlate tailings beach slope with rheology and solids
concentration, additional infrastructure requirements and any improvements to the methodology are
included on this stage.
Finally, a summary of the methodology steps is shown on Figure 13 below.

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 Input
Periodic topographic survey

Feedback loops Tailings Characterization

- Calibrations Previous survey comparison + new
- Aditional requirements deposited tailings
(construction) - Base line update

Volumetric capacity analysis

Monitoring (PI System) - Projected remaining life of the TTSF
- Storage capacity available - Storage capacity evaluation for different
slopes and sectors
- Tailings planning operational
report weekly/monthly

Tailings planning
- Weekly
- Monthly

Figure 11 Tailings planning methodology used to optimize volume capacity of Centinela TTSF (Martinez et
al, 2016)

CONCLUSIONS

Tailings management at Centinela TTSF remains an ongoing operational challenge that requires an
observational approach to maximize the learnings from the thickened tailings behaviour.
From the experience at Centinela, it can be concluded that thickened tailings with its beach slopes
and lower impact to the environment is possible. The industry is still learning and the future
possibilities are boundless.
The large volume of tailings that mining industry is currently producing has had miners becoming
terra formers, reshaping valleys, basins and hills all over the world. Thus, the relevance of a thickened
tailings project’s success as a stepping stone towards the inclusion of communities and environmental
stakeholders to integrate them in the conversation and co-design of future landforms.

Regarding thickened tailings operational challenges:

x Thickened tailings planning is a complex subject that requires in depth understanding of

the upstream operational variables affecting tailings behaviour.
x Natural ground slope is key to the behaviour of thickened tailings, especially during the
commissioning stage.

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 x As a design criteria review, it is more important to flatten off areas to maximize evaporation
and facilitate energy dissipation instead of maximizing the relationship between (dam
volume)/ (containment volume).
x Theoretical and empirical beach slope prediction methods have been increasingly
developed in the last ten years of global research. The progress and the lessons learned
have been beneficial for the industry. However, none of those methods have had their focus
on solving the challenges produced when the beach slope prediction is wrong. In the case
of Centinela, the beach slope has taken six years of operational learning to achieve a fraction
of the designed beach slopes without stopping tailings production.
x The methodology proposed considers the potential upstream changes, i.e. variations in
rheology, solids concentration and production of tailings and propose a monthly or weekly
plan based on the real possibilities that the TTSF has to store them (volumetric capacity
and slopes). This tool also shows the implications on the remaining volumetric capacity of
the TTSF if thickened tailings run off-specs for a long time.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank Minera Centinela for permission to publish this data as well as for
the collaboration and feedback provided to present the methodology of tailings planning proposed
in this paper.

REFERENCES
Gaete, S., Bello, F., 2013, ‘Experience with thickening and discharge of high density tailings – Minera Esperanza’,
in S. Barrera, M. Niederhauser, G. Shaw, D. Van Zyl, W. Wilson (eds), Proceedings of the First
International Seminar on Tailings Management, Gecamin, Santiago, Chile

Luppnow, D., Moreno, J., Bernal, L.,2008, ‘Esperanza Project – Drivers for using thickened tailings disposal’, in
A.B. Fourie, R.J. Jewell, A. Paterson, P. Slatter (eds), Proceedings of the Eleventh International Seminar
on Paste and Thickened Tailings, Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, Australia.

Martinez, J., 2016, Propuesta de Modelo de Optimización de Tiempo de Vida Útil de Depósito de Relaves
Espesados, Utilizando Software Muk3D, Thesis to opt to Industrial Civil Engineer Degree, Universidad
Católica del Norte.

McPhail, G., Bello, F., Engels, J., 2017, ‘Beach profile modelling at Centinela Mine, Chile’, in H. Quelopana (eds),
Proceedings of the fourth International Seminar on Tailings Management, Gecamin, Santiago, Chile

Quelopana, H. 2016, ‘Tailings beach slope forecasting: an empirical model‘ in S. Barrera, R. Jewell (eds),
Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Seminar on Paste and Thickened Tailings, Australian
Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, Australia.

Cooper, C., Palape, M., 2013, ‘Handling uncertainty in tailings planning’, in S. Barrera, M. Niederhauser, G.
Shaw, D. Van Zyl, W. Wilson (eds), Proceedings of the First International Seminar on Tailings
Management, Gecamin, Santiago, Chile

Simms, P. et. Al, 2011, ‘Beaching angles and evolution of stack geometry for thickened tailings – a review‘ in R.J.
Jewell and A.B. Fourie (eds), Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Seminar on Paste and
Thickened Tailings, Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, Australia.

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