PasteTec: Diavik EPCM and Operating Project

Market sector: Mining
Region: Canada

Located 220 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle in Canada’s Northwest Territories, the Diavik Diamond Mine produced approximately 10 million carats’ worth of diamonds in 2006. Owned by long-term client Rio Tinto, Diavik approached Golder with a challenge that demanded an innovative application of paste technology. A paste plant takes mine waste rock, mixes this material with cement and pumps the resulting slurry underground, providing structural support for the mine. With engineering, design and construction expertise from Sudbury and Vancouver, the group conducted three phases of operations: an initial feasibility project, detailed engineering and construction design and on-site construction management. Despite extreme cold and less than two months of road accessibility per year, the team designed and is constructing a facility four times the size of the world’s next biggest paste plant. The initial rock-crushing phase runs to the end of 2007, with plant operations to start by year-end 2008.