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Fundación Chile launched a new tailings technologies open call in alliance with two major mining companies

Posted on May 25, 2023
  • “Tailings Technologies Open Call” is organized for the global miners with the support of Fundación Chile through its Venture Capital Area, ChileGlobal Ventures and aims to jointly identify a portfolio of tailings management partners with whom they can work to accelerate the development of technologies that could increase water recovery and reduce potential safety risks and environmental footprints associated with tailings storage facilities.
  • Interested parties are invited to submit their expression of interest from May 10 by visiting www.tailingsopencall.com

In line with its commitment to contributing to the transformation of Chile toward sustainable development, Fundación Chile, through its Venture Capital Area, ChileGlobal Ventures, together with BHP and Rio Tinto launched the “Tailings Technologies Open Call”, an initiative that aims to identify and accelerate the market availability of innovative, holistic, and economically sustainable technologies that could significantly improve the dewatering, transportation, and stacking of mine tailings, and in turn, reduce potential safety risks associated with tailings facilities.

The companies are inviting global equipment and reagent suppliers, technology providers, start-up companies, and research groups who possess technologies which could contribute to this goal and may benefit from the assistance and support of the miners.

The open call seek technologies and solutions in the following domains: Thickening, filtering, or other preparation of tailings to assist in dewatering; Tailings dewatering (either chemically, mechanically or through other physical principles) material handling and transport of dewatered tailings (including slurry, paste and filter cake); Placement and deposition of dewatered tailings; Monitoring and remediation; and any other technologies to assist with achieving target moisture content, physical or geotechnical, and chemical stability of tailings facilities.

BHP Head of Sustainability Innovation Ingrid Oyarzun said: “There are so many innovative thinkers out there and we want to bring them in as partners to help us improve in this critical area for safety and sustainability of our operations.”

Rio Tinto Chief Advisor Research and Development Saskia Duyvesteyn said: “We want to tap into the wealth of great ideas and innovations we know are out there and work together to find ways to improve safety and reduce the environmental footprint of tailings facilities”

Hernán Araneda, CEO at Fundación Chile, also added that “At FCh we are convinced that more innovation is needed across the value chain for the mining industry to be more sustainable to address a wide array of challenges, including Tailings Management. Exploring breakthrough technologies to help significantly the dewatering, transportation, and stacking of mine tailings is a global challenge that requires collaboration among mining companies, suppliers, start-ups and R&D institutions. Facilitating multi-stakeholder coordination to foster sustainable development is at the core of our mission. We are convinced that the Tailings Technologies Open Call will stimulate the generation of new high-value propositions to make a better mining industry”.

The miners now wish to broaden their collaboration to help accelerate the maturing of other technologies and bring them to market readiness. By partnering with them, you will potentially benefit from: access to their mining domain knowledge and technical insights; funding to support technology development and evaluation; and access to actual tailings materials and data for testing and validation from a wide range of mine sites and commodities.

Interested parties are invited to obtain further information about the process and submit their expression of interest in becoming involved from May 10 by visiting the following portal www.tailingsopencall.com