Human capital headed for shortages as mining supply-chain woes hit more than materials

Material supply-chain issues are dominating the headlines, but supply-chain issues of a different kind have long been taking a toll on the mining industry. “The mining industry has a 55 percent turnover rate, the seventh highest out of 27 industries,” said Michael Ansah Nuamah, DBA, senior process engineer/account manager at SNF Holding Co. and a retention strategist. The statistic is significant because of the loss of organization knowledge from the mining workforce, reduced productivity and the high overall costs of replacing employees, which can reach 90 to 200 percent of an employee’s salary. To investigate the problem, Nuamah conducted a qualitative, multicase study to explore strategies that human-resource managers in the mining industry use to improve employee retention. The four major themes that emerged from his findings were (1) employee engagement, with a new employeecentered vision and bottom-up innovation, (2) compensation and benefits, including tuition reimbursements, referral bonuses, and better pay and career advancement, (3) effective communication that is open, two-way, wideranging and without fear of retribution and (4) recognition and job satisfaction, with rewards and recognition as a motivational tool. Recommendations for action include forming an employee retention team, having a wellcommunicated employee progression path and developing an employee retention program. An excess of shortages Nuamah was speaking on the Shortage of Human Capital, and Strategies to Retain Talented Employees on day one of the 71st Colorado MPD Annual Meeting, a longstanding gathering since 1949 of SME’s Mineral & Metallurgical Processing Division (MPD) Colorado subsection. The theme of this year’s meeting, featuring three days of talks and social events held April 28-30 in Colorado Springs, CO, was An Excess of Shortages. Water and tailings storage shortages That same day, Tom Boundy, process engineer at Paterson & Cooke, spoke on Acute Operational Water and Tailings Storage Shortages. “Mineral processors are increasingly having to manage uncertain and/or limited water availability,” said Boundy, “while the bar for what constitutes acceptable safety standards for tailings storage continues to rise. With these higher standards, processors are experiencing increased difficulty in permitting new tailings storage facilities, and selection of storage facilities at greater distances from the processing facility in order to achieve acceptable risk profiles.” Speaking on behalf of Moises Uriel Raya Sotelo of Koura, Boundy discussed a site that experienced both these challenges simultaneously. With process water quality deteriorated to 4-5 percent solids, flotation recovery down and, eventually, concentrate filters unable to operate, a water emergency steering committee was formed. Two years down the road, a decanter centrifuge has become a key component of a cost-effective, low-moisture tailings management strategy at the site, and a second decanter has been purchased, with improved flocculant management and water clarification efforts underway. Some additional benefits were realized, Boundy said, including: (1) elongating the current tailings storage facility’s life due to space savings, (2) alternative storage locations becoming available due to material rheology, (3) enabling selling some tailings as product at sufficient dryness and (4) reduced traffic on site roads due to reduced water-truck requirement. Fluctuating commodity prices are one cause of employee reduction in the industry, with 191,000 mining jobs lost since 2014. Packed bed testing for HPGR sizing Presenting on The Next Generation of Packed Bed Testing Machine, Garrett Sollon, test center engineer at Metso Outotec, took the audience through his team’s design, building and testing of a new packed bed testing machine. Sollon explained that it all started because of wanting to be able to do packed bed testing on high-pressure grinding roll (HPGR) feed material. A packed bed test (PBT), consisting of a steel pot, hydraulic pot and steel piston, can make the process of sizing for HPGR more efficient. “Typically, when you want to do pilot-scale testing for HGPR research and development or scaling, you need to have at least 300 kg of material shipped out to a lab, but with a PBT we can give you the same data and results with only 7 kg of material,” Sollon said, “The only parameter that cannot be directly derived from PBT is specific throughput, but my colleagues have modeled a way through a plastic roll resistance model to calculate specific throughput through a PBT test series, so we’re able to gain all the knowledge that we’re getting off an HRC 800e pilot test from just doing a PBT.” In comparison with a third-party machine, the Metso Outotec machine is able to reach a 20 kN/s force rate in under a second, as opposed to four seconds for the other machine, and is able to maintain force over the 30-second force-hold period while the other machine loses force. Sollon said the team plans to further improve the machine in the coming year. Circular-economy strategies From the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Judith Vidal, building energy science group manager and thermal and materials research team lead, spoke on Circular Economy of Materials for Energy and Infrastructure: The New Needed Era. “A more circular economy can cut emissions from heavy industry by 56 percent by 2050,” Vidal said. Global materials demand is set to increase two- to four-fold as the world economy grows, she warned, and existing scenarios imply that at most 300 Gt of the remaining carbon budget could be allocated to the production of materials. Pointing out that four materials — steel, plastics, aluminum and cement — and two value chains — cars/mobility and buildings/shelter — together account for most of industrial carbon dioxide emissions, Vidal said three circular economy strategies would make better use of materials and products to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: (1) material recirculation, (2) product material efficiency and (3) circular business models. Implementing these measures, for example, could reduce the primary steel required to support mobility by 70 percent. Keynote and awards The second day of the meeting featured keynote speaker Jeffrey Mauk of the U.S. Geological Survey, who spoke on Critical Minerals in the US: Can the USGS Collaborate with Industry to Increase Supplies? The 2022 Arthur C. Daman Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Everod and Claudia Samuel (see box). Created in 2000, this award recognizes lifetime achievement in the mining industry and is given to individuals who have contributed significantly to the image of the mining industry, and have made a significant impact on the mining industry in property development, equipment design or engineering services. The winner of the Lou Cope Best Presentation Award was Jehal Shah of Kiewit for his talk on Effect of Supply Network Trends and Challenges to the Minerals Industry. Ahmad Nawab of the University of Kentucky, Lexington won Best Student Presentation for his presentation on An Acid Baking Approach to Enhance Heavy Rare Earth Recovery from Bituminous Coal-based Sources . The meeting, chaired by Alan Boylston of Metso Outotec, also featured cocktail receptions, dinners, dancing and a Bloody Mary break, ending with a golf tournament. Next meeting in 2023 The next Colorado MPD Annual Meeting will be held April 27-29, 2023 at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, CO, chaired by Brett Berg of Intrepid Potash. For information, email Brett at brett.berg@intrepidpotash. com or Jenny Pergola at jenny@pumpsplusinc.com. (left to right) Anna, Howard, Everod, Claudia, Evlyn and Crystal Samuel. “Why I SME” Spotlight: Everod and Claudia Samuel of SME-MPD When the global financial crisis hit in 2008-2009, 11 of Samuel Engineering Inc.’s (SE) biggest mining projects were put on hold or canceled in the space of two weeks. Despite the massive collapse of work, Everod and Claudia Samuel bucked the layoff trend and instead reached into the company’s reserves to maintain the livelihoods of their staff. Though challenging at the time, it turned out to be a great business decision. The company was able to take significant market share when the market started to turn in 2010 because of its deep bench of retained full-time engineering professionals. Fast-forward a decade to 2019- 2020 and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Samuels responded by implementing a similar employment- preservation philosophy and are again starting to reap the benefits as the market heats up. This philosophy is one of the reasons that the couple, who are SE’s president and chief executive officer, respectively, were presented in April with the 2022 Arthur C. Daman Lifetime Achievement Award by SME’s Mineral & Metallurgical Processing Division (MPD) Colorado subsection. Below are excerpts from the Samuels’ member profile on the “Why I SME” webpage. Read the full profile, coming up on smenet.org/whyisme, and while you are there read about the other inspiring professionals who shape the past, present and future of the mining and minerals industry. Q: How was SE founded? Everod: Claudia started SE in 1996 to be able to practice engineering as well as take care of our four children, who at that time were ages five and younger (Claudia refers to SE as her fifth child). This allowed her the flexibility to work and take care of our children. I had been employing my expertise in the mining industry since 1988 for companies such as Minproc Engineers and Constructors, Kilborn and SNC Lavalin, holding positions including chief electrical engineer, project manager, manager of projects, vice president of engineering and project operations. In 2001, I joined SE, and together we transformed it into a full-service, multidiscipline engineering company. From humble beginnings in our home to our present headquarters in Denver, with offices in Wyoming and Texas, SE now has around 300 employees and continues to grow. Over the years, the company has successfully completed s e v e r a l c omp l e x and chall e n g i n g p r o j e c t s worldwide, some of which others did not think were possible. What core values does SE embody? SE is committed to its core values of excellence and compassion: excellence in everything we do, and compassion to everyone we meet. SE has completed hundreds of mining projects nationally and globally and has done so by providing solutions to clients’ challenges. We do so by following several key principles, which include listening to our clients, being creative, using technology effectively, and paying acute attention to detail. These key principles enable us to provide an excellent service, achieving our core value of excellence. It is also very important that all of SE’s stakeholders — clients, banks, vendors, employees, strangers — no matter the title or position, should be treated with respect and compassion. We were able to demonstrate this during the pandemic, when we did not lay off any employees for lack of work. While our billability dropped to the single digits, we assured everyone of a certain level of income security and tapped into our savings to ensure employees were taken care of. What are some achievements/milestones that have defined you/made you proud? Moving from an electrical, instrumentation and controls (EI&C) company to a multidiscipline company in 2001.Going from our home office in 2001 to buying our current headquarters building.Being able to provide 100 percent employer-paid medical benefits for our employees and their families.Achieving the “Engineering Company of the Year” for four out of five years.Being recognized by the Denver Post as one of the Top Places to Work, based solely on employees’ responses.Addition of Wyoming and Texas offices as well as fabrication/ modularization and construction in Texas.Attaining a debt-free status and maintaining it for over 14 years.Receiving the Martin Luther King Jr. “Content of Character Award” in Business. What are some of the biggest challenges you have faced? We believe there are opportunities in every challenge. For example, during the pandemic, we were able to acquire some talented personnel, and SE grew during the last two years. Some of the biggest challenges: Balancing work and taking care of four young children during the early days. It taught us the importance of prioritizing and planning.Meeting financial challenges especially during the growth years. It taught us the importance of saving and investing for a “rainy day.”Ensuring adequate backlog.The 2008-2009 global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic (see introduction). What advice would you give young engineers? Take pride in the work that you do in any job/position you hold. Each and every one of them is preparing you for the future, whether it is in this field or another.Focus on being excellent in whatever your current role or job is, not your next job — nothing gets noticed like results. The opportunities and advancements will come.Learn to find and utilize the strengths in everyone; be team focused versus “me” focused.Complete each task with excellence even if it means doing extra hours of research on your own time.Look for opportunities in every challenge. What is something SME membership has given you that you hadn’t anticipated? One surprise benefit is the ready access SME membership has provided us to a large group of high-caliber professionals with very practical solutions to technical challenges. What do you see the future holding for yourself and for the industry? The future is exciting because we as an industry have the opportunity to really cultivate and solve the challenges of the world. With the heavy focus on environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) and the need for energy-transition minerals such as lithium, graphite and cobalt, the mining industry, with its wealth of knowledge in mineral processing in other base and precious metals, can use the “knowhow” and expertise to quickly and efficiently solve the need for processing these metals. SE is currently working on several projects to process and purify energy-transition metals and minerals.

Human capital headed for shortages as mining supply-chain woes hit more than materials

Authored by:
Chee Theng

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