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MINING SEGMENTS

• Iron ore (10 years as research metallurgist and Research Coordinator, Flotation with Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company).
• Uranium (1 ½ years as an operating engineer at a uranium solution mining semi works mine)
• Potash, industrial minerals (published, patents, technical consulting assignment)
• Copper (heavily involved as customers and on technical and technical marketing consulting assignments)
• Lead-Zinc (heavily involved with customers and on technical and technical marketing consulting assignments)
• Gold-Silver, PGMs (customers, and on technical and technical marketing consulting assignments)

TECHNOLOGIES

• Mineral process investigations, process auditing, due diligence work.
• Flotation – Process optimization, reagent testing and development, trouble shooting and process development:
o Sulfide minerals.
o Oxide minerals.
o Industrial minerals.
o Soluble salt minerals.

• Solid/Liquid – Process optimization, coagulant and flocculant testing and development, trouble shooting and process development:
o Thickening.
o Clarification.
o Filtration.

• Development of innovative and new technologies, technically and marketing.
• Selective flocculation and desliming.
• Uranium in situ leaching and recovery operations.
• Dispersant and antiscalant systems.
• Waste treatment/metals removal.
• Process water investigations.

MARKETING

• Technical program development and management.
• Chemicals/reagents sourcing and manufacturing.
• Marketing plan development and implementation.
• Business planning.
• Sales planning.

MANAGEMENT

• Technical services management.
• Operator and technical training: flotation, solids/liquid, marketing and sales.



A significant USA Pb-Zn-Ag mill had process improvement opportunities to capture and equipment obsolescence issues to contend. Expert developed a practical plan for froth washing to improve lead concentrate grades that offered significant shipping cost reductions. Results and metallurgical observations made during the froth sprinkling evaluations lead to followup QemScan mineralogical analyses that showed significant additional metallurgical opportunities were available by optimizing the overall process flowsheet. Subsequent plant flowsheet modifications were tested on the existing old circuit by actually redirecting flows to simulate different flowsheets and circuit residence times and the impact on metallurgical results. Lab float tests were conducted in conjunction to assess optimum metallurgical targets. From that work lead by Expert, the entire flotation circuits were replaced with larger new conventional cell capacities on both the Pb and Zn circuits, additional flotation columns were installed on both the Pb and Zn circuits, Pb and Zn unit cells were installed and cleaner scavenger circuits were installed. Results: increased Pb recoveries ~ 5%, increased Zn recoveries over 10% with higher and more consistent concentrate grades, and Ag recoveries increased by 2%+.A large international chemical producer has retained Argo to support their global sulfhydryl flotation collector business development. This is an ongoing technical marketing assignment that entails supporting sales agents technically and on a commercial basis, developing and generating effective marketing plans, product and product line recommendations to maximize commercial success, and to advise the client on the mining business in general.Assignment related to a USA potash mine utilizing flotation for separating very coarse KCl and NaCl from a mixed salt evaporate. Because of calcium contamination in the evaporites, the resulting final potash product had high insoluble gypsum levels that posed KCl formulator sedimentation issues with the client's final product. Expert was hired to identify an effective gypsum flotation depressant program that included plant testing qualification. This was successfully accomplished. The assignment was extended to include technical and operations flotation training, and further, using the plant process data collected from the depressant evaluations, metallurgical modeling and statistical analyses were conducted that identified flotation capacity as being insufficient and was causing 2+% lower KCl plant recoveries. Reducing the plant feedrate resulted in significantly increased KCl annual production tonnage.To meet tightened permit environmental limits, a USA mine installed a water treatment plant to treat a mine-mill discharge waters blend to meet regulations. The plant was misdesigned for the application and the client retained the Consultant to support resolution of the process shortcomings. Even after the flowsheet was optimized and the equipment upgraded, extended process excursions continued. In coordination with the client, further lab testing and assessments demonstrated that the diamond drilling synthetic drill mud combination was causing TSS hydrophobicity and particulate dispersion that was difficult to flocculate and clarify in the water treatment plant. Expert worked with drilling mud suppliers to develop an improved mud formulation that would result in waters that could be effectively treated. The program was further refined to include synthetic mud precipitation to avoid any further mine TSS treatment issues in the surface plant. This treatment combinations greatly improved the water treatment process which ensured consistent operation and manageable achievement of discharge limits.An Alaskan mine under development that had very tight water discharge permit limits encountered increasing ammonia (NH4-N) and nitrate (NO3-N) mine water discharge concentrations from the ammonium nitrate blasting agents used. Due to limited space available, installation of a biological plant sufficiently large to treat 1200+ gallon/minute flowrates was problematic and Expert was contracted to investigate and develop an innovative flowsheet alternative to a standard biological plant solution. The innovative process had to be a and effective and practical alternative to biological ammonia and nitrate degradation. The flowsheet developed was bench tested along with some larger scale pilot tests including brine solution strips that proved to be effective. The IX (zeolite and resin steps) process design concept resulted in no ammonia or nitrate waste accumulation and had a small footprint.. Strip solutions from ammonia IX were air stripped and the nitrate brine strip solutions were anaerobically digested using brine tolerant bacteria. This was a innovative technically effective, relatively low capital cost and offered a good operating cost efficiencies alternative to a straight biological plant that met the project constraints provided by the client.