Narrow vein mining in hard rock metal mines is very much a...

Narrow vein mining in hard rock metal mines is very much a specialist skill, especially where the orebodies are sub-vertical, the rock quality conditions can vary and the mineralised structures are complex and structurally controlled. The Deflector Mine speaks to all these factors.

The recent high grade discoveries are particularly significant, because geological understanding, orebody grades, Vertical Tonnes Per Metre (VTM) and ground conditions are critical issues in successful and profitable underground mining. The relative importance of all these factors is:

• Geological understanding
• Grade (Grade is always King)
• VTM
• Ground Conditions

On geological understanding, the technical team at Deflector are gaining greater knowledge of the geological complexity day by day. This can lead to further discoveries.

Grade, despite the narrow real widths, is exceptional by any standards.

VTM is increasing as further discoveries are made within the mine complex. The reason that VTM is important lies in the fact that a lot of underground development which in some mines will only serve one orebody, in the case of Deflector, serves multiple orebodies, thus reducing the overall operational mining cost.

Ground conditions play no small part in safety and mine dilution. I personally see these orebodies being mined through some form of hand-held and mechanised cut-and-fill, using paste fill in the voids to enable extraction of pillars left behind in the primary mining phase.

Overall, I’m pretty excited by what is coming out of DRM and maybe they’re on the cusp of building themselves back into a substantive mining company.