Associated Event
27th International Conference on Paste, Thickened and Filtered Tailings
8–10 April 2025 | Swakopmund Hotel and Entertainment Centre, Namibia
Introduction to Tailings Management Fundamentals and Dewatering Strategies for Surface Disposal Course
7 April 2025 | Swakopmund, Namibia
This course will run alongside the main Paste 2025 conference.
Course objective:
Introductory course on tailings management standards, dewatering technologies, key mineralogy considerations, and other important criteria supporting the selection and design of a tailings dewatering and deposition strategy. The course will provide useful insight on life cycle design, construction, operation, monitoring and closure of a tailings storage facility supported by practical case studies. The course is presented in the form of knowledge share from different spheres of practice: from design to lab analysis, to equipment selection and operation, to problem solving and innovation. It is divided in three parts and concludes with a panel and interactive discussion.
- Part 1 – Understanding the key objectives and criteria to consider when selecting a dewatering and placement strategy
- Part 2 – Dewatering and placement strategy
- Part 3 – Managing risks, key concerns and innovative solutions
Attendees:
Mine owners, consultants, project managers, site managers and suppliers
Preliminary Program*
*Program is subject to change.
Course Facilitator
Andrew Copeland
Technical Director
Knight Piésold, South Africa
Andrew is a director of Knight Piésold South Africa and the technical director of mining for Knight Piésold Southern Africa. He has had extensive exposure to the international mining industry and to the full chain of mining activities and project stages.
Andrew is a technical specialist in the area of mineral residue management and has a thorough understanding of the associated infrastructure, environmental, social, and economic aspects, including paste, filtered, and thickened tailings. He has substantial experience in civil geotechnics, heap leach facilities, and mine infrastructure. Andrew has also written guidelines and standards for mine residue facilities and carried out numerous audits around the world. Andrew is the engineer of record at several tailings facilities.
Course Presenters
Véronique Daigle
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 specialization 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.
Phildré Lötter
Senior Manager Business Support
Fraser Alexander (Pty) Ltd, South Africa
Murray McGregor
Consultant, (Geotechnical Engineer, Tailings)
SRK Consulting, UK
Murray is a senior consultant (tailings engineer) with over 14 years’ experience in geotechnical engineering, with over 10 years focused on tailings and mine waste management.
His main areas of expertise are in design and management of earthen structures including tailings dams, waste dumps, and cut slopes. Murray’s background is in geological engineering, and has experience in site selection, geotechnical investigation, slope stability, monitoring, and maintenance. He has scoped, executed, and managed several geotechnical investigations and design packages for both existing and greenfield sites. Murray has completed slope stability assessments, prepared operational guidance, and provided closure recommendations for waste dumps and tailings facilities.
Murray has experience with projects in various areas around the world including North America, South America, Europe, and Africa.
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.
Justin Teixeira
Senior Civil Engineer
Knight Piésold, South Africa
Andrew Vietti
Director (Owner)
Vietti Slurrytec, South Africa
Andrew is a director of Vietti Slurrytec and has a Master’s degree from the University of Natal in South Africa. Andrew has over 30 years’ experience in the solid/liquid separation field beginning at the De Beers Consolidated Mines research and development facility (Debtech) implementing paste thickening technology throughout the group. Thereafter, Andrew co-founded Vietti Slurrytec which is a specialist de-watering metallurgical test laboratory and consulting practice. The company provides test work data on which various solid/liquid separation circuits from paste to dry stacking surface tailings disposal projects can be designed.
Vietti Slurrytec specialises in a fundamental understanding of how clay slurry colloidal behaviour influences the de-watering process. Its extensive data base encompasses most mineral types at both small and very large operational scale.