CA2876770C - Improved oil sand mining and haulage method - Google Patents

Abstract

The Improved Oil Sand Mining and Haulage Method described herein is an improved flowsheet method and equipment specification covering the steps of oil sand mining, crushing, haulage and surge storage utilization, using best practices of the Bulk Materials Handling engineering discipline to accomplish the following:
.cndot. De-couple series-connected process equipment trains;
.cndot. Introduce process-step redundancies;
.cndot. More effective surge storage capacity utilization and .cndot. Simplification of the overall process flowsheet.

Description

Description CA

2,876,770 TITLE OF THE INVENTION:
Improved Oil Sand Mining and Haulage Method =
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION:
The technical field of this invention patent disclosure is the science of Bulk Materials Handling (BMH), corresponding to the engineering discipline responsible for planning, designing and implementing methods and equipment for the excavation of materials from an open pit mine, crushing these materials as may be required, transporting these materials by suitable means, providing for temporary surge storage capacity in bins or other containment means and reclaiming these materials for subsequent handling or processing steps. The invention claimed is a process method having better performance, reduced costs, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and resulting in an improved process flowsheet over the prior art.
The physical field of the described and claimed invention is in the mining and materials handling of oil sand from the mineable oil sand deposits of northern Alberta, Canada. This invention called "Improved Oil Sand Mining and Haulage Method" refers to an improved process flowsheet method of open pit mining and handling of naturally occurring earth materials containing bitumen-bearing sand, barren rock, clays and organic materials commonly known in the industry as oil sand.
Process steps occurring in and beyond the slurry preparation plant (SPP) are beyond the scope of this invention disclosure.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION:
Conventional oil sand industry practice for the mining and transportation of dry oil sand materials uses the truck and shovel mining and ore transportation method, mining taking place at multiple faces on multiple mining benches typically using large mobile electric/hydraulic shovel excavators and a fleet of large mine haulage trucks typically travelling variable distances from 1 to 15 km to reach a fixed facility referred to as a remote "Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant".
The conventional Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant typically features 2 equipment trains of series-connected equipment comprising 2 receiving truck dump hoppers, 2 reclaiming apron feeder conveyors, 2 large primary crushers, 2 long inclined surge bin feed belt conveyors, 2 large surge storage bins, an additional 2 reclaiming apron feeder conveyors, an additional 2 long inclined SPP feed conveyors, 2 slurry preparation plants defining 2 independent trains and 2 slurry pumping/pipeline systems feeding a remote Extraction plant. Dry oil sand feed to the 2 train slurry preparation plants typically falls into the range of 12,000 to 14,000 tonnes of as-mined oil sand per hour. The industry also employs single or triple train configurations with appropriate adjustments to the quantities of equipment, but using the same sequence of equipment used per process train.
Page 1 of 24 Description CA
2,876,770 Although the conventional process flowsheet suffers from a number of systemic problems including high initial cost, large in-pit footprint, unreliability of the series-connected equipment trains, non-relocatability of the fixed facilities, is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and typically has poor availability and productivity, it continues to represent the generic industry-wide conventional process flowsheet without having changed significantly over the last three decades.
Strong advantages to the use of mine haulage trucks are found in their flexibility in enabling selective mining from multiple mining faces on multiple mining benches at different elevations, such mining faces potentially relatively remote from each other. Ore grade blending is an important function that can be satisfied when delivering and combining oil sand feeds from these remote mining faces typically having variable ore qualities, to the remote downstream processing facilities. The productivity of the mobile excavators and mine haulage trucks is high considering the redundancy options within typical fleets of 4 mobile excavators feeding a shared fleet of 25 to 35 mine haulage truck units for every 2 equipment trains. Oil sand operators favour mine haulage trucks for oil sand transportation, but admit that the technology becomes inefficient for haulage distances greater than 5 km, including excessive production of greenhouse gases (GHG) from the diesel fuel burning engines.
Availability and productivity issues with conventional technology begin after the mine haulage trucks dump their loads of run-of-mine (ROM) oil sand into the truck dump hopper.
From this point onwards the process flowsheet comprises series-connected process steps of reclaiming ROM oil sand from the truck dump hopper using.an apron feeder to feed the large stationary primary crusher; crushing the ROM oil sand; using a large belt conveyor to carry, elevate and discharge primary crushed oil sand into a large surge bin; reclaiming primary crushed oil sand from the surge bin using an apron feeder;
discharging reclaimed primary crushed oil sand onto a second large belt conveyor to carry, elevate and discharge it into the SPP. Numerous reliability issues are associated with this part of the process flowsheet handling dry, abrasive, lumpy oil sand at high tonnage throughput rates prior to feeding the SPP.
Operating issues including high labour costs and GHG emissions have been identified and targeted by several recent patents, featuring the use of conveyor systems to replace the mine haulage truck fleets, some examples being Syncrude CA 2642557 and CA 2643292 and Canadian Oil Sand CA 2480122, CA
2453697, US 7,431,830 and Suncor Energy CA 2567644 and WO 2010037215 Al. It is well known in the industry and acknowledged in the patents of MacDougal in CA 2567644 and Cymerman in CA 2029795 that issues of high cost and maintenance downtime are associated with conveyors operating in oil sand.
These patents proposing to use long series-connected equipment trains of conveyors and other processing equipment steps therefore raise questions of inherently poor reliability and productivity of these long equipment trains. Also important is their inherent lack of mining flexibility for selective mining and ore grade blending. None of these recently patented conveyor-based haulage technologies have been implemented .as primary production trains by the industry.
Three examples of slurry-at-face systems were proposed in Syncrude CA 2567644 and MMD Design 8c Consultancy CA 2558059 and CA 2498862. Full scale pilot trials done for slurry-at-face systems have not been successful, largely due to the lack of satisfactory bitumen recovery and the requirement to provide Page 2 of 24 Description CA
2,876,770 extensive extendable infrastructure to operate slurry preparation facilities in-pit. Slurry-at-face systems still represent high risk unproven technology in the oil sand industry.
During development of the Improved Oil Sand Mining and Materials Handling Method, the primary competing prior art was therefore concluded to be conventional industry practice, since none of the recent art featuring extensive use of conveyors or slurry-at-face systems has been adopted by the oil sand industry for more than laboratory or pilot trials due to the multiple disadvantages noted above.
NEED FOR NEW TECHNOLOGY:
Procurement practices among owners of "mineable oil sand" leases have typically reserved all aspects of mine planning, mine development and mining fleet procurement to be handled internally, using specialized niche 3rd party mining consultant firms to assist in open pit mining and tailings layouts, geology, reserves calculations, pit layouts for stripping, mining, tailings and water management. Process plant design and engineering services on the other hand are typically awarded to relatively larger 3rd party Engineering/Procurement/Construction (EPC) contractors having access to large teams of traditional multidisciplinary engineering resources, generally led by the Process Engineering discipline.
There may be more than one EPC Engineering firm chosen for the downstream facilities, infrastructure and utilities due to different perceived skill sets and financial capacities of the relative firms.
Although the mine owner has oversight of all 3rd party engineering resources, the selected EPC
Engineers have little insight or input on the mining side of these large scale projects. A "Battery Limit"
separating the "mine" from the "plant" scopes of work is usually defined at the entrance to the "truck dump hopper", where the mine haulage trucks dump as-mined oil sand into a fixed hopper feeding the large fixed primary crusher. Due to this somewhat arbitrary scope separation, technology innovation for dry oil sand mining and handling has stagnated. In fact, the essence of this patent disclosure could have been proposed at any time over the last 30 years.
This present invention disclosure recognizes that "bulk materials handling"
spans both sides of the traditional contractual "battery limit" at the truck dump hopper. The inventive concepts of this disclosure arise out of considering an expanded scope to include all "dry materials handling" from the mining faces to the entrance of the slurry preparation plant with no recognition of the prior restrictive battery limit. The advantages and benefits described in this disclosure were obtained through this revised approach.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION:
Therefore, the scope of this patent disclosure begins at the mining face and ends at the entrance to the slurry preparation plant, reflecting an expanded EPC project scope including all of the dry oil sand mining and materials handling steps from the mining faces to the SPP. It is a method patent which discloses an improved process flowsheet method in comparison to the industry's conventional process flowsheet, the improved method based upon fundamental scientific principles of the engineering discipline called Bulk Materials Handling (BMH). It addresses existing problems with conventional industry practise and also the expected deficiencies of more recently patented prior art, proposing to Page 3 of 24 Description CA
2,876,770 significantly improve system availability and productivity, also to achieve lower initial costs, lower on-going operating costs and higher revenues due to improved productivity. The improved method also offers multiple options to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, resulting from a reduction of installed horsepower and, more effective options to manage truck haulage distances.
The patent disclosure focuses on four fundamental scientific principles for BMH:
= De-couple series-connected process equipment trains;
= Introduce process-step redundancies;
= More effective surge storage capacity utilization and = Simplification of the overall process flowsheet.
In this patent disclosure "de-coupling" is defined as the breaking of series-connected one-on-one processing train equipment relationships and "redundancy" refers to multiple units of identical or alternative technology equipment operating simultaneously in parallel independent relationships but performing the same process function with an incrementally cumulative effect.
De-coupling and provision of multiple redundancies will achieve increased availability and productivity of the mining and materials handling system because the failure or stoppage of any single production equipment unit will not stop or even greatly influence the continued operation of the overall system production functions.
The phrase "multiple unit redundancies" in which many or all of the redundant units are intended to operate simultaneously in parallel is fundamentally different from an alternate meaning of the word "redundant", in which a single-step processing unit may have a parallel, single-step redundant process unit installed beside it, only one of which is intended to operate at any one time. In the following description it will be clear that the improved method of this patent relies upon "multiple" rather than "single" units of redundantly parallel operating equipment at each step of the improved process flowsheet.
The Description and Claims of this patent disclosure are presented in the context of a mine equipment fleet comprising; 4 mobile excavators at 4 mining faces cooperatively paired with 4 mobile primary crushers loading primary crushed oil sand into a shared fleet of 25 to 35 mine haulage trucks, supplying 2 remote surge bins (SB) with 2 slurry preparation plants (SPP) and having 2 hydrotransport (HT) oil sand slurry pumping and pipeline equipment trains, for a total oil sand demand rate in the range of 12,000 to 14,000 tonnes per hour to operate both trains simultaneously.
The term Availability can be defined mathematically as the time that a unit of equipment is available to operate divided by the time it is scheduled to operate. Any equipment unit stoppage due to unscheduled delays or maintenance issues will reduce its "available" time, hence its availability and productivity.
In a system of multiple series-connected equipment units comprising a pair of independent oil sand process equipment trains, every unit of equipment has characteristic failure rates and time durations of failure, usually expressed in statistical or probability math and failure distribution bell curves. The mathematical availability of a complete series-connected equipment train can be calculated using a Page 4 of 24 Description CA
2,876,770 computer modelling tool; in which the measured individual equipment availabilities are statistically aggregated to arrive at a characteristic system availability value. Poor availability of a mining and materials handling system has serious impacts, since lost production tonnes are the result and downstream process upsets m ay occur if the stoppage duration is more than a few minutes.
In simple terms, the learnings derived from conducting such analyses demonstrate that adding more units of equipment into a series-connected equipment train will reduce system availability, but deleting units of equipment from the train will increase system availability.
Similarly, de-coupling of series-connected equipment trains will enable the addition of redundant equipment units which together can greatly increase system availability. Adding effective surge capacity at appropriate locations in a process flowsheet containing batch and continuous sequential processes also increases system availability.
Improved system availability of an oil sand mining and materials handling system will directly increase productivity leading to cost reductions and increased revenue generation.
De-coupling of series-connected equipment trains in this improved patent method is enabled firstly by the key method step of relocating the primary crusher to the mining face in a mobile configuration. In the improved method each mobile excavator at each mining face will be paired with a cooperating mobile primary crusher, which will then discharge primary crushed oil sand to the shared fleet of 25 to 35 mine haulage trucks, each mine haulage truck transporting primary crushed oil sand to the remote SB
and SPP equipment trains (meaning 2 oil sand surge storage and slurry preparation equipment trains).
An availability calculation for the ore preparation facility will no longer need to include failure rates of the large fixed primary crusher, its apron feeder conveyor or its heavy duty inclined SB feed conveyor, firstly because this equipment is no longer located at the fixed distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant, and secondly because the intervening trucking function effectively de-couples equipment located at the mining face from equipment located at the distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation facilities.
Providing significant surge capacity in the receiving and storage hopper of the mobile primary crusher also has a de-coupling effect between the mobile excavator, the mobile primary crusher and the mine haulage truck fleet, somewhat isolating the operation of the mobile excavator from the irregular arrival and spotting of the mine haulage trucks, resulting in improved productivity of both the mobile excavator and the mine haulage trucks. "Providing significant surge capacity" in this disclosure may represent about 2 bucket loads of oil sand from the mining excavator, enabling the mobile excavator to pre-load the mobile crusher's receiving and storage hopper even before a haulage truck arrives and to add one or more additional bucket loads into the mobile crusher's receiving and storage hopper during operation of the mobile crusher and filling of the mine haulage truck, and to continue loading into the mobile crusher's receiving and storage hopper after the loaded mine haulage truck departs.
In the improved patent method each process step of excavating, crushing, haulage and SB storage is de-coupled from its preceding and/or succeeding process steps, thus enabling the introduction of multiple unit redundancies for each process step of equipment used.
Page 5 of 24 Description CA
2,876,770 For the improved method, increased Redundancy benefits will appear first at the 4 mobile primary crushers paired with 4 mobile excavators, which is double the conventional practice of having only 2 large fixed primary crushers series-connected with the rest of 2 independent equipment trains of the distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Facilities. Should any single pair of mobile excavators/mobile crushers be taken out of service in the improved method, the remaining 3 mobile excavator/mobile crusher pairs will be able to make up for the lost oil sand production tonnage per hour, the mine haulage truck fleet will be redistributed to haul from 3 operating mining faces instead of 4. Similarly, redundancy carries over to the mine haulage trucks; if any mine haulage truck fails or is being serviced, the balance of the typical shared 25 to 35 mine haulage truck fleet can make up for the lost production of one or more mine haulage trucks taken out of service.
An unexpected Increase in Surge capacity of prepared oil sand results from the de-coupling and redundancies noted above. In this improved method the mine haulage trucks have gained an additional new function of carrying the same primary crushed oil sand as is held in the SB, therefore incrementing the tonnage of prepared primary crushed oil sand available to be fed to the SPP without adding additional equipment to the flowsheet. The mechanism of this increase is realized by the repetitive arrival of mine haulage trucks delivering dynamic live loads of up to 363 tonnes (CAT 797B) of primary crushed oil sand per load at an average frequency of about once every 1.5 minutes, or 14,520 tonnes per hour. This functionality creates a new capital cost saving opportunity to downsize the typical SB
capacity due to this new and unexpected cumulative dynamic live loading of additional primary crushed oil sand tonnes being carried by the fleet of mine haulage trucks in transit to the SB.
The Placement and sizing of the main SB in the flowsheet is critically important to the successful continuous operation of the immediately downstream slurry preparation plant (SPP), hydrotransport (HT), Extraction and Froth Treatment process steps to avoid process upset conditions potentially affecting product recovery, quality, or even causing plant shutdowns.
Each upstream equipment process step in the improved method has its own unique characteristic set of possible delays and stoppages, many of which may be of relatively short duration which can be buffered by use of a SB of appropriate capacity positioned to feed the SPP directly.
These delays include frequent re-positioning movements of the mining excavator and mobile crusher, spotting delays as haulage trucks arrive empty and depart full, metal rejection procedure delays while loading haulage trucks, sticky and frozen ore lump blockages in the crusher feed hopper and crusher, flow rate surges as the haulage trucks dump into the SB, routine servicing delays, refueling delays, electrical fault delays, instrumentation fault delays, safety stoppages, haulage road maintenance;
human factor delays relating to lunch and shift changes, training, accidents, severe weather stoppages, etc. There are also potential delays of much longer duration to cover major maintenance jobs for which a calculated minimum required SB capacity would be considered too large and impractical to construct and operate. For this reason SB sizing for conventional technology is typically selected to cover only short duration stoppages, in which the cause of the upstream stoppage is likely to be corrected in 20 minutes or less, SB sizing therefore typically designed to hold 1/2 hour of feed capacity.
Page 6 of 24 Description CA
2,876,770 Although the proposed SB sizing procedure outlined in this disclosure is applicable for all oil sand mining and handling methods, there is a fundamental difference in the improved art disclosed herein. The operation of series-connected equipment trains will stop completely if any single one of the equipment units in the series-connected train fails, and the train cannot re-start until the failed unit is repaired.
Following any unplanned stoppage of the train, the continued operation of the downstream processes starting with the SPP would then only be able to continue running until the SB
empties of its contained live primary crushed oil sand; typically containing only enough feed for about '/2 hr of continued operation of the SPP/HT/Extraction train.
The improved art of this disclosure featuring de-coupling and redundancies for each step of the sequential process will re'act very differently to failure of a single unit of production equipment. As an example, if a mine haulage truck fails or is taken out of service, the potential haulage capacity of the total mine haulage truck fleet will be reduced by 1/35th of its nominal maximum output ¨the impact of this failure will hardly affect SB or SPP operation considering the excess sprint haulage capacity available from the balance of the haulage fleet. The impact of a single pair of the four mobile excavators/mobile primary crushers failing or being taken out of service would be much higher at 25% of the total potential mining and crushing output, but may still be within the excess sprint capacity of the remaining 3 mobile excavator/mobile crusher pairs. In both of these examples the tonnage rate reduction delivered to the SB may thus be minor, and may still enable the SPP/HT/Extraction plant trains to continue operation even at somewhat reduced throughput rates, still within their design turn-down ratios. This presumed excess sprint capacity will most likely already have been provided by the mine operator, as essential for enabling individual units of excavating, crushing or haulage equipment to be taken out of service for routine planned maintenance purposes.
The SB will still be required in the improved flowsheet of the Improved Oil Sand Mining and Haulage Method, but its calculated minimum design capacity can likely be much reduced because of the expected high availability of the preceding process steps, each featuring de-coupling and redundancies, therefore the surge bin can be made significantly smaller and therefore less costly to construct.
The downstream processes following the SB must preferably operate under continuous steady state conditions of HT pumping with a constant mass flow rate, constant and correct slurry density, known maximum lump size and constant flow velocity to prevent large lumps in the pipeline from "sanding out"
and plugging the line. In winter there would be a consequent risk of freezing the pipeline solid if the flow was interrupted for an extended time period; even so, the re-starting of a stopped HT pipeline still containing HT solids can be problematic. These required operating criteria cannot be achieved if the upstream mining and materials handling system can only provide an inconsistent supply of oil sand, but can be achieved if the SB.is of sufficient capacity and availability and is maintained at a high percentage level of fill to buffer and isolate the upstream batch and downstream continuous processes from each other.
Prior art as found in CA 2567644 (May 2007) and CA 2029795 (May 1991) is particularly deficient in omitting effective surge capacity from their flowsheets, essentially rendering these patents as unworkable and having no utility as presented. As discussed herein under the descriptive comments for Page 7 of 24 Description CA
2,876,770 Figure 3, the application of BMH science with respect to sizing an appropriate SB capacity is best achieved by characterizing the probability distribution of all types of possible delays for each unit of upstream equipment, then to aggregate an overall probability distribution characterizing the total upstream system. From these calculations an appropriate SB size can be selected to eliminate a large percentage of typical short term delay events. From industry experience the SB
usually is sized to contain at least half of the flow rate capacity of the train, equating to about 1/2 hour of continued train operability following a cessation of new feed delivered into the SB.
The Improved Oil Sand Mining and Haulage Method offers an opportunity to reduce the '/2 hour sizing criteria, due to the dynamic live surge capacity of loaded mine haulage trucks constantly delivering loads of primary crushed oil sand to replenish the SB at a predictable average frequency and load capacity.
The process flowsheet can be improved for the haulage and SB functions by relocating the SB into a slot in the mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) wall in the former location of the fixed truck dump hopper, apron feeder and large fixed primary crusher. Mine haulage trucks will then be enabled to direct-dump primary crushed oil sand into the SB, the trucks accessing the dumping positions by approaching the SB
on top of the MSE wall. This new structural configuration will eliminate 2 expensive heavy duty inclined conveyors feeding the SB; one for each train.
Similarly, additional process flowsheet simplification can be achieved by co-locating the SB and the SPP
facilities in close proximity to each other, directly connected using the SB
apron feeder reclaiming and discharge conveyors to feed the 2-train SPP. This new structural configuration will eliminate an additional 2 expensive heavy duty inclined conveyors feeding the SPP; one for each train. This latter apparatus configuration is not claimed herein as it is already shown in prior art by Canadian Oil Sand CA
2480122, but it is claimed as part of this Improved Oil Sand Mining and Materials Handling Method offering an improved process flowsheet.
In the improved method there will be GHG emissions savings opportunities associated with the elimination of up to 12,000 installed horsepower for the 4 heavy duty inclined conveyors removed from the improved process flow sheet. The reduced structural equipment layout of the SB and SPP facilities may require only a tenth of the footprint of today's conventional art, thus reducing the cost and GHG
impact of the construction functions required for site preparation and maintenance. An important corollary to the reduced construction effort is that it will become much more practical and cost effective to relocate the receiving and slurry preparation facilities closer to the mining faces from time to time, preventing the mine haulage truck distances from becoming longer than about 5 km, thus gaining net reductions in both operating costs and life-of-mine GHG emissions.
The cumulative benefits of de-coupling, multiple redundancies, improved surge capacity and improved process flowsheet achieved by this Improved Oil Sand Mining and Haulage Method will provide significant gains in cost savings and system availability, translating directly into higher production revenues with reduced maintenance and operating costs, along with reduced GHG
emissions.
Tramp metal detection and removal is not new art, as specific structural means were shown and claimed previously in Syncrude CA 2643292, CA 2642557 and Suncor CA 2567644. The oil sand industry has Page 8 of 24 = CA 02876770 2016-08-10 Description CA
2,876,770 struggled, however, to provide a practical and cost effective detection and removal method for tramp metal on conveyors, experiencing too many nuisance trips in large part because the belts are typically heavily loaded with oil sand at up to 14,000 tonnes per hour and typically travel at high speeds of 5 to 6 meters per second. In contrast, the oil sand discharge rate from each of the new mobile primary crushers can be much lower at 5,000 to 6,000 tonnes per hour and can be conveyed into the mine haulage trucks at a reduced belt speed.
The improved tramp metal removal procedure of this patent disclosure requires first that an adjustable sensitivity metal detector be installed on the mobile crusher's discharge conveyor belt enabling the sensor to differentiate between heavy tramp metal such as a shovel tooth or adapter-holder versus lighter and smaller metal which the downstream process can tolerate. The sensor will activate an alarm if heavy tramp metal is detected, initiating a manual or automated removal procedure as follows:
1. Stop the crusher's feed conveyor, the crusher and the discharge conveyor;
2. Slew the discharge conveyor sideways away from the mine haulage truck being loaded;

3. Discharge the large tramp metal directly onto the ground;

4. Slew the discharge conveyor back into its mine truck loading position;

5. Re-start the reclaiming, crushing and truck loading operations.
This improved sensing and removal procedure for large tramp metal avoids adding extra equipment to the flowsheet, unlike the.Syncrude prior art patents which requires adding chutework and a short reversible conveyor, multiple sensors and a control system to enable discharging the tramp metal onto the ground.
An Overland (0/L) Conveyor can also be used in the Improved Oil Sand Mining and Haulage Method in such a case that truck haulage distances longer than about 5 km cannot be otherwise avoided. Although 0/L conveyors are not new art, they can be specified and implemented as unique steps in the improved process flowsheet method following the truck haulage step, the overland conveyor configured to feed the SB directly. Structural and control means are claimed herein allowing mine haulage trucks to feed the overland conveyor at.multiple 0/L conveyor belt loader positions along its length, and for the SB to be fed simultaneously from the overland conveyor and directly from mine haulage trucks. A first controller is claimed for loading the belts without overloading and spillage and a second controller is claimed to achieve and maintain filling of the remote SB.
Prerequisites for using this 0/L conveyor transportation link technology are satisfied firstly by the mobile primary crusher's action to reduce oil sand lump size to conveyable proportions. Particularly in winter frozen oil sand lumps can be as large as a 3m cube, but the mobile primary crusher will reduce that to a typical 350 to 400mm passing screen size. Secondly, the sensing and removal means and procedure enables discarding large tramp metal on the discharging conveyance. In combination these two actions will prepare the oil sand for 0/L conveyor transportation and processing at downstream oil sand slurry preparation facilities. Large tramp metal can otherwise cause conveyor belting damage and/or plug, damage or stall downstream process equipment.
Page 9 of 24 Description CA
2,876,770 A characteristic of an overland conveyor link or links is that they can be installed in a fixed location at any convenient length or direction from the remote SB to suit the mining plan and the locations of multiple mining faces, the existing or planned mine truck haulage roads or other mining pit construction features including berms or dykes or drainage ditches or ponds in the open pit mine; the overland conveyor having a design capability to accommodate both vertical and horizontal curves; the maximum design length of the overland conveyor can be constructed either by incremental extensions over time or immediately at full design length as required to suit the mining operations.
An overland conveyor of 4 km length, for example, will have fewer operational issues than multiple shorter conveyors making up a similar distance when considering the problems of handling sticky oil sand which tend to build-up on the belting and the pulleys. The 0/L conveyor will have fewer transfer/loading points where damage and spillage can occur, fewer numbers of large pulleys per kilometer and greater spacing of carrying idlers when designed using the new CEMA 7 design guidelines (Conveyor Equipment Manufacturers Association design specification manual).
Unique differentiators and benefits for use of a the overland conveyor link include maintaining the flexibility of truck haulage from the mining faces, the potential economies of conveyor transportation over the mine haulage trucks over long distances, a potentially reduced frequency of necessary SB/SPP
relocations and potential reductions in GHG emissions by managing the truck haulage distances.
Summary Comparison of Competing Oil Sand Mining and Haulage Methods Conventional oil sand industry practice already features de-coupling and redundancy for the mining and haulage functions, using 4 mobile excavators at 4 mining faces feeding a shared fleet of 25 to 35 mine haulage trucks which transport and dump ROM oil sand ore into remote fixed truck dump hoppers.
However, the oil sand receiving and slurry preparation equipment trains comprising the truck dump hopper, the apron feeder to the large fixed primary crusher, the primary crusher, the inclined SB feed conveyor, the SB, the SB discharge apron feeder conveyor and the inclined SPP
feed conveyor in total represent multiple series-connected equipment units with no possibility for de-coupling or adding redundancy to any of the equipment process-step functions within the train, leading to low system availability as experienced in industry practice today. Ore grade blending and selective mining capabilities are achieved but GHG emissions reduction opportunities are limited. System relocatability typically requires a major construction effort of lengthy duration due to the requirement for multiple fixed heavy equipment and building structures requiring piecemeal disassembly and reassembly, also requiring heavy concrete foundations and construction of new foundations and facilities in the new location. There are no further opportunities for de-coupling or redundancy mitigations to improve the ore preparation and handling system's availability in conventional industry practise.
Newly patented art for mining and haulage featuring extensive use of series-connected conveyors and/or at-face slurry preparation offers no possibility for de-coupling or redundancy of any equipment Page 10 of 24 Description CA
2,876,770 units of the series-connected equipment trains beginning at the mining face through to the slurry preparation step, unless provided with relatively large surge capacity at one or more appropriate locations in the series-connected equipment trains. Notably, the number of active series-connected equipment units is potentially much greater in this proposed new art than in conventional industry practice, leading to the expectation of even lower train availability than conventional practice.
Equipment trains of this design would also require continuous mining bench preparation and frequent equipment and infrastructure relocations by a large and well equipped pit construction crew to enable usage of the mobile or relocatable conveyors. Equipment trains of this design will be incapable of selective mining or ore grade blending or of supplying a steady supply of 12,000 to 14,000 tonnes per hour nominal productive capacity required to feed the slurry preparation facilities, short of constructing 4 identical mining, primary crushing and conveyor equipment trains operating continuously in parallel to feed primary crushed oil sand to the SPP plants, each train independent of each other and occupying a large in-pit footprint. The required amount of pit floor preparation and maintenance and extensions to relocatable infrastructure would be particularly arduous under typical harsh winter ambient temperatures and snow falls.
The Improved Oil Sand Mining and Haulage Method: The preferred embodiment of this improved mining and haulage technology is designed to incorporate de-coupling and redundancy for every process-step function and provides unique additional surge capacity sources beginning at the mining face through to the slurry preparation step. The only active powered equipment required to feed oil sand to the SPP without having an opportunity to provide redundancy will be the single apron feeder conveyor per train reclairiiing primary crushed oil sand from the SB and discharging it to the SPP.
Selective mining and grade blending capabilities will be preserved. System relocatability will be much simpler and more cost effective than conventional or new art practices and the footprint of the SB/SPP/HT facilities will be much more compact. GHG emissions reduction opportunities will be available. Production output will be higher than conventional or new art practices due to the achievement of high system availability.
Brief Description Of The Drawings:
Figure 1 illustrates a mobile excavator positioned to dump run-of-mine (ROM) oil sand into a receiving and storage hopper of a mobile primary crusher, a primary crusher, a metal detection and discard system for large tramp metal and a luffable and slewable discharge conveyor;
Figure 2 illustrates a remote SB located in a mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) wall, feeding primary crushed oil sand into the feed chute of a closely adjacent Oil Sand Slurry Preparation Plant;
Figure 3 illustrates the discharging of primary crushed oil sand into the feed chute of an Oil Sand Slurry Preparation Plant;
Figure 4 illustrates a block flow diagram of the scope of the preferred embodiments of the patent disclosure comprising the mobile excavator, the mobile primary crusher, the mine haulage truck, the Page 11 of 24 Description CA
2,876,770 remote SB and the oil sat-id slurry preparation plant. Also included is an Overland Conveyor capable of transporting primary crushed oil sand to the remote SB;
Figure 5 illustrates an alternate embodiment of the patent disclosure including the Overland Conveyor, the OIL conveyor belt loader, the remote SB and 2 controllers controlling the operation of each of the OA conveyor belt loader and the remote SB filling.
Detailed Description:
The scope of the preferred embodiment of the Improved Oil Sand Mining and Haulage Method for which patent protection is requested begins at multiple oil sand mining faces such as are typical of the mineable oil sand of Northern Alberta, Canada. Process steps of the improved process flowsheet method extend through the sequential functions of oil sand excavation, primary crushing, oil sand transportation to a remote Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant, holding the oil sand in a temporary surge storage facility at a distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant, and primary crushed oil sand reclaimed and discharged to the feed chute of an oil sand slurry preparation plant. This latter facility is not described or claimed within the scope of this disclosure. The technical fields of the inventive method described and claimed herein is specifically that of Mining and Bulk Materials Handling.
Figure 1 illustrates a mobile excavator 1 prepared to dig oil sand from a mining face in a mining pit (not shown) and a mobile primary crusher 2, illustrated generally in relative positioning of the mobile excavator dumping oil sand from its bucket 3 into a receiving and storage hopper 4, to be reclaimed by a reclaiming conveyance 5 feeding to a primary crusher 6, discharging primary crushed oil sand to a discharging conveyance 7 which is fitted with a Tramp Metal Detection and Alarm System. The discharging conveyance 7 has both luffing and slewing capabilities and is able to discharge the primary crushed oil sand into a succession of mine haulage trucks (not shown) for transportation to a distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant (shown in Figures 2 and 3). The mobile primary crusher 2 is mounted on suitable crawler tracks 9 and 10 with suitable turntable means enabling unlimited tramming mobility while working closely in cooperation with the mobile excavator 1. The mine haulage trucks are able to transport loads of primary crushed oil sand freely within the mining pit areas between the locations of the mining faces and the location of the distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant.
The receiving and storage hopper 4 will have a design capacity to hold an amount of run-of-mine (ROM) oil sand ready to be reclaimed, crushed and loaded quickly into the mine haulage trucks, having a storage design capacity equal to about 2 bucket loads from the primary excavator, to enable the mobile primary crusher 2 to begin crushing the ROM oil sand and loading the mine haulage truck as soon as the mine haulage truck moves into its loading position. During the normal waiting time between a first mine haulage truck leaving with a full load and a second mine haulage truck moving into a loading position the mobile excavator 1 can continue to dig oil sand and fill the receiving and storage hopper 4 with ROM
oil sand, thus benefitting the productivity of both the mobile excavator and the mine haulage trucks.
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Description CA
2,876,770 The tramp metal detection and alarm system 8 will be provided with variable sensitivity to enable sensing and alarming for large tramp metal such as replaceable teeth and holders of the mobile excavator, while not alarming for smaller tramp metal such as nuts and bolts or small hand-tools which would not damage, plug or stall downstream processing units. Upon detecting and alarming the presence of large tramp metal, an automated or manually operable metal removal procedure will be initiated, comprising the steps of stopping the reclaiming conveyance 5, the primary crusher 2 and the discharging conveyance 7, slewing the discharging conveyance 7 to the left or to the right so as to enable re-starting the discharging conveyance 7 to discharge the large tramp metal onto the ground, swinging the discharging conveyance back into its truck loading position and restarting the reclaiming, crushing and discharging functions. The tramp metal removal procedure is unique in not requiring any auxiliary structural or mechanical equipment to facilitate its function.
Figure 2 illustrates the first of two portions of a distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant comprising a remote SB 12 mounted into a 3-sided recess of a Mechanically Stabilized Earth (MSE) wall 13 constructed on a prepared grade surface 14 of the mining pit and having a prepared elevated upper surface 15 upon which the mine haulage trucks (not shown) are able to travel and approach the remote SB 12 for the purpose of dumping loads of primary crushed oil sand therein.
Concrete curbs 16 are conveniently placed to surround the exposed remote SB 12 sitting in the 3-sided recess of the MSE wall 13 at such a height and arrangement as to prevent the mine haulage truck from accidentally falling into the remote SB 12, but also to enable the mine haulage truck to back up to the concrete curb 16 and dump its load of primary crushed oil sand into the remote SB 12. Concrete Curbs 16 are fitted with a Sealing means 17 to prevent spillage. The remote SB 12 is fitted with an inclined reclaiming and transferring conveyance 18 to reclaim the primary crushed oil sand 19 from the remote SB 12, discharging the primary crushed oil sand 19 into a receiving chute 20 of an oil sand slurry preparation plant. The remote SB 12 has suitable support structural means 21 shown in simplified form.
Preferred embodiments noted in Figure 2 are the use of the MSE wall to enable the mine haulage truck to dump primary crushed oil sand directly into the remote SB and the use of the inclined reclaiming and transferring conveyance 18; enabling the elimination of large heavy duty inclined SB and SPP feed conveyors, respectively, required in conventional art and industry practice.
For a typical 2-train processing facility there are 4 such conveyors that can be eliminated, saving the energy consumption associated with up to 12,000 installed horsepower.
The function of the remote SB 12 when filled with the primary crushed oil sand is to enable a steady feeding supply of primary crushed oil sand to the oil sand slurry preparation plant, even when the arrival of mine haulage trucks may be temporarily delayed for any reason. The optimal design capacity of the remote SB can be calculated using BMH scientific strategies to establish the frequency and duration of typical causes of upstream delays, thereby to calculate a SB capacity capable of covering a large percentage of short term upstream delays. The typical live design capacity of the remote SB in the industry ranges from about 3,000 to 5,000 tonnes for single equipment trains operating in the range of

6,000 to 8,000 tonnes per hour, but for this Improved Oil Sand Mining and Haulage Method a smaller the live storage capacity can be designed for the remote SB also counting the live capacities of the mine Page 13 of 24 Description CA
2,876,770 haulage truck arriving and dumping fresh loads of the primary crushed oil sand into the remote SB at a frequency of about once every 1.5 minutes.
The inventive method of this disclosed patent application enables a very high availability of the mining, crushing and haulage functions achieved upstream of the remote SB due to effective system de-coupling and redundancy achieved, and the fact that the mine haulage trucks are transporting primary crushed oil sand instead of the ROM oil sand as in the case of conventional industry practice.
Figure 3 is a partial view of the second of two portions of the distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant, the second portion fed from the reclaiming and transferring conveyance 18 which reclaims and transfers primary crushed oil sand from the remote SB (item 12 in Fig. 2) to the second portion of the distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant via the receiving chute 20; the second portion of the distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant lying outside of the scope of this patent application. What is apparent from Figures 2 and 3 is that the first portion and the second portion of the distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant are constructed separately from but in close proximity to each other, thus eliminating a large heavy duty inclined slurry preparation plant (SPP) feed conveyor required in conventional industry practice. For a typical 2-train processing facility there are 4 such conveyors that can be eliminated, considering the usage of the MSE wall enabling direct dumping of the mine haulage trucks into the SB and the co-location of the SB
and SPP in close relative proximity to each other.
Figure 4 is an overall block flow diagram for the Improved Oil Sand Mining and Haulage Method, in which the mobile excavator 1 digs oil sand from a mining face in a the mining pit and dumps the oil sand into a mobile primary crusher 2, which crushes and discharges primary crushed oil sand onto a discharging conveyance, which loads primary crushed oil sand into multiple mine haulage trucks, which transport the primary crushed oil sand to the remote SB 12; primary crushed oil sand is then reclaimed and transferred into the receiving chute 20 of a distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant.
Figure 4 also illustrates an overland conveyor 22 inserted between the mine haulage trucks and the remote SB.
Figure 5 illustrates a preferred embodiment of an overland conveyor 22 inserted between the mine haulage truck (not shown) and the remote SB 12. The Overland Conveyor 22 is fed from the OIL
conveyor belt loader 23 which receives the primary crushed oil sand from the mine haulage trucks into a loading hopper 24 having a capacity greater than one the truck dump load. The 0/L conveyor belt loader 23 is fitted with an inclined reclaiming conveyor 25 having a variable speed drive 27 to enable loading the primary crushed oil sand 19 onto the overland conveyor 22. The overland conveyor 22 is fitted with a variable speed drive (VSD) 26 to enable transporting and discharging the primary crushed oil sand 19 into the remote SB 12 as illustrated and described for Figures 2 and 3, and subsequently discharged by the inclined reclaiming conveyor 25 into receiving chute 20 of the Oil Sand Slurry Preparation Plant.
The use of overland conveyor 22 as a series-connected redundant transportation link will not interfere with continued access of the mine haulage truck to dump loads of primary crushed oil sand directly into the remote SB 12, the primary crushed oil sand being excavated from the same mining faces and being Page 14 of 24 =
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2,876,770 crushed by the same mobile primary crushers whether delivered by the overland conveyor or delivered directly by mine haulage trucks.
The OIL conveyor belt loader 23 is illustrated with a raised loading hopper 24 and skirting along both sides of the inclined reclaiming conveyor 25 and is equipped with a variable speed drive (VSD) 27. The operation of the preferred embodiment of the overland conveyor 22 using the 0/L conveyor belt loader 23 will rely upon mine haulage trucks dumping primary crushed oil sand on top of the loading hopper of the inclined reclaiming conveyor 25, thus forming an inverted cone of primary crushed oil sand (not shown) to bury the loading hopper and spilling a portion of the primary crushed oil sand onto the immediately surrounding area, the operation of the inclined reclaiming conveyor 25 continually drawing down the cone of primary crushed oil sand and discharging it onto the overland conveyor 22; the cone of primary crushed oil sand is therefore alternately re-formed and drawn down again as multiple mine haulage trucks continue to dump additional loads of primary crushed oil sand onto the loading hopper of the inclined reclaiming conveyor 25.
In the preferred embodiment of the overland conveyor 22 the operation of the overland conveyor 22 and the 0/L conveyor belt loader 23 will be controlled automatically to fill the remote SB 12 with primary crushed oil sand, drawing-down the dumped loads of primary crushed oil sand quickly in anticipation of the arrival of another mine haulage truck load to be dumped.
Assuming a minimum cycle time of 3 minutes per mine haulage truck arrival, and 3 0/L conveyor belt loaders in service simultaneously, each operating at a reclaiming rate of 120 tonnes per minute leads to an aggregated design loading rate of 21,780 tonnes per hour from multiple ones of the 0/L
conveyor belt loaders 23 to the overland conveyor 22, which is more than enough capacity to meet a combined 2-train design throughput demand rate of 12,000 to 14,000 tonnes per hour. On that basis the minimum design capacity of the overland conveyor could be set at about 18,000 tonnes per hour, enabling the mining and haulage functions to re-fill the remote SB quickly following any short term upstream delay event but also relying on a control strategy for the 0/L conveyor to prevent over-filling of the remote SB.
In the preferred embodiment of the overland conveyor 22 a first controller 28 will control the loading of the primary crushed oil sand onto the overland conveyor. The first controller 28 will comprise belt load sensing devices 29 on the 0/L conveyor operative with the VSD drive speed controller 27 on the inclined reclaiming conveyor 25. The belt load sensing devices 29 will be located within a few meters of the loading point. The overland conveyor can receive primary crushed oil sand from multiple different mining faces simultaneously via multiple independent 0/L conveyor belt loaders located along its length.
The operation of the first controller 28 at each of the OIL conveyor belt loaders will compare the actual belt loading rate against a set point corresponding to that of a fully loaded belt and will operate the VSD
drive controller to meet but not exceed the fully loaded belt weight per meter. Each the 0/L conveyor belt loaders 23 will therefore have installed e a dedicated set of its own independent and integrated belt load sensing devices 29, the VSD drive speed controller 29 and a first controller 28.
In the preferred embodiment of the overland conveyor 22 a second controller 30 will control the filling of the remote SB 12, an SB level sensor 31 providing feedback control signal to regulate the speed of the overland conveyor via the second controller 30 and VSD speed control 26.
Should the SB level sensor 31 Page 15 of 24 Description CA
2,876,770 detect a low level of primary crushed oil sand in the remote SB the VSD drive controller 30 will operate the overland conveyor at full rated speed to maximize the flow rate of primary crushed oil sand discharging into the remote SB. Should the level sensor 31 detect a high level of primary crushed oil sand in the SB 12, the VSD drive controller 26 and the second controller 30 will reduce the speed of the overland conveyor, including coming to a complete stop should the level sensing indicate a completely full condition of the remote SB.
The integrated operation of the overland conveyor and the OIL conveyor belt loaders will therefore prioritize the filling of the remote SB to a design set point level via the second controller 30 controlling the speed of the conveyor drive. Independently, each of the 0/L conveyor belt loaders 23 will maximize the rate of transferring primary crushed oil sand received from the mine haulage trucks to the 0/L
conveyor, constrained by the first controller 28 which controls the speed of the inclined reclaiming conveyor 25 to prevent overloading the overland conveyor. Each of the 0/L
conveyor belt loaders 23 will therefore operate at full speed unless constrained either by the presence and amounts of previously loaded oil sand transported on the overland conveyor as determined by the first controller 28 or by the second controller 30 having reduced the speed of the overland conveyor. In no case will the first controller 28 allow overloading of the overland conveyor, regardless of the controlled operating speed of the overland conveyor.
It should be noted that the usage of the overland conveyor 22 to supplement the haulage function of the mine haulage truck will add two new inventive features to the overall Improved Oil Sand Mining and Haulage Method; firstly increasing the redundancy factor of alternate delivery means for transporting the primary crushed oil sand to the remote SB, and secondly providing an additional source of live surge storage capacity of primary crushed oil sand available to be transferred into the remote SB.
The operation of the overland conveyor 22 discharging primary crushed oil sand into the remote SB
supplements the mine haulage truck dumping primary crushed oil sand into the remote SB, delivering primary crushed oil sand from any operating mining face or from any other source of suitably prepared the oil sand in the open pit mining operation.
The second new inventive feature gained by usage of the overland conveyor 22 is the availability of additional live surge storage capacity of primary crushed oil sand incremental to the aggregated live capacities of the remote SB 12 and the live capacities of the mine haulage trucks transporting primary crushed oil sand to be dumped into the remote SB. For example, if the overland conveyor 22 had a length of 4 kilometers and a design load capacity of 18,000 tonnes per hour, the additional live fully loaded capacity could be as much as 3,636 tonnes of primary crushed oil sand lying on the carrying belt surface of the 0/L conveyor.
Corollary surge storage capacity is also available by using auxiliary pit maintenance equipment to load residual cones of primary crushed oil sand left over from the dumping of the mine haulage trucks onto the loading hoppers of inclined reclaiming conveyors 25 as a clean-up function. Since both of the sources of primary crushed oil sand are incremental surge capacities available after stoppage of all the mine haulage truck, this additional live capacity could be used to mitigate minor upstream delays such Page 16 of 24 Description CA
2,876,770 as shift changes, severe weather events or other stoppages without reducing or stopping continuous primary crushed oil sand feed delivery to the Oil Sand Slurry Preparation Plant.
It should be noted that this Improved Mining and Haulage Method can service a "single", "double" or "triple" remote SBs feeding corresponding "single", "double" or "triple" SPP
trains, all structural elements of which can be located on a single small footprint site, with appropriate decreases or increases in the numbers of mobile excavators, mobile primary crushers and mine haulage trucks comprising the mining equipment fleet.
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Claims (15)

Claims THE EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION FOR WHICH AN EXCLUSIVE PROPERTY AND PRIVILEGE
RIGHTS
ARE CLAIMED ARE DESCRIBED AS FOLLOWS:
Claims

1. An Improved Oil Sand Mining and Haulage Method applying Bulk Materials Handling (BMH) science to enable an improved process flowsheet with objectives to reduce costs and green house gas (GHG) emissions by reducing the overall energy consumption required to handle and transport the oil sand for naturally occurring earth materials containing bitumen-bearing sand, barren rock, clays and organic materials commonly known in the industry as oil sand, the improved process flowsheet comprising one or more independent equipment trains, each of the independent equipment trains having identical sequential process steps as follows:
mining the oil sand at one of multiple mining faces in an open pit mining excavation by a mobile excavator, receiving and temporarily storing the oil sand in a receiving and storage hopper;
reclaiming the oil sand by a reclaiming conveyance; crushing the oil sand by a primary crusher to produce primary crushed oil sand; discharging the primary crushed oil sand onto a discharging conveyance; mounting and operating a tramp metal sensing and alarm system for detecting large tramp metal on the discharging conveyance; loading the primary crushed oil sand by the discharging conveyance to a transportation link technology comprising mine haulage trucks;
transporting the primary crushed oil sand by the mine haulage trucks; dumping the primary crushed oil sand directly into a remote surge bin (SB) which is the first component of a distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant (SPP); reclaiming the primary crushed oil sand from the remote SB using a reclaiming and discharging conveyance to feed the primary crushed oil sand directly into a closely adjacent second component of the distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant; the second component comprising the SPP.

2. As claimed in Claim 1 wherein the combined structural embodiment of the receiving and storage hopper, the reclaiming conveyance, the primary crusher, the discharging conveyance and the tramp metal sensing and alarm system form a cooperating equipment assembly mounted onto a mobile chassis configuration to perform the sequential process steps of the improved process flowsheet of receiving the oil sand from the mobile excavator into the receiving and storage hopper; temporarily storing the oil sand in the receiving and storage hopper;
reclaiming the oil sand by the reclaiming conveyance; crushing the oil sand by the primary crusher; sensing, alarming and rejecting large tramp metal from the discharging conveyance and discharging the primary crushed oil sand from the discharging conveyance into mine haulage trucks; the cooperating equipment assembly hereinafter referred to as a mobile primary crusher.

3. As claimed in Claim 2 wherein the discharging conveyance of the mobile primary crusher is provisioned to be both slewable and luffable in cooperation with the operation of the tramp metal detection and alarm system having an adjustable sensitivity sensor set to differentiate between large tramp metal and small tramp metal while loading mine haulage trucks; in which Claims the sensing of large tramp metal activates the alarm and enables a manual or an automated tramp metal removal procedure comprising stopping the operation of each of the reclaiming conveyance, the primary crusher and the discharging conveyance; slewing the discharging conveyance to one side or to the other side and re-starting the discharging conveyance to discharge the large tramp metal onto the ground for subsequent handling and disposal; slewing the discharging conveyance back into the prior loading position for mine haulage trucks and restarting the discharging conveyance, the primary crusher and the reclaiming conveyance so as to resume the reclaiming, crushing and loading of the mine haulage truck with primary crushed oil sand.

4. As claimed in Claim 1 wherein BMH scientific strategies of de-coupling and redundancy are introduced in the improved process flowsheet method, wherein de-coupling is defined as avoiding the use of series-connected equipment trains containing one-on-one, sequential-step processing relationships, and redundancy is defined as the provision of multiple units of identical or alternate technology equipment operating in parallel independent relationships to each other while each performs the same process function with an incrementally cumulative process effect including:
de-coupling of the mobile primary crusher by employing surge capacity in the receiving and storage hopper of about 2 mobile excavator's bucket loads enabling the de-coupling of the operation of the mobile primary crusher from the operation of the immediately upstream mobile excavator, the mobile excavator continuing to excavate and to dump run-of-mine (ROM) oil sand into the receiving and storage hopper whether or not the primary crusher is operating or is stopped waiting for the arrival and positioning of a next mine haulage truck;
de-coupling of the mine haulage trucks from the mobile excavators is made effective due to the functioning and operation of the receiving and storage hopper, the reclaiming conveyance, the primary crusher and the discharging conveyance, enabling the mobile primary crusher to immediately resume reclaiming and crushing and discharging primary crushed oil sand into the mine haulage truck whether or not the mobile excavator is operating or has stopped operating for any reason;
the redundancy of each mobile excavator paired with a mobile primary crusher having multiple redundancies of independent pairs of mobile excavators paired with mobile primary crushers, enabling any pair of mobile excavator and mobile primary crusher to fail or to be taken out of service without affecting the availability or productivity of all remaining pairs of mobile excavator and mobile primary crusher to continue the excavating and crushing and loading functions of mine haulage trucks;
de-coupling and redundancy of each unit of the transportation link having multiple redundancies of mine haulage trucks operating independently from each other, thus enabling de-coupling between the mobile primary crusher and the downstream remote SB, also enabling one or more of the mine haulage trucks to fail or to be taken out of service without affecting the continued Claims availability and productivity of all remaining mine haulage trucks transferring primary crushed oil sand to the remote SB;
de-coupling of the continuously operating SPP from the batch-type delivery operation of mine haulage trucks arriving at the distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant by the provision of live surge storage capacity of primary crushed oil sand within the remote SB to be continuously reclaimed and discharged by the inclined reclaiming and discharge conveyor into the SPP; the continued arrival and dumping of primary crushed oil sand by mine haulage trucks providing continual replenishment of primary crushed oil sand to the SB;
for the overall process step functions of mining, receiving and temporarily storing, primary crushing, transportation link operation and the remote SB, implementation of process step de-coupling and redundancy enables increased availability and productivity in the improved process flowsheet.

5. As claimed in Claim 1 wherein an added new mine haulage truck functionality is achieved in which the cumulative aggregated live surge capacity of primary crushed oil sand available to provide a continuous feed rate to the SPP includes the live capacity of the remote SB with the addition of the dynamic live loads of each of the mine haulage trucks which are in transit towards the remote SB carrying primary crushed oil sand; the mine haulage trucks arriving and dumping loads of primary crushed oil sand into the remote SB at a predictable average tonnes per load and frequency, thus providing a continuous incrementally replenishing source of primary crushed oil sand to the remote SB to improve the availability and the productivity of the remote SB function in supplying the SPP with a continuous steady feed rate of primary crushed oil sand.

6. As claimed in Claim 5, wherein BMH science enables a calculation procedure to determine the optimal capacity of the remote SB to adequately de-couple the continuous operation of the downstream SPP from the batch-type operations of the upstream mining, crushing and transportation link; calculated firstly by measuring or estimating the probable frequencies and durations of all possible occurrences of individual upstream delay events that could halt or reduce the delivery flow rate of primary crushed oil sand being dumped from mine haulage trucks into the remote SB, then calculating an overall combined failure probability distribution bell curve for the total upstream system comprising multiple de-coupled and redundant mobile excavators each paired with a mobile primary crusher, feeding primary crushed oil sand to multiple redundant mine haulage trucks, thus enabling selection of a minimum required remote SB
live capacity capable of buffering and preventing all or at least a desired percentage of all upstream delay event durations from causing the remote SB to become fully depleted of primary crushed oil sand during the continued operation of the SPP at a continuous steady feed rate of primary crushed oil sand, individual ones of mine haulage trucks continuing to deliver dynamic live loads of primary crushed oil sand to the remote SB to be included in the calculation of optimal remote SB capacity.

Claims

7. As claimed in Claim 1 wherein the structural configuration of placing the remote SB into a 3-sided recess in a mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) wall enables the mine haulage trucks to approach the remote SB by travelling on the upper surface of the MSE wall, the top of the remote SB being arranged and constructed to be level with the top surface of the MSE wall so as to enable direct dumping of primary crushed oil sand from mine haulage trucks into the remote SB.

8. As claimed in Claim 7 wherein the structural configuration of placing the SPP closely adjacent to the remote SB enables the remote SB's inclined reclaiming and discharge conveyor to discharge primary crushed oil sand directly into the SPP.

9. As claimed in Claim 8 wherein the construction effort required to relocate the distal Oil Sand Receiving and Oil Sand Preparation facilities is both practical and cost effective due to the resulting compact arrangement of the MSE wall, the remote SB and the SPP
requiring only a small footprint area of site excavations and construction, thus facilitating the relocation of these facilities to keep pace with the advancement of the mine faces, so as to minimize the travel distances and diesel fuel consumption of the mine haulage trucks.

10. As claimed in Claim 9 wherein the compact arrangement of the MSE wall, the remote SB and SPP
facilitates the co-location of multiple independent equipment trains of the distal Oil Sand Receiving and Slurry Preparation Plant to be constructed and operated on one compact site, requiring only one MSE wall to service multiple independent equipment trains comprising correspondingly multiple pairs of remote SBs with SPPs.

11. In an Improved Oil Sand Mining and Haulage Method applying Bulk Materials Handling (BMH) science to enable an improved process flowsheet with objectives to reduce costs and green house gas (GHG) emissions and the overall energy consumption required to transport primary crushed oil sand, the use of overland (O/L) conveyor transportation link technology to supplement the use of mine haulage truck transportation link technology for the transportation of naturally occurring earth materials containing bitumen-bearing sand, barren rock, clays and organic materials commonly known in the industry as oil sand, in which both transportation link technologies are implemented simultaneously;
the improved process flowsheet comprising one or more independent equipment trains with sequential process steps for each of the equipment trains as follows: mining the oil sand at one or multiple mining faces in an open pit mining excavation by a mobile excavator, receiving the mined oil sand by a mobile primary crusher and temporarily storing the mined oil sand in the mobile primary crusher's receiving and storage hopper; reclaiming the mined oil sand by a reclaiming conveyance; crushing the mined oil sand by the primary crusher to produce primary crushed oil sand; discharging the primary crushed oil sand onto a discharging conveyance;
mounting and operating a tramp metal sensing and alarm system for detecting and discarding large tramp metal from the discharging conveyance; loading the primary crushed oil sand by the discharging Claims conveyance to a mine haulage truck transportation link technology comprising one or more mine haulage trucks; transporting the primary crushed oil sand by the mine haulage trucks and dumping the primary crushed oil sand by individual ones of the mine haulage trucks onto a receiving portion of one or more O/L conveyor belt loaders to load the primary crushed oil sand directly onto an O/L conveyor transportation link technology comprising one or more series-connected or parallel O/L conveyors for transporting and discharging primary crushed oil sand directly into a remote surge bin (SB), the remote SB having been mounted into a recess of a mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) wall enabling direct access to and simultaneous discharging of the primary crushed oil sand from the O/L conveyor and from mine haulage trucks into the remote SB;
the unique prerequisites of using an O/L conveyor are satisfied firstly by using the mobile primary crusher to reduce large oil sand lump size to conveyable proportions and secondly by using the tramp metal sensing and alarm system with a tramp metal removal procedure to identify and discard large tramp metal located on the discharging conveyance, thus enabling primary crushed oil sand to be transported on the O/L conveyor and to be processed at downstream oil sand processing equipment; large oil sand lump size and large tramp metal otherwise potentially causing conveyor belting damage, spillage and plugging and also damaging or stalling other downstream oil sand processing equipment;
one or more O/L conveyors are inserted between the mine haulage trucks and the remote SB, the O/L conveyor or conveyors having variable speed drives (VSD) and a carrying capacity designed for transporting the primary crushed oil sand at suitable rates to meet the processing rate needs of the remote SB supplying primary crushed oil sand to the SPP plant;
the design and specification of the O/L conveyor enabling the initial installation to be constructed at any convenient length or direction from the remote SB to suit the mining plan, in consideration of the locations of existing or planned mining faces, mine haulage roads or other mining pit construction features such as berms or dykes or utility corridors or drainage ditches or ponds; the design and specification of the OIL conveyor also enabling the routing of the O/L conveyor to incorporate both vertical and horizontal curves to suit the mining plan; the installed length of the O/L conveyor being constructed to be extended incrementally over time or to be installed immediately at full design length as required to suit the mining plan;
the O/L conveyor transportation link technology transporting primary crushed oil sand to the remote SB fed by the transferring of primary crushed oil sand from the mine haulage trucks to the O/L conveyor using O/L conveyor belt loaders, thereby forming a series-connected process-step relationship with the mine haulage truck transportation link technology;
the layout and structural configuration of the O/L conveyor also arranged in relation to the layout and configuration of the remote SB and the MSE wall so as to accommodate discharging of primary crushed oil sand from each of the O/L conveyor and the mine haulage trucks into the Claims remote SB simultaneously, thereby forming a redundant process-step relationship to the haulage function of mine haulage trucks; both of the series-connected and the redundant process-step relationships are included in the improved process flowsheet.

12. As claimed in Claim 11, the OIL conveyor belt loader is designed to load primary crushed oil sand onto the O/L conveyor, the receiving portion of the O/L conveyor belt loader comprising a loading hopper for receiving dumped loads of primary crushed oil sand from the mine haulage trucks, an inclined reclaiming conveyor equipped with side skirts and variable speed drive (VSD) is designed to reclaim and transfer the primary crushed oil sand from the loading hopper onto the O/L
conveyor at a controlled variable rate, also using a chute and side skirts to prevent spillage while guiding the transfer of the primary crushed oil sand onto the O/L conveyor;
the O/L conveyor belt loader is suitably designed to load the primary crushed oil sand either directly at the tail end of the O/L conveyor or at any location along either side between the tail end location and the discharge end location of the O/L conveyor;
mine haulage trucks backing up to and dumping loads of primary crushed oil sand onto the loading hopper to form an inverted cone of primary crushed oil sand lying over the top of the loading hopper; the inverted cone of primary crushed oil sand is alternately formed and drawn down again by the interaction of each successive arrival and dumping of loads of primary crushed oil sand while the primary crushed oil sand is simultaneously fed onto the O/L
conveyor by the inclined reclaiming and discharge conveyor;
the control and operating procedure of the O/L conveyor belt loader using load sensing devices installed on the O/L conveyor, a first controller on the O/L conveyor belt loader receiving input values from the load sensing devices, the first controller comparing the input value to a set point value corresponding to full belt loading and thereby controlling the VSD drive speed of the inclined reclaiming conveyor to run alternately at full speed, or at a slower speed, or to stop, depending upon whether the OIL conveyor is indicated at that location by the load sensing devices to be empty, partially loaded or fully loaded, respectively.

13. As claimed in Claim 11 wherein a second controller is operative at the O/L
conveyor interface with the remote SB to control the filling of the remote SB, a SB level sensor providing a feedback control signal to the second controller mounted at the O/L conveyor drive to regulate the speed of the O/L conveyor via the VSD drive, the second controller operating the VSD
drive at full speed, or at a slower speed, or to stop, depending upon whether the remote SB is indicated by the SB
level sensor to be partially empty, nearly filled or fully filled, respectively; the second controller also being equipped with control interlocks operative to simultaneously control the speed of any upstream series-connected O/L conveyor or conveyors.

14. As claimed in Claim 12 wherein the O/L conveyor is provisioned with one or multiple O/L conveyor belt loaders located and simultaneously operable along the length of the O/L
conveyor; each of Claims the O/L conveyor belt loaders are equipped with an independent set of first controllers operative with the VSD drive of the inclined reclaiming conveyor and the load sensing devices mounted locally on the O/L conveyor.

15. As claimed in Claim 11 wherein usage of the O/L conveyor or conveyors with the O/L conveyor belt loaders providing additional sources of incremental live surge capacity including the primary crushed oil sand lying on the carrying surface of the O/L conveyor plus the residual amounts of the inverted cones of primary crushed oil sand remaining at each of the O/L
conveyor belt loader locations available to be loaded onto the O/L conveyor for transport and discharge into the remote SB, independently of whether or not the mine haulage trucks are simultaneously in active service.