Mine Production

The production of vanadium in mines is reported in Table 21.1. Table 21.1 Mine production of vanadium in 2002 [21.2] 

Country Mine production Tonnes, vanadium content Percentage of total 

The most important products in trade are vanadium pentoxide V Oj and ferrovana-dium. This can be illustrated by the information about US imports in the year 2000 (Table 21.2). 

Product US-import 2000. Tonnes, contained vanadium Note 

Vanadium pentoxide is the raw material for production of vanadium metal, and ferrovanadium is an alloy that is added to a steel melt to give the steel a specified vanadium content. In addition ash, ore, and slag containing 1900 tonnes of vanadium were imported to the USA in 2000. 

---

Table 3. Mine Production of Gold, Metric Tons...

The principal U.S. lead producers, ASARCO Inc. and The Doe Run Co., account for 75% of domestic mine production and 100% of primary lead production. Both companies employ sintering/blast furnace operations at their smelters and pyrometaHurgical methods in their refineries. Domestic mine production in 1992 accounted for over 90% of the U.S. primary lead production the balance originated from the smelting of imported ores and concentrates. 

Spain, which until 1989 was the world s largest producer of mercury, ceased mine production after 1990, although 100 t of mercury were produced in 1991 from stockpiled materials. China, Mexico, and Russia were the largest producers in 1992 (14). 

Location Reserve base Economic Total reserves Ore-grade fraction, % Mine capacity Refinery and smelter capacity Mine production... 

The trends in total world mine production rates from 1987 to 1992 are evident in Table 3. An 8-yr averaging shows ca 2% growth in annual consumption. The average price of nickel has varied from year to year the actual price more than doubled from 1985 to 1988. However, third quarter 1993 prices dropped below mid-1980 prices to < 4.50/kg. Based on the 1992 world nickel consumption level of 813,900 t and the average annual London Metal Exchange (LME) nickel price, the 1992 monetary value for the nickel mining and refining industry would be approximately 6 x 10 . ... 

Table 3. World Nickel Mine Production and Prices ...

Year World mine production, nickel content, t X 10 Average annual price, /kg Average constant price, /kg... 

The world economic (proven) nickel reserves are estimated at 47.0 x 10 t. At the 1992 world rate of mine production, these reserves would be expected to last at least until the year 2050. If, however, annual mine production increases at a rate that reflects a predicted increase in the world primary nickel consumption of 2% annually, these reserves would be depleted before 2030 (6,8,9). 

Cobalt. There is no U.S. mine production of cobalt. Refining of imported nickel—cobalt mattes has not occurred since the mid-1980s. About 1600 t of secondary cobalt was recycled from scrap by 13 faciUties in the United States representing - 22% of total U.S. consumption. The price of the metal was around 44/kg. Most is imported from Zaire and Zambia. Increasing quantities are coming from Russia. Historically, the price of cobalt has been quite volatile and dependent on the pohtical environment in those countries. Cobalt is used in superaHoys, 40% catalysts, 14% paint driers, 11% magnetic alloys, 10% and cemented carbides and other uses, 16%. 

Copper. Domestic mine production of copper metal in 1994 was over 1,800,000 t. Whereas U.S. copper production increased in the 1980s and 1990s, world supply declined in 1994. There are eight primary and five secondary smelters, nine electrolytic and six fire refiners, and fifteen solvent extraction—electro winning (SX—EW) plants. Almost 540,000 t/yr of old scrap copper and alloy are recycled in the United States accounting for - 24% of total U.S. consumption (11). New scrap accounted for 825,000 t of contained copper. Almost 80% of the new scrap was consumed by brass mills. The ratio of new-to-old scrap is about 60 40% representing 38% of U.S. supply. 

Mine Production of Silver. World production of silver by region is given in Table 3. Some 900,000 metric tons are estimated to have been mined since early times. By the year 1500 world mine production was about 50 t/yr. In 1992 world production exceeded 14,900 metric tons. EoUowing the breakup of tfie Soviet Union, previously undisclosed data showed that the USSR led wodd silver production during 1979—1980 at about 1550 metric tons. During the early 1990s the production in this region exceeded 2000 t/yr. 

Secondary Silver Recovery. The consumption of sdvei normally exceeds its mine production therefore recovery from scrapped products. ... 

C. L. ManteU, Tin Its Mining, Production, Technology, and Applications, 2nd ed., Reiohold Publishing Corp., New York, 1949. 

Ore Processing. Vanadium is recovered domestically as a principal mine product, as a coproduct or by-product from uranium—vanadium ores, and from ferrophosphoms as a by-product in the production of elemental phosphoms. In Canada, it is recovered from cmde-oil residues and in the Repubhc of South Africa as a by-product of titaniferous magnetite. Whatever the source, however, the first stage in ore processing is the production of an oxide concentrate. 

The United States, the former USSR, Canada, and AustraUa have the largest known reserves of zinc ore which should permit mining at current levels into the next century (see Tables 2 and 3). World mine production of recoverable zinc between 1970 and 1996 is given in Table 9 (64—66). Mine production in the United States in the 1970s was lower than in the 1960s, reached a minimum in the mid-1980s and has risen since then. The U.S. share of world production has historically been 8—9%. 

Table 9. United States, Canada, North America, South America, and World Mine Production, 10001...

World mine production, reserves, and reserve base is Hsted in Table 3. ... 

On the macroscopic scale, two coal classifications have been used humic or banded coals and sapropeflc or nonbanded coals. Stratification in the banded coals, which result from plant parts, is quite obvious the nonbanded coals, which derive from algal materials and spores, are much more uniform. The physical and chemical properties of the different layers in a piece of coal or a seam can vary significantly. Therefore the relative amounts of the layers are important in determining the overall characteristics of the mined product. Coal petrography has been widely appHed in cokemaking and is important in coal hquefaction programs. 

Beryllium, like its neighbours Li and B, is relatively unabundant in the earth s crust it occurs to the extent of about 2 ppm and is thus similar to Sn (2.1 ppm), Eu (2.1 ppm) and As (1.8 ppm). However, its occurrence as surface deposits of beryl in pegmatite rocks (which are the last portions of granite domes to crystallize) makes it readily accessible. Crystals as large as 1 m on edge and weighing up to 60 tonnes have been reported. World reserves in commercial deposits are about 4 million tonnes of contained Be and mined production in 1985-86 was USA... 

Blowing air through the hot, crude, liquid metal oxidizes traces of metals such as Fe, Cu, Zn and Pb which form an easily removable scum. Further purification is by distillation under reduced pressure. About 4000 tonnes of mercury are used annually but only half is from primary, mine production the other half being secondary production and sales from stockpiles. The main primary producer is now Spain, but several other countries, including the former Soviet Union, China and Algeria, have capacity for production. 

A second approach is to compare total mining production of a metal to an estimate of its total natural flux, making the implicit assumption that all mined materials will be released to the environment in the near future (a reasonable... 

In 1996, mines in Missouri and Alaska accounted for 93% of total US. lead mine production. Domestic lead mine production decreased in 1992 and 1993 as a result of low lead, gold, and silver metal prices, but increased the following three years when several mines either expanded or reopened due to increased metal prices. Domestic lead mine production reached 436,000 metric tons in 1996 and an estimated 450,000 metric tons in 1997, which was still less than the 484,000 metric tons produced in 1990 (Larrabee 1997 Smith 1998). 

The earliest records of world annual As production from mining date from 1900 (Kelly et al. 2002) (Fig. 9.1a). World As production from mining increased steeply from 1900 to 1930. The change in production is described by the exponential best-fit equation Y = 63.66 e where Y is world annual As mine production in tons and X is number of years since 1849 (R2 = 0.846, significance at 5% probability level). From 1850 to 1900 and between 1906 and 1909, measured records were not available and they... 

Figure 9.3. Measured and fitted global annual industrial age Hg mine production and Hg production from world coal industry (after Han et al., 2002a. Reprinted from Naturwissenschaften, 89, Han F.X., Banin A., Su Y., Monts D.L., Plodinec M.J., Kingery W.L., Triplett G.B., Industrial age anthropogenic inputs of heavy metals into the pedosphere, p 500, Copyright (2002), with kind permission of Springer Science and Business Media)...

---