Mining
Earth science expertise across the complete lifecycle of mining
BGC provides engineering and applied geoscience services for every stage of mining, through pre-development, operations, and closure. Our specialized understanding of the impacts of geology on engineered structures allows us to provide innovative solutions in diverse and challenging terrain. We have successfully completed projects on mineral, metal, oil sand, and coal mining applications worldwide, in tropical to subarctic conditions.

BGC understands the permitting needs of mining projects and can provide support services to help clients fulfill early lifecycle requirements. Additionally, we provide services related to environmental impact assessments, including water quality and contamination assessments, remediation designs, environmental audits, due diligence reviews, and community/stakeholder consultation programs.
Mining projects require a full understanding of the geology and hydrogeology and geotechnical conditions of a site. These conditions form the basis for designs and material supply that directly impact mine economics and risks. BGC delivers site characterization services from preliminary desktop reviews of geology, geohazards, and seismicity to rigorous site investigation and laboratory testing.
BGC’s Software Team develops web applications to meet mission-critical data and mapping requirements. Our applications integrate drill hole and instrumentation data with earth-observation data and any number of map layers. Web applications for mining are built on the solid foundation of the Cambio geohazard-management platform. BGC leads the industry in the adoption of augmented and virtual reality to visualize geoscience and mining data.
BGC serves as the engineer of record or designer of record for client projects. Our design services also include:
- Geotechnical design criteria for open pit and underground mining
- Waste rock facility and heap leach designs
- Tailings dams and water retaining structures
- Heavy civil foundations
- Hydrotechnical structures
- Hydrogeological services to support water resources or as part of structure designs
- Mine closure services
- Geotechnical design of linear infrastructure like roads, pipelines, and transmission lines.
BGC monitors the performance of structures and hazards using observation, topographical and bathymetric surveys, remote sensing, and surface and sub-surface instrumentation. We manage the installation, operation, and data management for a variety of geotechnical and hydrogeological instruments, some of which use automatic data acquisition systems. We design our structures to be monitored against performance indicators and we can also help clients establish monitoring thresholds for other elements such as mass movements (pit slope or natural). BGC can work with clients to develop their action plan for threshold exceedances.
BGC provides mining operations services completing specialized tasks including:
- Tailings deposition planning and density prediction
- Rockfall assessment and mitigation
- Pit slope runout risk assessment and mitigation
- Ground control management plans for open pit and underground mines.
We assist our clients with their operational planning including Operations, Maintenance and Surveillance (OMS) and Plans and Emergency Preparedness Plans (EPP) for dams and mine waste facilities.
Risk assessments enable mine developers and operators to recognize potential problem areas before they result in serious and costly impacts. BGC provides comprehensive risk assessment services for mine facilities and infrastructure such as tailings dams, open pits, underground openings, waste dumps, and closure plans.