Met-Chem Canada Inc.
As a provider of quality engineering and technical services, Met-Chem Canada Inc. can become involved in a client’s project at any point – from exploration or feasibility study to the actual mining or even closure strategies. The company’s team includes engineers, technicians and project management people with experience on projects worldwide.
Met-Chem says it provides clients with project managers who have the autonomy and resources to meet the clients’ needs effectively, and to enable clients to participate in all phases of their projects. Those managers also have economic, political and cultural sensitivity for countries in which they work.
In mining, Met-Chem can prepare scoping, pre-feasibility and feasibility studies, full-scale mining operations planning, mine closure plans and environmental management plans to whatever guidelines apply.
For mineral processing and metallurgy, Met-Chem’s engineers identify the process requirements of the mineral and evaluate research and pilot plant data before developing a flowsheet and selecting process equipment. Armed with this information, plant layouts can be prepared and costs estimated by working closely with plant, construction and operating specialists to minimize costs and ensure plant operability.
Environmental Management
With Met-Chem’s services, environmental management can be integrated at every stage of a project, from conceptual design through feasibility studies, basic and detailed engineering and construction. The company’s expertise in environmental management includes the major industrial sectors related to mining and mineral beneficiation.
Met-Chem says it can prepare scoping studies – the preliminary evaluation of projects – mostly based on assumptions and factors and on the company’s extensive database of completed projects. Such a study may be prepared with different options for development.
Mineral Resources Estimation
Met-Chem says it possesses in-depth know-how in analyzing exploration data, and its geological group can supply design and services based on its industry experience and through advanced mining software. Each project is evaluated to match it with the appropriate software based on the geology or the client’s preference.
Geological data is incorporated in Met-Chem’s software to create computerized 3-D block models. Resources then are estimated and classified using international standards. The company also can audit existing mines to pinpoint critical bottlenecks and identify inefficiencies.
Met-Chem’s team can determine the optimum open-pit design by assessing many different configurations through computer simulation and establishing pit limits. First, as described by the company, the economic pit limits are obtained from cut-off grades, stripping ratios and the economic value of each block within the deposit.
The access road is then added to the pit in the simulation so the engineer can determine the best path to minimize hauling distances and stripping ratios.
The company was established in 1969 as a consulting engineering company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of UEC Technologies LLC, which is part of United States Steel Corp., Pittsburgh. Its quality system has been compliant with the ISO 9001:2008 international standard since 2003. Recently, it teamed with international consulting firms offering professional services to the metallurgical sector to provide a number of clients with pre-feasibility and feasibility studies in Canada and Latin America.
Met-Chem says its specialty since its founding has been engineering, procurement services and construction management. In today’s dollars, Met-Chem claims it has been responsible for more than $3 billion of such work – often performed under difficult climatic conditions – on schedule and budget.