Events

The Tailings Center hosted this public webinar in support of the Tailings Management Consortium — a BHP/Rio Tinto partnership formed in 2021 — who sponsored the white paper titled “Unlocking Large Tonnage Filtered Tailings Stacks,” published in March 2026.

The session made the geotechnical case for filtered tailings as compared to conventional slurry facilities. The core challenge is scale. Filtered tailings are proven at up to ~35,000 t/day using thin-lift (≤0.3 m) compaction, but large miners need 100,000–400,000 t/day, where thin-lift placement is not economically viable. The paper's central thesis is that density — keeping tailings dilative rather than contractive under every load they will ever see — is the governing design variable, and that thick-lift, high-energy compaction (impact rolling, rapid impact compaction) is the likely economic unlock, with estimated placement cost savings of 73–83%. Neither method has yet been proven on filtered tailings at scale.

The Consortium invites you to review the July 29, 2026 technical presentation and the white paper at the links below, and to provide feedback by email at admin@TMConsortium.com.