Accurate ore-body information from real-time assays can lead to substantial savings in costs and time, hence allowing for faster and more efficient discoveries and project development.SUPPLIED
With intensified demand for critical minerals and a growing imperative to explore smaller and often harder-to-reach deposits, mining companies today need more efficient ways to bring minerals to market.
It all starts with accurate and evidence-based ore-body knowledge.
“There’s a lot of talk right now around the growing demand for critical minerals – particularly minerals related to the transition to electrification – but most of the big deposits for these minerals have been found. So the challenge today is finding and developing future deposits, and those are likely to be smaller, deeper and in more geologically challenging areas,” says JT Clark, CEO of Veracio, a global company headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, that uses advanced technologies to give mining companies real-time insight into core samples. “Accuracy around understanding ore bodies is critical to being able to move forward.”
Veracio delivers this accurate ore-body understanding through solutions that combine state-of-the-art drilling tools with core scanning technology, data analytics and artificial intelligence. The company today is a market leader known globally for its core scanning technologies – TruScan and Minalyzer – which automatically capture real-time data from drill core samples to provide an accurate and comprehensive view of key ore-body features such as geochemistry, composition, lithology, structure, metal deportment and heterogeneity.
This critical data is generated right in the field, reducing the volume of samples that need to be sent to a lab.
“With our solutions, you can explore for ore faster and know on the day of drilling whether you’ve intersected or not, and where the intersection started,” explains Mike Ravella, chief innovation officer at Veracio. “You understand what you’re drilling while you’re drilling it, so you can make better drilling decisions and drive efficiency in your exploration and ore-body definition processes.”
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For mining companies, Veracio’s innovative solutions translate into a number of significant benefits. Accurate ore-body information from real-time assays enables earlier termination of drilling in reduced-grade sites, saving companies millions of dollars and months of lost time. Similarly, comprehensive ore-body knowledge allows miners to completely bypass barren areas to focus their drilling activities on ore-rich segments.
“Because when you understand things at that level, you go from a blanket assumption of ‘this deposit has five parts per million’ to ‘this deposit has five parts per million and it’s housed in one per cent of the deposit,’” says Mr. Ravella. “And then you focus on that one per cent instead of mining the hundred per cent.”
Veracio’s intention isn’t to replace laboratory testing and analysis but rather to give companies timely access to critical information that can help with decision-making, says Annelie Lundström, chief alliance officer at Veracio and former CEO of Minalyze, a core scanning technology company in Gothenburg, Sweden – and creator of the Minalyzer scanner – which Veracio acquired last year.
“With some clients, our technology is more integrated in their workflow and they use our data to determine which samples to assay,” she says. “We’ve also done projects with clients who are exploring for particular minerals and our technology gives them more information than they would usually be able to see.”
Along with the resource and economic efficiencies we achieve, we also help mining companies better manage their environmental and carbon footprint.
— JT Clark, CEO of Veracio
Mr. Clark says Veracio’s solutions reduce after-drilling costs by about $95 a metre – savings that, for bigger companies, can add up to billions of dollars. The time savings are also significant: as much as eight hours a day in core logging operations and months of lost time waiting for lab results. These are all savings of potentially billions of dollars due to capital expenditure reductions for mining operators.
Accelerating discoveries and project development is another major benefit. Mr. Clark notes that Veracio delivers new data every 24 hours – a big improvement from traditional lab-produced information, which typically take between four weeks to as long as six months.
In some cases, Veracio’s solutions have led to unexpected discoveries that opened the door to future resource expansion drilling. One example is the discovery announced last September by Vancouver-based Foran Mining Corporation. Aided by Veracio’s TruScan core scanning technology, Foran found a heavily mineralized area between its exploration program in Tesla and its McIlvenna Bay volcanic-hosted massive sulphide deposit – which Foran is mining for copper using carbon-free methods – in Saskatchewan.
“When Foran announced this discovery, they also highlighted the role of TruScan in helping them accelerate and identify that discovery,” says Mr. Clark. “One of the most important features we bring is speed – we enable much faster decision-making and development of projects. I think Foran’s recent discovery is a great example of how we do that.”
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While harder to quantify, the benefits Veracio technologies bring to the environment are no less impressive. Beyond accelerating the extraction of critical minerals for the global green transition, Veracio reduces damage to the planet.
“If you understand the ore body, you can avoid disrupting too much land because you’re not digging in the wrong places,” says Mr. Clark. “Along with the resource and economic efficiencies we achieve, we also help mining companies better manage their environmental and carbon footprint.”
Veracio’s solutions have been used in numerous projects in North and South America, Australia, Africa and Europe. The company’s scanning technologies have analyzed more than three million metres of core samples – equivalent to just under half of the Earth’s radius at its equator, or the total height of more than 5,400 CN Towers.
While these may sound like impressive numbers, they represent just a tiny fraction of a much larger market – one that’s ready for the type of disruptive technology solutions on offer at Veracio.
“Two years ago, when I asked mining companies if they [anticipated] scanning all their core in the next 10 years, the answer usually was that they didn’t know because the technology still had to be proven,” says Mr. Clark. “Today, the conversation is no longer about whether or not the technology works but more about figuring out how to make it part of their workflow and business process. So the answer is clearly, yes, mining companies will be scanning all their core in the near future, and we’ve got the technology they need for that today.”
Produced by Randall Anthony Communications with the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada. The Globe’s Editorial Department was not involved.