Deep Mine Lining may lead to deeper and safer mines

Inco working with 3M on polymer linings for deep mine shafts to stabilise rock and protect miners while allowing for deeper resource extraction

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New from Post-it notes: Safer mining
3M's polymer mine-liner pins back rock

Called a `stepping stone to deeper mining'

LISA WRIGHT
BUSINESS REPORTER

SUDBURY--A group of guys in hard hats and coveralls are cracking jokes at 7:45 a.m. as they step onto the elevator to their office more than a kilometre underground.

The cage delivers Falconbridge Ltd.'s miners to their steamy workplace at breakneck speed, rattling and shaking them around the whole way down. But the boys continue ribbing each other mercilessly and trash-talk about their age-old nemesis Inco Ltd. like any other day underground.

"Maybe they'll end up taking us over and then we'll teach them a thing or two," says one, referring to the takeover rumours of Falconbridge's owner Noranda Inc.

"Yeah, we're gooder than Inco," says another, and everyone bursts into laughter.

"These guys are brutal. I always say our second language around here is sarcasm," notes mine captain Dan Doniec about the daily banter among hard rock miners.

When it comes to safety though, everyone in the mining industry — friend or foe — is speaking the same language.

As mining companies continue to search for new deposits while depleting their current reserves, they're having greater success looking in the same areas they found nickel, copper and gold before, just deeper. The problem with making these significant high-grade discoveries at 3,000 metres or more is that they are still very hard to access. Ground stress and rock bursts are a big factor at deeper levels.

Below 1,200 metres for instance in Sudbury, rock stress exceeds that in mining districts elsewhere in the world.

Falconbridge is now working with 3M Canada Company and Sandvik Tamrock Canada Inc. on a spray-on polymer liner that replaces the clunky wire mesh that is currently bolted to the mine walls for safety during drilling. The nickel miner isn't the first to attempt a mine liner, but they think that they've struck gold with the combination of Post-It note company 3M's liner material and Sandvik's equipment plus Falconbridge's mining expertise.