Associated Event
27th International Conference on Paste, Thickened and Filtered Tailings
8–10 April 2025 | Swakopmund Hotel and Entertainment Centre, Namibia
Mine Fill Workshop
11 April 2025 | Swakopmund, Namibia
This workshop will run alongside the main Paste 2025 conference. Keep an eye on this page for updates as they become available.
Preliminary Program*
*Program is subject to change.
Workshop Facilitator and Presenter
Dr Ryan Veenstra
Principal Backfill Specialist
Gold Fields, Australia
Ryan is a principal backfill specialist, providing technical and operational expertise and leadership for Gold Fields underground operations and projects. Over the last 20 years, he has been involved in backfill as an academic, consultant, and industry engineer (both in operations and corporate spaces). His expertise and experience cover the entire backfill system with a particular speciality in backfill geomechanics. He has a geological engineering degree from the University of Waterloo and holds a PhD in civil engineering from the University of Toronto.
Presenters Include
Peter Andrews
Vice President Geotechnical and Backfill
Gold Fields Australia, Australia
Peter has over 20 years of experience in the mining industry in both operating and consulting capacities. He has a broad range of experience with specific expertise in soil and rock mechanics in the geotechnical engineering field. Over this period, he has obtained international industry experience, having worked on a number of large open pit operations in Australia, New Guinea, Zambia, Ghana, and South America in material types ranging from weak sediments to hard rock environments. He specialises in geotechnical optimisation to extract additional value from operating pits.
Dr Maria Teresa Bellver Baca
Corporate Product Engineer – Mining
Sika Services AG, Switzerland
Dr María Teresa Bellver-Baca is the market development manager – mining at Sika Services AG, based in Switzerland. Originally from Spain, she is a geochemist with a focus on driving sustainability in mining.
María’s Current projects include work on sustainable cementitious materials, advanced paste fill technologies and optimised rock support systems, all contributing to the environmental, social and governance goals of mining operations.
At Paste 2025 in Namibia, she will share insights on mine backfill admixtures and their role in improving efficiency and sustainability in mining.
Leslie Correia
Senior Technical Specialist
Paterson & Cooke, Canada
Leslie is a chemical engineering graduate from the University of Stellenbosch. He is a senior engineer at Paterson & Cooke’s Cape Town office. Between 2014 and 2024, he also spent time in Canada and Mexico with Paterson & Cooke North America.
Leslie lead’s P&C’s Global Backfill Group and specializes in the design and implementation of paste backfill plants and underground reticulation systems, with extensive project experience in Africa and the Americas.
Véronique Daigle
Paste 2025 Chair
Director
Knight Piésold, South Africa
Veronique Daigle is a lead civil engineer based in Knight Piésold’s Windhoek office in Namibia. She has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering (cooperative program) from the Université de Sherbrooke, with a specialisation in environmental geotechnics and hydraulics. She is a registered professional engineer in Quebec, Canada, and in Namibia.
She has worked in Knight Piésold’s North Bay and Vancouver offices, focusing on the mining and renewable energy industries. She has also worked in Knight Piésold’s Accra office, completing a two-year transfer as part of Knight Piésold’s Global Career Development Program. She joined the Windhoek office in 2013 and her work experience has been focused on project management, mine water and waste management concept development and design, dam inspection, environmental studies, heap leach facility design, construction and post-construction phase services, and geotechnical site investigations. Veronique is a certified Towards Sustainable Mining (TSM) verifier with the Mining Association of Canada and a member of both the Canadian Dam Association (CDA) and South African Committee on Large Dams (SANCOLD).
Veronique’s experience includes projects in Canada, throughout North and South America, as well as in West Africa and Southern Africa. She is fluent in French, English, and Spanish, and she is learning German.
Tony Grice
Global Leader – Backfill / Principal Mining Consultant
AMC Consultants, Canada
Tony has over 40 years of broad global experience in mining. This experience spans underground mine production, quarrying, scheduling, planning, and technical computing. He has specialised in mine backfill systems for over 30 years and is a leading expert. He consults on all areas of backfill from selection, design, and implementation through to operational support, technical audits, and training. He is a co-author of two books Handbook on Mine Fill and Paste & Thickened Tailings: A Guide (3rd edn).
Sue Longo
Principal and Senior Project Manager
WSP, Canada
Sue is a principal and senior project manager with over 22 years’ experience in domestic and international mining projects, with a focus on backfill and tailings disposal in the mining, power and oil sand industries. Sue has worked on conceptual, feasibility and detailed engineering design mandates, as well as start-up and commissioning assignments and operation of pilot plants. She has
acted as the design and site lead on a multimillion dollar contracted backfill delivery program for a closed uranium and gold mines in Canada.
Dr Angus Paterson
Principal
Paterson & Cooke, South Africa
Dr Angus Paterson is the managing director of the Cape Town office of Paterson & Cooke, having founded the company together with Dr Robert Cooke in 1991. Angus completed his civil engineering degree at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, in 1984 and completed his PhD in 1991. His research work focussed on the flow behaviour of high concentration non-Newtonian backfill slurries, and this remains a core interest of his.
He is a registered professional engineer and is actively involved in engineering projects as well as providing hydraulic oversight and expertise on a wide range of slurry pipeline applications. He regularly presents courses on slurry pipeline technology and deep mine backfilling.
Amin Safari
Principal Backfill Engineer
Quattro Engineering Group, Australia
Amin is a highly qualified and professional mining engineer with experience in the design, planning and implementation of large-scale mining projects in Australia and overseas who has been involved with backfill design since 2015.
Bruno Salvoldi
Senior Engineer
Paterson & Cooke, South Africa
Bruno is a senior engineer and a director of Paterson & Cooke Consultant Engineers Cape Town. He graduated in civil engineering and completed his masters in cement and concrete technology. He now specialises in its application to backfill.
Bruno is actively involved in backfill design and the commissioning of backfill systems. He leads the office mine backfill department, which covers the African operations and is involved globally with problematic backfill applications related to geochemistry and cement chemistry.
Steven Wilson
Head of Operations
Rosh Pinah Zinc, New Zealand
Steven is the head of operations for the Rosh Pinah Zinc mine in Southern Namibia. Steven has a Bachelor’s degree in mining engineering from Western Australian School of Mines, Curtin University, a Bachelor’s degree in commerce from Curtin University and a Master of Business Law from Southern Cross University. Steven is a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. He started as head of operations at Rosh Pinah Zinc in May 2024 after five years as technical services manager for Khoemacau Copper Mining in Botswana. Steven’s experience also includes mines in Australia, Ghana, Indonesia, and New Zealand in technical and management roles. Steven is working closely with the Rosh Pinah team and consultants on the construction and operational readiness of the Rosh Pinah Paste fill system for commissioning in early 2025.
On the horizon…
Comprehensive Handbook on Mine Fill
Background
Co-editors Professor Yves Potvin and Dr Ryan Veenstra, together with worldwide mine fill experts, are writing a new and comprehensive technical publication to examine the evolution of mine fill practice over the last two decades. This handbook seeks to advance the safe, efficient and economic application of fill within the mining community.
Content
This comprehensive publication will explore both the theoretical and practical aspects of mine fill application with a range of examples covering:
Mine Fill Within the Mining and Tailings Life Cycle
Co-editors
Professor Yves Potvin
Professor of Mining Geomechanics
Australian Centre for Geomechanics
Dr Ryan Veenstra
Global Backfill Specialist
Newmont Corporation
Fundamentals
- Mine fill constitutive materials
- Classification and dewatering of tailings
- Fluid mechanics of mine fill
- Geomechanics of mine fill
Operation
- Mine fill placement and risk mitigation
- Mine fill management
Design
- Mine fill exposure stability
- Cemented rockfill systems
- Hydraulic fill systems
- Cemented paste mine fill systems
- Underground distribution systems
- Early age behaviour of hydraulic and paste fill and their containment
Bronze Sponsors
Readership
This publication will be a valuable reference for mining practitioners, early career geotechnical engineers, operating and regulatory professionals, consultants, academics, researchers and other mine fill peers.