Boliden Tara Mines Ltd, located in County Meath Ireland, produce in excess of 2.5 million tonnes per annum of ore from the underground resource located 40 miles north west of Dublin. The zinc-lead ore is mined using long hole open stoping techniques, with ore treated on site._x000D_
The operation is continually searching for new ways to improve productivities at the mine, and have employed a detailed data acquisition and reporting system on site to provide feedback around performance._x000D_
One area where both Boliden Tara Mines Ltd and Orica Mining Services believed improvements could be made was in the application of bulk emulsion technology through an Orica supplied but Tara operated Maxipump Delivery System for all production and development blasting at the mine. Both parties committed to the evaluation of this technology at the mine, however the capital cost and technical and economic changes meant the project needed to be diligently investigated and any improvements documented._x000D_
The first stage of this project was for Orica Mining Services personnel to visit the operation, and conduct a detailed analysis of the operation's performance over the past 12 months._x000D_
The next step in moving forward was then to commission and utilise the customer operated emulsion system at the mine. This was then followed with the collation and analysis of data from the demonstration period to examine and document the benefits of the system._x000D_
This paper is a summary of the observations made during the site inspection and the data analysed to date, and has been used in determining operational and financial improvements in the comparison between a Maxipump Emulsion Service and the current ANFO loading systems._x000D_
FORMAL CITATION:Freeman, S and Suokas, A, 2005. The use of customer operated bulk emulsion systems for improved productivity at the Tara Underground Operations, in Proceedings Ninth Underground Operators' Conference 2005, pp 329-344 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).