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By John Helmer in Moscow

To all junior miners, resource project developers, and investors in the risky wilds of Kazakhstan, be of good cheer — a Supreme Court judgement issued on December 11 in Sydney, Australia, has awarded the equivalent of US$11.4 million in compensation, penalties, and costs against a group of lawyers who have been found guilty of engaging in dishonest business practices.

Justice Clifford Einstein had ruled in October that the Kazakhstan-based law firm of Michael Wilson & Partners had been defrauded by three lawyers who had been employed by Wilson; and who had secretly moonlighted to earn fees and share bonuses for stock market listings and other transactions involving several major Kazakh resource projects — Sunkar Resources’s Chilisai phosphate project; Frontier Mining’s Benkala copper project; Roxi Petroleum; Max Petroleum; two other Central Asian mining projects, Urals Gold and Ablai; and four projects tied to these and other operators in the same region — Karamandybas (oil and gas), Ravninnoye (oil), Beibars Munai (oil), Lancaster, and Kangamiut (seafoods).

In his new order, NSW Justice Einstein reiterated his finding from October — “the essence of the matter is that the defendants concealed these continuing activities from the plainitiff”. Accordingly, the new judgement orders them to pay up what they gained unfairly in profit, and also compensate Wilson & Partners for the cost of having to litigate for recovery across the globe over the past three years. After itemizing invoices and share capital gains for each project transaction, the judge applied a 10% discount; rejected a claim for compensation for losses in the Benkala copper project; and dismissed a claim for additional and exemplary damages for the alleged conspiracy of the defendant lawyers against Wilson. Total, US$3.5 million, plus €555,259, plus A$4 million.

“The plaintiff has succeeded in almost every aspect of its pleaded case against the defendants”, Einstein ruled. “The usual rule as to costs, that they should follow the event, should apply” — another A$3.5 million. Grand total, US$11.4 million.

In his 216-page judgement issued on October 6, Einstein had ruled that John Emmott, Robert Nicholls, and David Slater had conspired together to exploit their positions in the Wilson lawfirm to breach their employment contracts and fiduciary duties by secretly creating a competing firm of their own, Temujin International, registered in the British Virgin Islands. Among the London AIM listed companies targeted by the scheme, the court papers identify Sunkar, Frontier, Roxi, and Max.

In a summary of his findings of fact, Einstein J said the conspiracy had begun in 2005, as soon as Slater had arrived at Wilson’s office in Kazakhstan from Australia, where he had been an in-house solicitor for the Westpac Banking Corporation. In a sequence of Almaty watering holes over several weeks, Slater and his co-conspirators created their cut-out company, calling it Temujin, which they borrowed from the history of the hero of the Mongol empire and the Kazakh steppes, Genghis Khan. Temujin was his original name. Slater left Wilson’s firm almost immediately afterwards, in December of 2005. Nicholls, formerly a Sydney barrister and partner at Freehills, followed in March of 2006; while Emmott, who had been with Wilson since 2001, stayed on to keep the flow of Wilson’s client business moving out the backdoor to Temujin. He exited on June 30, 2006. Temujin’s new business was to advise Wilson clients on the purchase of formerly state-owned oil, gas, gold and mineral companies and their listing on AIM.

In last week’s judgement, Einstein separates the defendants, and itemizes his rulings on culpability and financial liability for Slater, Nicholls, several companies of the Temujin group, and an associated Kazakh lawfirm. They are to pay up collectively. Emmott is named by the judge in both rulings as culpable, but he was not a defendant in the Sydney court. He is currently under investigation by the authorities in Switzerland and the UK.

by John Helmer – Monday, December 14th, 2009

Chilean chemical solutions firm Sinquiver is looking into marketing urine separation systems in Chile, the firm’s wastewater manager Alistair Marsh told BNamericas.

There are several advantages to the system, according to Marsh. “First of all, you don’t need freshwater to flush urine so you save on water use and costs,” he said.

The concept involves installing a different pipeline which would channel the urine to be stored in a tank. “Urine is a huge source of nitrogen and phosphate which could then be used for the production of fertilizer,” Marsh said.

“This kind of system would be especially useful in mining operations which involve a large number of people,” said Marsh, adding: “It would save water while simultaneously providing a source of fertilizer for local farmers.”

An additional benefit is that by taking the urine out of sewage, wastewater is easier to treat.

Urine accounts for less than 1% of wastewater but it contains about 80% of the nitrogen, 50% of the phosphate and 70% of the potassium, all of which must be removed. Nutrient removal is the most difficult aspect of wastewater treatment. By separating the urine at source, studies have shown energy savings of 25% at wastewater treatment plants.

“We are looking to offer urine-separating toilets to municipalities and companies that employ a large number of people such as malls and hotels, among others,” Marsh said.

“Wastewater treatment is still very new in Latin America but there is a great need for it and that is where we come in,” said Marsh, adding: “Sinquiver is looking for the best technology and solutions to introduce into the local market.”

In addition to wastewater treatment, the company provides solutions for the wood and paper industry, and sells industrial equipment.

Source: Greta Bourke, BNamericas.com [subscription site], 19 Nov 2009

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Introduction to the Gold Mining Process for Tabular Ore Bodies

There are a number of different methodologies used to conduct mining operations. One of these methods are discussed in this article.

The gold bearing ore is in situ in the reef band where it was deposited millions of years ago. It requiers drilled and blasted to free it from the country rock. According to Nell (1984:95) this process is called stoping. He defines stoping as:

the actual mining of ore by means of breaking ground in stopes to a size suitable for handling and processing for the recovery of the mineral content.

The breaking of the country rock includes drilling blast holes and blasting it. This is followed by cleaning, supporting and the providing of the infrastructure to the stope faces.

The provision of infrastructure includes the maintenance and managing of:

• in stope water and air services that is necessary for the drilling and dust allaying process

• travelling ways to and from the stope necessary for creating access ways for people and material

• scatter walls to contain the blast rock in a conveniently concentrated muck pile for the cleaning crew,

• material and people handling appliances including monorail, mono rope and chairlift devises

• double drum winches and scraper scoops for the moving of blasted rock

• pumping and pump installations to ensure sufficient water pressure and or clear out the accumulation of excess water from low lying areas.

• rail tracks for the locomotives and trains that transports workers, material and broken rock pover long horizontal distances underground.

• Safety devices that include tips and grizzlies to prevent inadvertent access of people down these near vertical excavations.

• Blasting equipment that includes remote blasting system cables and ventilation sensor equipment in the intake and return air passages.

• Ventilation systems that consists of various sizes of columns, temporary and permanent ventilation brattices, -walls, -holings and fans.

• Electricity and electric equipment required for the use during the mining process.

With reference to figure 1 a three dimensional mining layout of a typical gold mine can be viewed here. The figuredepicts the basic components, in three dimensions, used to explain the mining layout of a typical gold mine.

The broken ore is typically scraped on dip, down a 30 meter stope face into a strike gully, by means of a double drum winch and scraper scoop once it is blasted from the country rock.

Another double drum winch and scraper scoop is used to scrape the broken rock on strike to an orepass or boxhole, situated in the original raise. This boxhole can be situated up to 90 meters from the face where the blasting took place. The broken rock now cascades down this steeply inclined excavation (boxhole or orepass) to a crosscut on a lower level.

In the crosscut a train, normally with ten eight ton hoppers are used to transport the broken rock to the shaft. The shaft can be kilometres away from the point of mining. At the shaft the train tips it's cargo down the shaft orepass system, where it again cascades down to the shaft loading station near the bottom of the shaft. The broken rock are hoisted up a 2000 meter vertical shaft in rock skips with a typical capacity of 12 tons by means of a rock hoist to surface, in the case of a surface shaft, or to just above the loading station of the surface shaft in the case of a sub – shaft.

On surface the broken ore is transported to the metallurgy plant by means of a conveyor belt. In the metallurgy plant the ore is milled, screened, and chemically treated in order to allow separation of the gold from the gold bearing ore. The slime residue is pumped to a tailing dam and the gold concentrate is further treated. The gold concentrate is smelted and the 89% pure gold is poured into gold bars weighing about 31 kilograms each.

These gold bars are then transported to a Refinery where the silver is removed and the gold refined to 99.99% purity. It is this pure gold that is sold on the world gold markets.

© 2009 Carl Marx

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Most of us know that gasoline has something to do with oil, yet we have no idea how it is “created.” Many of us also believe that oil (aka petroleum) is only for the use of automobiles or large machines. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Petroleum is a naturally occurring earth material that is a mixture of hydrocarbon compounds. Of organic origin, it is found in some porous sedimentary rocks and in many parts of the world. Petroleum is refined to give such a variety of products as gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, lubricating oils, greases, waxes, and many industrial chemicals.

Most geologists think that petroleum, and the natural gas found with it, developed from the remains of minute animals and plants that were buried in silt, clay, or lime deposits in shallow seas and on the ocean bottoms near continents. Later deposits covered the matieral containing the plant-and-animal remains. Over great lengths of time the pressure of overlying sediments, the action of bacteria, and increased temperature helped to change the plant-and-animal remains to petroleum and natural gas. Changes in the earth's crust have caused the rocks in which petroleum formed to be tilted, folded, broken, and buried beneath other rocks.

Petroleum and natural gas commonly migrate upward through rocks until they come to some barrier they can neither penetrate nor avoid. Petroleum and gas accumulate beneath such barriers, and the places of accumulation are called oil traps. The impermeable rock over such an accumulation of oil is called a cap rock.

A reservoir rock commonly contains water, natural gas, and petroleum. In an oil trap the petroleum floats above water, and the natural gas occupies available space above the petroleum. The water is salt water (from the ancient sea).

The first step in finding oil is to study the geology of a region. If the geologic conditions are favorable for the formation and accumulation of oil, detailed exploration to find local oil traps is begun.

The most widely used method of exploration is the reflection technique of the seismic method. Small charges of dynamite are exploded in shallow holes to create small artificual earthquakes. The times taken by the shock waves to travel to a particular rock layer and back again are recorded by small seismographs. The depth of the rock layer can be determined from the travel time.

Two methods of oil drilling are employed: standard, or cable tool, drilling and rotary drilling. Rotary drilling is the common method. Cable tool drilling is used for drilling shallow wells and for corrective work on wells drilled with rotary equipment. For deep wells rotary drilling is much faster and more economical. The deepest oil wells are as much as 25,000 feet deep. The average depth of oil wells in the United States is about 4,000 feet.

A cable tool rig drills by the chipping action of a solid steel cylindrical bit raised and lowered by a cable to strike the bottom of the well hole. The chips of rock broken off mix with water or mud placed in the well hole and are removed at regular intervals by a bailer.

To drill an oil well with rotary equipment a derrick must be erected. A portable derrick, called a jack-knife derrick, may be used and removed when the well is drilled. THe derrick and related equipment are over a pit that contains blowout-prevention equipment. The power for drilling is transmitted from an engine to a rotary table. The rotary table, which is just above the floor of the derrick, is circular, with a square hole in its center.

Once a preliminary hole about a foot wide and a hundred feet deep has been drilled and lined with pipe set in cement, the main drilling operation begins. A bit is screwed onto a length of drill piope and is lowered into the hole. The drill pipe is attached to a square shaped hollow stem called a kelly. The kelly fits into the square hole in the rotary table and is attached to a swivel. The whole drill string is suspended from a hook attached to steel cables. The steel cables run over the top of the derrick and down to the draw works. When the rotary table turns, the kelly turns, and the drill pipe and bit down in the hole also turn. As the bit wears away rock in the well hole, the bit and drill string are lowered into the hole by the cable. Additional lengths of drill pipe are added to the drill string as needed.

During drilling a fluid, called drilling mud, is pumped into the swivel and through the hollow kelly and drill pipe to the bit. The mud is forced through jet holes in the bit and cuts soft rock and picks up drill cuttings. It also lubricates the bit and dissipates heat. It returns to the surface between the drill pipe and the well walls.

In a new well the expansion of gas mixed witht he petroleum or the pressure of water around the petroleum may force petroleum tot he surface. Such a well is called a flowing well. Most oil wells soon stop flowing unless this gas and water are reinjected (pressure maintenance). Otherwise the petroleum must be pumped out.

Petroleum is pumped from a well to temporary storage tanks at the well site. If the petroleum has a high gas content, it is passed through a separator tower, which separates the gas from the liquid. The gas may be sold, vented to the air and burned, or returned to the petroleum-producing formation.

Large quantities of crude petroleum are transported overland by pipelines. The pipelines run from major oilfields to large cities, to refineries, and to seaports.

Crude petroleum is a mixture of many hydrocarbon compounds. A hydrocarbon contains mostly hydrogen and carbon. Most petroleum comes from the ground as a black, greasy fluid, but some petroleums are green, brown, or light amber. A few crude petroleums are almost colorless. Besides simple hydrocarbons, crude petroleum may contain traces of nitrogen, sulfur, and oxygen.

Crude petrolem itself is not a useful substance, but the products into which it can be separated are extremely useful. The process of separating parts of crude petroleum from each other is called refining.

In all refineries the crude petroleum is first subjected to fractional distillation. The petroleum is heated in a pipe still to about 700 degrees F., and most of the petroleum becomes vapor. The vapor is discharged into a fractionating tower. The petroleum vapors discharged into the bottom of the fractionating tower rises through holes in trayes covered by bubble caps. The parts of the crude petroleum that have the highest boiling points condense in the bottom trays. Uncondensed vapors rise to higher trays. The petroleum fractions with lower boiling points condense in trays farther up the tower.

The fractions with the lowest boiling points, gasoline and other volatile portions of the petroleum, leave the top of the fractionating tower as vapors. They are converted to liquid in a separate condenser. The liquid that condenses in each tray is removed from the tower by a pipe. Some of the separated products obtained by fractional distillation are naphtha, gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, and diesel fuel. A residue of crude petroleum is removed from the bottom of the tower.

The residual crude petroleum may be sent to a thermal cracking unit in the refinery. In a thermal cracking unit the petroleum is subjected to such intense heat and pressure over a long period of time that many molecules divide into smaller molecules. Some of the products of thermal cracking are gasoline, wet gas and unstable naphtha, and heavy fuel oils or coke. THe gas and naphtha may be sent to a polymerization unit.

If lubricating oils are to be manufactured from the residual crude petroleum, the crude is sent to a unit where it undergoes fractional distillation in vacuum.

Fuel oils, or gas oils, from the original fractional-distillation process may be sent to a catalytic cracking unit in a refinery. The fuel oil and a hot catalyst are mixed, and the fuel oil molecules break up into smaller molecules. SOme of the products of a catalytic cracking unit are gases (such as propane and butane), gasolines, light fuel oil, and heavy fuel oil. High octane automobile gasoline and aviation gasoline are produced by this method.

Gasoline is the principal petroleum product. About 45 percent of the petroleum products of refineries in the United States is gasoline. Kerosene comprises about 5 percent of the products manufactured from crude petroleum. Before 1900 the only important product of petroleum was kerosene, which was used as lamp oil. About 37 percent of the crude petroleum refined in the United States is converted to different weights of fuel oils. Fuel oils include heating oils for domestic furnaces, diesel fuels, heavy oils for oil burners in factories, and bunker fuel, used in the boiler firing of ships. Lubricants, oils, and greases make up about 4 percent of petroleum products.

Many other petroleum products are important. Naphtha and benzene are used as solvents. Petroleum jelly, a highly refined grease, is used in medical ointments and cosmetics. About 94 percent of the wax made in the United States is made from petroleum. Petroleum coke, a byproduct of refining, is made into carbon electrodes used in the electrolytic production of aluminum. Asphalt is the solid or semi-solid residue from vacuum or steam distillation of asphalt-base crude petroleum. It is used in road paving mixtures and in roofing materials. Road oils, used for road surfacing, are heavy distillate oils and crude petroleum. Liquified refinery gases are used as raw materials by chemical plants.

Sources:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum

science.howstuffworks.com/gasoline2.htm

www.factsonfuel.org/gasoline/index.html

www.earthguide.ucsd.edu/fuels/uses.html

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