SYSTEM 360 TOTAL FLUIDS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

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1 SYSTEM 360 TOTAL FLUIDS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM Introduction: Minera Hampton Peru SAC (a wholly owned subsidiary of METMINCO Limited) is currently undertaking a resource definition drilling program on its Los Calatos Cu-Mo Project located in the Department of Moquegua, 70 km southeast of the regional city of Arequipa in southern Peru. In 2009, Minera Hampton continued their coring programs on the project and in late 2011, AK Drilling International, SA received a coring contract with the specific goals of reducing industrial water consumption and disposal of fluids on the project. Los Calatos is located in an area defined as being subtropical montane perarid desert at altitudes ranging from 2500 to 3000 meters above sea level, which presents challenges in supplying adequate industrial water to the exploration drills working at the site. Water must be transported by truck from the city of Moquegua, located approximately 65 km from the project. All but 10 km of the road is a rough gravel road. Round trip time for each load of water hauled by a truck is approximately 4 hours. Project Scope: AK Drilling International approached Baroid IDP with the idea of using the SYSTEM 360 unit with an engineered fluid to address the water consumption and disposal issues and optimize the drilling operations. Before using the SYSTEM 360 unit, rigs at Los Calatos had been consuming an average of 13,000 gallons of water per rig, per day. Several water trucks were needed to supply the program. With the drill program expanding, water supply and mud disposal became important issues. Each water truck must make a round trip of 130 km to supply 6000 gallons of water to the drill sites. There are restrictions on nighttime driving, so each truck can only make two (4 hour) round trips per day. Because of rapid incorporation of fine pyritic drilled solids in the drilling fluids, additives were needed to treat high solids in muds, thereby, increasing costs. Used fluids were disposed of in large settling ponds for evaporation. Large volume mud systems were accepted as normal and fluid disposal rates were high. Water costs were in excess of $50.00 USD per drilled meter. Water supply logistics, road maintenance, drilling fluid disposal and sump construction all contributed to high drilling program costs.

2 IDP Solution HOW THE SYSTEM 360 UNIT WORKS The SYSTEM 360 Total Fluid Management system consists of a highly efficient mud mixing system coupled with a patent-pending flocculent additive process which concentrates and removes the solids from spent drilling fluid on a core rig. Removal of these fine solids allows for the re-use of a fluid that would normally be discarded. The SYSTEM 360 unit removes the solids from the drilling fluid with hydrocyclones and mixes SYSTEM FLOC-360 flocculent with the solids concentrated slurry from the bottom of the cones. This mixing chamber is where flocculation occurs. This flocculation creates cross-linked structures in the fluid containing the solids which can be quickly separated from the water phase in the filter bags mounted on the unit. (Figure 1) Cleaned drilling fluid is directed back to the active circulating system when the mud weight is reduced to less than 8.6 lbs/gallon, while the flocculated mixture containing the drilled solids is discharged into a filter bag rack where water and flocs are separated. Water generated in this final filtration step can be returned to the mixing tank to mix new drilling fluid. (Figure 2) Flocs discharged from mixing box on the SYSTEM 360 unit. Water is breaking out of the flocs. Figure 1

3 IDP Solution Solids handling unit. Mixing/pumping unit Figure 2 WHAT IS SYSTEM FLOC-360 flocculent? SYSTEM FLOC-360 aqueous polymeric flocculent causes rapid flocculation of the drilled solids that have been exposed to PHPA polymer in the drilling fluid during the drilling process. The mixing of SYSTEM FLOC-360 flocculent with the fluid occurs within the SYSTEM 360 solids separation unit. Once the flocculation of drilled solids and PHPA polymer occurs, flocs are produced, which are separated from the liquid phase in the filter bags. The flocs are easily disposed of in a semi-solid form using the bagging feature on the SYSTEM 360 unit.

4 IDP Solution HOW SYSTEM 360 SOLIDS SEPARATION UNIT WAS USED FOR THE PROJECT Usage is very simple: 1. Pump approximately 900 liters (240 gallons) of dirty mud into the mixing tank of the SYSTEM 360 unit. With a mud balance, determine the fluid density of the fluid to be cleaned. (Figure 3) 2. If not already present in the drilling fluid, add EZ-MUD GOLD polymer to the fluid to be treated at a concentration of approximately 1 kilo/ 900 liters of drilling fluid (~2 lbs/240 gallons) using the mixer of the SYSTEM 360 unit. 3. Fill the flocculent additive barrel on the SYSTEM 360 unit to the Full mark with fresh water and add 1 liter of SYSTEM FLOC-360 mixture to each full drum of water. 4. Start the injector pump for the SYSTEM FLOC-360 mixture and set the discharge pressure at 8-10 PSI. Direct the main pump flow from the mixing tank to the hydrocyclones. The drilling fluid must enter the hydrocyclones with a pressure of PSI. Verify this by checking the pressure gauge mounted on the hydrocyclones.(figure 4) System 360 solids control unit Figure 3 Hydrocyclones discharging concentrated solids Figure 4

5 IDP Solution Continued: DESCRIPTION OF THE WORK PERFORMED The SYSTEM 360 unit was run from the surface to the total depth (TD) on a particular drill hole. The SYSTEM 360 unit was used to mix all mud on the site. Coring began at the surface, and the hole was drilled HQ mm in diameter from the surface to m where the hole reached TD. The drill rigs were equipped with volumetric water flow meters to quantify the amount of water used. Los Calatos project comprises a multi-phase porphyry system, brecciated and cut by vertical dikes. There are hard compact sections with some fracturing accompanied by high amounts of pyrite in some sections. Other sections are altered (potassic, quartz sericite, propyllitic and argillic alteration) with brecciated clasts with rock flour and clays as matrix. (Figure 5). The characteristics of the drilling fluid were designed to match the type of ground conditions encountered at the site. The mud mixture consisted of engineered ratios of QUIK-GEL GOLD, QUIK-TROL GOLD LV, EZ-MUD GOLD and EZ-MUD DP additives. The make-up water that was being delivered to the site had a very high hardness level (magnesium ~800 ppm), so before any additives were mixed, it was necessary to treat the water by adding a diluted caustic soda solution. The solution precipitated divalent ions present in the water to reduce total hardness to less than 150 ppm. Examples of competent sections of drill core on Los Calatos Project Figure 5

6 IDP Solution Continued The newly mixed drilling fluid was weighed with a FANN mud balance and had an average density of 8.45 lbs / gal. Returns from the hole were also weighed using the mud balance. When the mud density reached 8.7 lbs / gallon, the SYSTEM 360 unit was used to treat batches of the drilling fluid in order to remove solids and lower the mud weight to approximately 8.6 lbs/gallon. (Figure 6) Mixing tank with dirty mud being processed using the SYSTEM 360 unit. Figure 6 To treat each batch, approximately 900 liters of spent drilling fluid was pumped into the SYSTEM 360 mixing tank. To this tank, 1 kilogram of EZ-MUD GOLD polymer was added. Then, the fluid was diverted to the hydrocyclones. Slurry from the bottom of the hydrocyclones was sent to the mixing box where the flocculent was introduced. Flocs were formed immediately, and discharged along with the water phase into the filter bags. Clean water drained from the filter bags into the tank located at the bottom of the SYSTEM 360 unit.

7 IDP Solution Continued Filter bag rack and bag press on the SYSTEM 360 unit. The press is used to squeeze water from the filter bags. Figure 7 During the process of removing the drilled solids, the density of the drilling fluid being cycled through the unit was monitored in the processing/mixing tank using a FANN mud balance. When the density was reduced to 8.6 lbs/gallon, a diverter valve on the SYSTEM 360 unit was opened and the cleaned drilling fluid was pumped to the suction tank of the active circulating system. Once the water had drained from the filter bags, the solids were dumped on site to be cleaned up later, which allowed the bags to be re-used several times. Solids separated using the SYSTEM 360 unit during the drilling of the hole at the Los Calatos Cu-Mo Project. Figure 8

8 Results Of the 900 liters of drilling fluid used, approximately 400 liters of clean water was generated; the remainder of the fluid (cleaned mud with a density less than 8.6 lbs / gallon) was discharged to the suction tank in the active circulating system. (Figure 9) During the drilling of the hole, the drill rig used approximately 8000 liters of water per shift (an average of 22 meters of drilling per shift), with a recovery of approximately 3600 liters of clean water (45%) and approximately 2650 liters of cleaned drilling fluid returned to the system, per shift (33%). (Chart 1 and 2) Water filtering into lower tank. Solids being dumped from bag. Figure 9 The following data was generated during the drilling of the specific hole: Fluid Treated Water Recovered Fluid improved returned to system for drill (Ltrs.) (Ltrs.) (Ltrs.) 416, , ,800 Chart 1: Drilled from surface to 1,137 m. (52 shifts worked)

9 Results Continued Water consumption prior to using SYSTEM 360 solids control unit, per rig. (Gallons/Day) Water used when running the SYSTEM 360 solids control unit. (Gallons/Day) Total saving of water using SYSTEM 360 unit. (Gallons/Day) 13,000 2,789 10,211 Chart 2: A total of 72,514 gallons of water were used during the 26 days of drilling the hole, an average of 2,789 gallons per day. Total water consumption was reduced by 78.5 %. Total water savings on this hole was approximately 265,486 gallons. With each water truck having a capacity of 6000 gallons, this equates to avoiding 44 water truck trips during the drilling of this hole. Drilling fluid additive usage was reduced and the drilling was completed ahead of schedule. Training the AK Drilling International crews was accomplished in one week by Baroid IDP personnel. While drilling the hole, heavy rainstorms washed out 14 kilometers of the access road to Los Calatos project, which prevented any water trucks from traveling to the project for 10 days. During that time, AK Drilling International personnel pumped spent drilling fluids out of sumps on previous drill sites at Los Calatos and used the SYSTEM 360 unit to separate solids from the fluids and recovered make-up water and usable drilling fluids. This allowed drilling to proceed without interruption even though there was no fresh water available on site for drilling. Another drilling contractor had to shut their drills down during this time.

10 Economic Value Created Use of the SYSTEM 360 unit reduced water usage by almost 80%. Safety was enhanced by the substantial reduction of water hauls and truck time. Drill sump size was reduced by 90%. (Figure 10) No stuck tubes or broken wire lines have occurred at Los Calatos since the SYSTEM 360 unit has been in use. This indicates a cleaner fluid with less solids to centrifuge inside the rods and tube heads. Water separated by the SYSTEM 360 unit can be re-used for the preparation of new drilling fluid. Because the SYSTEM 360 unit effectively removes fine clays from a drilling fluid, the amount of additives necessary to maintain a mud system is greatly reduced. Drill crews were easily trained to use the system. A drill pad at Los Calatos on an 1100 meter hole before implementation of the SYSTEM 360 unit. Sump size on a 1900 meter hole using the SYSTEM 360 unit to remove solids. Approximately 4 meters by 5 meters. Figure 10: Sump size comparison 2012 Halliburton. All rights reserved. Sales of Halliburton products and services will be in accord solely with the terms and conditions contained in the contract between Halliburton and the customer that is applicable to the sale.