Mining Magazine January/February 2015

The mining industry’s leading magazine

Established

1909

Mapping & UAVs

Learn how UAVs are being used throughout the mining industry to reduce operating costs and improve safety

Software

Latest developments from the mine design and planning segment

Screening

MM reviews up and coming technologies, plus new screen and media designs

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January / February 2015

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U S T SI VI

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CONTENTS

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Please sir, we want some more…

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n that case, dear reader, you shall have it! Being a stickler for precision, it gives me great satisfaction to begin 2015 with an announcement: Mining Magazine has followed in the footsteps of its sister title, the industry-leading publication, Mining Journal, and has re-launched its website.

Aside from producing ten print issues a year, the MM team has been providing the market with a steady feed of daily news stories, special reports and e-newsletters for some time now. However, through conducting regular reader surveys, and speaking to our clients and contacts, it became obvious that there was a need for a more comprehensive and easily accessible online repository of information; one which goes that little bit further.

In short, you asked and we delivered. The new MiningMagazine.com is the first online resource dedicated purely to delivering timely, high-quality information to the operational side of the global mining industry.

Since 1909, the title has been a cornerstone of knowledge for those working in mining, channelling an exceptional array of high-profile contacts and a crack editorial team to deliver a complete and unbiased source of information for mining professionals. This is the next step in that journey and we are fiercely proud of the results.

In addition to all of the excellent content included in the print version of the magazine, Mining Magazine.com now offers an extra 20-30 exclusive stories per week, including breaking news and reports from industry “In today’s fast-paced events as they happen, interviews with industry leaders and innovators, thought-provoking columns, in-depth technical and highly competitive features and detailed product reviews. market, a resource that Online content is not constrained by the same spatial will help you to make boundaries as print, so chances are that if you really enjoyed reading a feature in the magazine, we enjoyed writing it too, timely decisions and and you will find further articles at MiningMagazine.com delving deeper into the topic and offering more insight. We will stay ahead of the game is well worth having” always flag up in print where extra reading is available.

And of course, as a truly global title with readers in far-flung and often remote locations, we can now offer those who don’t like grappling with the postal service the opportunity to access all print and online content instantly.

No more waiting for the mailman (unless you want to!).

We have redesigned the website’s navigational structure, making our content, including the Mining Magazine archive, much easier to find and search, and have added new tools to allow discussion and sharing through social media. The new structure will be good news for advertisers too, who can now target their core markets with razor-blade accuracy and choose from a range of new and industrystandard ad positions.

Don’t have time to trawl the web every day for news or open multiple press releases? Then you need our e-newsletters, which offer a wrap of the week’s most important events and monthly roundups on more specific topics such as mineral processing. The stories are carefully edited, collated and sent to your inbox to save you time and keep you well informed. You won’t find any promotional waffle in our content, just the core facts and vital analysis.

I won’t pretend that there isn’t a small charge for access to this unique service.

However, I think you will agree that in today’s fast-paced and highly competitive market, a resource that will help you to make timely decisions and stay ahead of the game is well worth having.

Go to MiningMagazine.com and click on the ‘free trial’ button to get instant access for 30 days, then open your email and let us know your thoughts. Enjoy!

CARLY LEONIDA, EDITOR carly.leonida@miningmagazine.com

Twitter: @MM_Ed_Carly

News Features Special report: Sandvik Special report: VCI Special report: Caterpillar Interview: Synergen Met Column: Futurecasting Software Screening

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MM awards winner profiles after page 38 Raise boring Snapshot In-situ mining Mapping, surveying & UAVs

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Mine closure/reclamation: online

Flashback & contacts

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Classified advertising

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Next month Surface load-and-haul procurement guide Mineral analysis Water treatment and recycling Latest developments in HPGR technology Modern mining consultants

COVER Level Designer in Maptek Vulcan 9.1 generates long-term, strategic planning and detailed design phases. Underground mine engineers can design multiple scenarios for determining an optimal plan to access stopes, saving hours of manual drafting. The new option gives design strings and cost information for each scenario. Engineers can then make informed decisions, with the confidence that they have done their due diligence on all possible scenarios. www.maptek.com

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NEWS

MSHA proximity detection rule comes into force The US Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) has announced a final rule that will require operators of underground coal mines to equip continuous mining machines with proximity-detection systems.

The rule was published in the Federal Register on January 15, and will become effective 60 days thereafter. With the new rule, a proximity-detection system consists of machinemounted components and miner-wearable components worn by each miner on the working section. The rule establishes performance and maintenance requirements for these systems and requires training for persons performing installation and maintenance.

“Simply put, the proximitydetection final rule will save lives and has the potential to dramatically improve the safety of mining operations,” said Joseph Main, assistant secretary of labor for mine safety and health.

Metso divests Tampere foundry Metso has concluded the study related to its foundry in Tampere, Finland, announced in 2013. As a result, the company will divest the foundry to Finnish company TEVO. The new owner will continue operating the facility under the TEVO-Lokomo name.

All 128 employees will continue with their current contracts, and completion of the divestment is expected on March 1. Metso did not disclose the value of the deal.

“Divestment offers a great starting point for developing the foundry operations as part of TEVO”, said Juha Silvennoinen, president of Metso’s services business area.

Metso has five other foundries and a network of external casting suppliers serving the mining and aggregates industries. TEVO is a family-owned business originally from Raahe in Western Finland.

Komatsu offers HM400-5 ADT Komatsu America Corp has introduced its HM400-5 articulated dump truck (ADT).

The company stated that this ADT features a more environmentally friendly engine – the Komatsu SAA6D140E-7 – that is US EPA Tier 4 Final emissions certified, and provides high levels of performance (with a net 350kW of power) while reducing fuel consumption and operating costs.

With a 40t payload and a gross vehicle weight (GVW) of 75,130kg, the HM400-5 maintains the productivity and performance of the previous model, and offers improved fuel efficiency.

The low 3,164mm loading height easily matches with 36.2t to 54.4t hydraulic excavators or 4.2m3 to 5.7m3 wheel loaders. Additionally, the two single-staged body-lift cylinders provide a 70° dump angle.

Selectable working modes allow the

The Komatsu HM400-5 articulated dump truck operator to choose between Economy and Power modes to tailor machine performance to the application or work conditions.

The HM400-5 features the Komatsu Traction Control System (K-TCS), which provides optimum traction on soft ground. As ground conditions worsen and tyre slippage is detected by speed sensors on the transmission output shafts, the inter-axle lock is automatically

applied, providing power to all three axles. If tyre slippage continues to be detected by the speed sensors monitoring individual wheel speeds, then four independent brakes can be applied to the slipping wheels to regain traction.

The HM400-5 is enhanced with the Komatsu Advanced Transmission with Optimum Modulation Control System (K-ATOMiCS).

K-ATOMiCS offers a six-speed, fully automatic transmission that uses an advanced electronic system to eliminate shift shock and torque cut-off to improve operator and engine efficiency.

An integrated payload meter (PLM) is now standard on the HM400-5. The PLM displays the loaded material weight on the 17.8cm LCD monitor for the truck operator as well as indicating payload information to the loader operator via external display lamps.

FLSmidth helps Shanta boost gold/silver recovery

Tenova bucket wheel system for Zhahanaoer

An absorption, desorption and refining (ADR) plant supplied by FLSmidth has allowed Shanta Gold to boost its gold and silver recovery at the New Luika gold mine in southwest Tanzania.

Dave Capstick, business development manager at FLSmidth, said that the 2t ADR plant has resulted in an increased carbon throughput to the carbon in leach (CIL) circuit at New Luika from 20t/mth to 80t/mth.

The ADR plant comprises an acid wash, a Zadra strip circuit with an FLSmidth-designed heater skid, an electrowinning circuit and a carbon-regeneration kiln, in addition to ancillary equipment such as pumps, screens and tanks for carbon handling. Capstick explained: “All the equipment was designed and manufactured by FLSmidth. It was shipped, installed and commissioned jointly by our South African and Salt Lake offices.”

Commissioning took place in the June quarter of 2014.

Initial results from the new plant point to an improvement in gold recovery of two percentage

Tenova TAKRAF has completed the supply and installation of a complete bucket-wheel excavator (BWE) system for the Zhahanaoer open-pit coal mine in Inner Mongolia, China.

The system, which Tenova claims to feature the largest BWE-conveyor-spreader combination of its kind in Asia, was inaugurated in late November 2014 following successful performance testing.

The system comprises a large SRs 2000 BWE (rated capacity 6,600m3/h) with a loading unit, a 7,750m-long conveyor system of five flights, as well as a compact spreader with tripper car on rails.

The BWE has a digging height of 30m and a service weight of 3,300t.

To handle peak capacities, the conveyor system, as well as the spreader, have a design capacity of 7,900m3/h. The conveyors running along the excavator bench and along the waste dump are mobile.

The project site is approximately 700km from Beijing in remote northern China, where the extreme conditions see winter temperatures of down to -40°C and summer temperatures of up to +40°C.

Pressure Zadra elution and carbon-regeneration circuits from FLSmidth for New Luika points, while silver recovery has tripled. The benefits of the new plant were apparent at an early stage, and it was an important step in the debottlenecking of the gold/silver recovery process.

The ADR plant forms part of FLSmidth’s offering of gold-recovery equipment. The strip circuit consistently delivers stripping times of eight to nine hours.

Capstick pointed to a recent field case study that highlighted heat recoveries of about 90%.

He commented: “Given the rise in energy costs, our improved heater skid designs have resulted in significant power savings for the end user compared with competitor designs.”

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SHAPING SMART CHANGE Productive mines know technology drives their success. Companies must be smarter, safer, and quicker to respond to change. Their future depends on it.

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NEWS

Atlas Copco launches reloaded face-drill rig

The Carmichael site

Turner & Townsend wins Carmichael coal-project work Turner & Townsend, a programmemanagement and construction consultancy, has been appointed to provide support services to projectmanagement consultants on the Carmichael coal mine, port and rail programme in Australia.

Situated in Queensland’s Galilee Basin and owned by Adani Mining, the programme has a forecast capital spend of up to A$16.5 billion (US$13.4 billion).

The project will build Australia’s largest thermal-coal mine, and will be linked by a new 388km rail line to a new export terminal at Abbot Point Port, near Bowen in Queensland. Over its 60-year lifespan, the pit-to-port infrastructure project will support Adani’s operations, and could also aid the development of other proposed mines in the basin.

The month in numbers

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The number of US coal-mining deaths in 2014 – the lowest annual total ever in the US.

1,000

The number of TPKL fluid couplings that Voith has manufactured since 1997.

500,000

The number of operator hours captured on EdanSafe’s SmartCap fatigue-monitoring solution.

6-8 million

The number of pounds of uranium oxide expected to be produced at Cameco’s Cigar Lake operation in Saskatchewan, Canada, in 2015.

Atlas Copco’s Boomer M-series drill rigs, which were relaunched in Australia in 2014 after a major upgrade, are now available worldwide. The face-drilling rigs are designed for tunnelling and mining applications with a coverage area up to 65m2.

The Boomer M-series rigs were ‘reloaded’ with enhancements that make them stronger, cleaner, safer and easier to operate. These include stronger booms, a new filtration system, better safety and Atlas Copco’s rig-control system.

The company stated that in field trials in Australia, these enhancements have returned top ratings for productivity, longer service intervals and lower operating costs.

Johan Jonsson, product manager at Atlas Copco, explained: “The use of contractors in the mining industry is becoming increasingly common and these companies have told us they need extremely robust drill rigs for drilling in tougher environments, and preferably rigs that can be used for more than one application. In response, we have further developed the Boomer M-series.”

The new, stronger BUT 36S booms provide steadier articulation and faster, more accurate positioning. They also incorporate several new features to extend the service intervals.

The new filtration system keeps lubrication air and hydraulic oil

free from water and fine particles.

This improves the quality of the air and the oil, which, in turn, prolongs the life of the hydraulic components and the rock drills.

The rigs also offer increased safety for the operator. For example, the BUT 36S boom’s safe bolting configuration makes it possible to swing the feed all the way back to the cabin so that the operator can load it with bolts while standing on platforms on either side of the rig. This eliminates the need to work in front of the machine under unsupported roofs, substantially reducing the risk of injury from rockfall. For added safety, the spacious and comfortable cabin is now ROPS/FOPS certified.

The reloaded M-series rigs are equipped with COP 1838HD+ rock drills and come with a robust hydraulic control system or, as an option, the Atlas Copco RCS 5 rig-control system.

CA Blackwell purchases Bell ADTs UK earthmoving specialist CA Blackwell has purchased 12 new articulated dump trucks (ADTs) from Bell Equipment, including four Bell B50Ds – one of the largest ADTs available on the market.

Bell stated that the four B50Ds, which it called “a giant amongst ADTs”, are set to guarantee high performance for Blackwell as they have impressive tonnes-per-litre ratios, all-wheel drive, high suspension travel, and an ability to perform in every weather condition.

In addition to the B50Ds, Blackwell has selected four Bell B30Es and four Bell B40Ds. The latest additions bring the number of Bell ADTs in Blackwell’s fleet to 39.

David Lancashire, plant manager at CA Blackwell, said: “It’s great that construction projects around the UK appear to be gaining impetus once more; making it a good time for us to invest in the latest robust, reliable

ADT equipment from Bell, with the titan that is the B50D being no exception. We’ve been awarded a number of new contracts recently, and have needed more trucks to deal with the workload, which is why, again, we’ve turned to Bell.”

Bell stated that Blackwell particularly benefits from the proprietary Fleetm@tic system integral to all Bell ADTs. Fleetm@tic enables plant managers to monitor the efficiency of each machine, helping to streamline operations and maximise returns. The system,

with its satellite coverage, creates automated production reports and efficiency alerts.

Lancashire explained: “We’ve relied on Bell to provide us with payload information for our ADTs for many years.

In addition to the B50Ds, both the B40D and B30E are also notably fuel-efficient models. Lancashire noted that the emphasis on a lighter construction means they perform exceptionally at a lower horsepower than heavier ADTs on the market, which saves fuel costs.

ASI and Anglo team up for autonomous haulage Anglo American and Autonomous Solutions Inc have formed a partnership to deliver enhanced productivity, sustainability and safety through mining-vehicle automation systems for Anglo’s haulage operations.

The joint effort is part of

Anglo’s FutureSmart initiative through which the company is partnering with third-party technology groups such as ASI to drive innovation within mining.

Facing challenges such as lower commodity prices, declining grades of ore deposits and

difficulty of access to orebodies, the mining industry “needs to leap forward 20 years in five,” said Tony O’Neill, Anglo American’s group director for technical and sustainability, at the Dassault Systèmes 3DExperience Forum in November.

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One of CA Blackwell’s new Bell B40D articulated dump trucks

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7/7/2014 8:39:56 AM

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NEWS

In Brief Bentley buys C3global Bentley Systems has acquired UK-based C3global, provider of web-based Amulet software for operational analytics.

Bentley said its AssetWise asset-management platform can now deliver additional insights as asset-performance management is extended through AssetWise Amulet.

Siemens / Mitsubishi JV Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Siemens have formed a new joint venture, Primetals Technologies. Headquartered in London, UK, it will be a global provider of plants, products and services for the iron-ore, steel and aluminium industry.

Mitsubishi-Hitachi Metals Machinery, an MHI group company, holds a 51% stake in the JV and Siemens 49%.

DSI Indonesian facility On December 9, 2014, PT DSI Underground Indonesia (a subsidiary of DYWIDAGSystems International) opened a new manufacturing facility for mining products in Gresik, Surabaya, Indonesia. The 3,000m2 manufacturing facility primarily produces friction bolts for mining; it has storage for 400t of raw feed and a container unloading dock.

TSI installations top 200 Immersive Technologies has announced that the uptake of its Training Systems Integration (TSI) service has surpassed 200 programmes at over 100 mine sites. The TSI service is designed to provide a tailored curriculum for simulation-based operator training programmes.

AVEVA acquires 8over8 AVEVA has acquired software firm 8over8, provider of the ProCon contractual riskmanagement solution. AVEVA said the acquisition provides a software platform for the company to address demand for increased project control and capital discipline, minimising project overruns and delivering improved efficiency.

Hitachi expands range of AC-drive dump trucks for mining use Hitachi has launched two new rigid-body dump trucks for use at large-scale mining operations – the 180t-payload EH3500AC-3 and 220t-payload EH4000AC-3 – completing its EH AC-3 series of machines.

Both models are equipped with an AC drive system coupled with a load-responsive IGBT inverter that was developed with Hitachi Group technologies. The Hitachi Drive Control System includes sensors to provide information on driving conditions; the result is reduced tyre slippage on acceleration and less lock-up during braking. The system also prevents chassis

The new Hitachi EH4000-AC3 rigid-body dump truck oscillation in a front-rear direction and tyre skid while steering.

Hitachi plans to offer two engine choices – from Cummins and MTU – and this choice will also extended to the EH5000AC-3 rigid dump truck, introduced in 2013. A new evacuator exhaust valve for the

engine suction filter and electric grease pump are among the features added to improve daily maintenance.

In the wide-berth cab, which can house two full-size seats, a large multi-lingual LCD display provides the operator with information and warnings. Levers and switches for operating the dump body are located in the centre console, so it can be operated with one hand.

A temperature sensor has been added to the alternator and drive motor. This triggers an alarm if abnormal conditions are detected and restricts operation to prevent sudden damage to the machine.

Doosan launches Stage IV excavators Doosan has three new excavators in the 40-50t class: the DX420LC-5, DX490LC-5 and DX530LC-5. These models are the company’s largest Stage IV-compliant crawler excavators, offering improved performance compared with the previous LC-3 series Stage IIIB models.

Featuring distinctive new styling, Doosan said the LC-5 range offers enhanced comfort and controllability with new features to boost fuel efficiency, uptime and return on investment, with a focus on increased power, robustness and agility.

The new Doosan DX530LC-5 The new excavators are designed for heavy-duty work such as large-scale earthmoving, moving rock, and general construction projects at mine sites.

The operating weights of the DX420LC-5 and DX490LC-5 have

been increased by 700kg and 500kg, respectively, while that of the new DX530LC-5 remains the same. Lifting capacities have increased by an average of 5% on all three models, except for the DX530LC-5, where the lifting capacity over the side has also increased by 12%.

The new 42t DX420LC-5 is powered by the Scania DC13 diesel engine, providing 257kW of power at 1,800rpm. The DX490LC-5 and DX530LC-5 are both powered by the Scania DC13 engine, providing 283kW at 1,800rpm.

Downer reports a solid start to 2015 Boliden inaugurates Aussie contractor Downer EDI has signed a contract to maintain haul-truck fleets at two coal mines in the Bowen Basin in Queensland.

The contract, for two years with an additional one-year option, is valued at around A$60 million and starts on February 1, 2015. About 110 people will be employed to service around 90 trucks.

Downer also received two letters of award from Adani Mining in December advising of its intention to enter into contracts for the provision of mining services and the construction of infrastructure at the Carmichael coal mine in Queensland’s Galilee Basin. The contracts are expected to have a

combined value in excess of A$2.0 billion over seven years.

Under the five-year mining-services contract, with two one-year options, Downer will be responsible for: statutory management and mine operations; drilling and blasting; and load and haul of waste and coal.

Under the mine infrastructure contract, Downer will provide engineering, procurement and construction of on-site infrastructure and civil works. The capital for the mining-services fleet will be provided by Adani.

First mining is scheduled for the June quarter of 2016 and first coal in 2017.

silver-recovery plant

Boliden inaugurated a new US$33 million silver recovery plant at its Kokkola zinc smelter in Finland on December 12, 2014.

The project began in April 2012 when Boliden launched an initiative to extract silver from zinc concentrates, including the feed from the recently expanded Garpenberg zinc-silver mine. The new plant will produce 25t/y of silver concentrate, which will be sold to silver refineries.

With an annual production capacity of 315,000t, Kokkola is the second-largest zinc smelter in Europe, with pure zinc and zinc alloys as its main products.

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BOOMER M RELOADED For many years, the Boomer M – our series of medium-sized face drilling rigs – has been renowned as reliable and productive. Now we are introducing the Boomer M series reloaded – redesigned and evolved based on our interactions with you along with our many years of design experience. The new Boomer M series means a significant reduction in operating costs and unplanned downtime. That means fewer disruptions to your operation cycle, allowing the machine to do what it was designed for – work.

Read more at atlascopco.com

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Complete crushing system solutions For over a century, FLSmidth gyratory crushers, cone crushers, screens and feeders have continuously withstood the harshest demands of the world’s mines and rock quarries. Our crushing and screening capabilities extend from large fixed plants to mobile, semi-mobile and portable plants and are available as a standard design or customized for specific applications and location. Whether delivering complete minerals processing plants, designing optimized flowsheets or engineering specialized equipment and systems, our expertise and professional service provides you with rugged dependability, peace of mind and rock solid results.

For more information, visit us at www.flsmidth.com

To learn more about FLSmidth crushing systems scan the QR Code below

special report

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New Sandvik cone crushers prove their worth in China Sandvik Mining has increased its market reach for mining cone crushers with the addition of two new mid-range models to its CH800 series

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he CH860 is designed for highcapacity secondary crushing, while the CH865 is suitable for high-reduction tertiary and pebble applications, featuring higher crushing forces relative to mantle diameter and a 500kW motor. Both models also have a range of advanced automation features for a safer and more productive process.

Filling out the range The new models sit neatly between the CH660 and CH870 cone crushers in the Sandvik portfolio.

“We scaled down our larger Sandvik CH890 and Sandvik CH895 mining cone crushers to create two mid-range models that are even more productive, robust and reliable, and feature enhanced environmental, health and safety characteristics,” said Andreas Christoffersson, product line manager for cone crushers at Sandvik Mining.

“Depending on the application, the Sandvik CH860 and Sandvik CH865 outperform competing equipment in the mid-range segment by as much as 30% and deliver a two-fold increase in performance range.”

Intelligent systems Sandvik said the intelligent systems in the CH860 and CH865 enable real-time performance optimisation, while smart, compact design solutions reduce dynamic loads and minimise engineering and installation work.

The crushers feature fewer moving parts than competing models, according to Christoffersson. Nonwelded, bolted liners on the top and bottom shell enable safer, quicker maintenance, while top-down servicing, crushing-chamber lifting tools and a new crusher toolbox also support maintenance procedures.

Both models also feature Sandvik’s Automatic Setting Regulation (ASRi) control system and Hydroset main-shaft support system to ensure automatic operation at peak performance 24/7.

ASRi constantly monitors pressure, power draw and main shaft position

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and automatically adjusts the setting during full load, while Hydroset provides protection from overloads by permitting tramp metal to pass through the crusher before automatically returning to the original setting.

The system automatically compensates for crushing-chamber wear to provide consistent product size.

“The Hydroset system enables us to incorporate our unique PLC-controlled electric dump valve for tramp-iron protection, which significantly reduces pressure peaks and mechanical stress on the crusher, greatly improving reliability,” Christoffersson explained.

Close to one year of rigorous testing at the Xichang iron-ore mine in China

has produced excellent results.

Used in tertiary crushing, the CH865 crusher delivered an increase in productivity, with approximately 50% more final product less than 12mm in diameter compared with the unit it replaced and a trebling of liner life. The CH860 was internally tested and approved by Sandvik.

Christoffersson added: “In the test site, we replaced a similar-sized crusher on the same foundation to greatly increase final product and significantly extend crushing-chamber liner life. The electric dump valve repeatedly proved its tramp-iron protection value, reducing costly unplanned breakdowns.”

The CH865 was subject to a year of testing at the Xichang iron-ore mine in China

“The CH860 and CH865 outperform competing equipment by as much as 30%”

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SPECIAL REPORT

In reality, though, average grades are not so important. What matters is the relative decline of company grades with one another, which is why it is initially surprising that explorers are not ranked highly in the survey in their impact on innovation. Several respondents, however, note this reflects slowing industry growth and predict that it will increase in the future.

“Which of the following macro trends will have the biggest impact on innovation in mining over the next 15 years?”

STRATEGY DIRECTION

Strategic thinking In the second of a three-part series of print articles, VCI presents key findings on innovation strategy from its Mining Innovation: State of Play 2014 survey

“In my view, climate change is the single biggest issue facing large operations in the next few decades”

“How structured is your approach to implementing new innovations in your company?”

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nnovation strategy development starts with understanding the big trends in the external environment, and then positioning a company to create opportunity and mitigate risk in response to this knowledge.

The mining industry is well aligned on understanding the major trends facing it.

For the second year running, technological change was rated as the most important trend over the next 15 years, chosen by 52% of respondents in VCI’s Innovation: State of Play annual survey.

Many experts agree that we are entering an incipient point in the use of technology in business. The combination of communication advances, robotics and automation is expected to create transformational change in the coming decades.

Closely related, chosen by over one-third of respondents, is the entrance and maturation of generation Y (and subsequent generations) in the workforce. This is a generation of people who are technologically very competent and who have grown up in a world of consistent change. The potential impacts for implementation of new data-centric

operating models and change programmes are significant.

Environmental pressure is mining executives’ second highest rated concern, with 43% of all respondents believing it will be a major driver of innovation.

Requirements for social licence to operate (25%) and increased mining in difficult places (29%) also rated highly.

All countries tend to become more concerned about the environment as they mature into developed economies.

Previously considered to be relatively unconcerned about environmental pressures, China is now the world’s largest investor in renewable energy while actively forcing the closure of high-emissions businesses and piloting emissions-trading schemes. In the developed world, investment funds are being used as an instrument to apply pressure on behalf of ethical investors.

At an industry level, the biggest concern is with declining orebody grades. Given that the competitiveness of mining companies is largely determined by the quality of their orebody and how it is ‘husbanded’, this may not be a surprise.

Strategy processes typically identify asset portfolios and set development and output targets for assets. Yet when it comes to articulating the competitive advantage that will allow assets to be acquired, developed and operated at a higher return than others in the industry, there is often little detail.

The tendency in many mining companies is to emphasise planning work at the expense of core competitive strategy work. Long asset life and price cycles can lead to fundamental core competencies not retaining sufficient focus, particularly the commercial acumen required in navigating cycles and long-term industry trends.

Executives agree that greater alignment on vision is required between suppliers and asset owners, both for platform change within the industry and for specific assets within their businesses.

A key component, which is common in the car industry, is the cultivation of strategic partnerships.

A network of strategic partnerships around large mining companies would enable risk sharing and value-based relationships with a shared focus on long-term outcomes. These relationships should be defined at a senior level and managed in the context of developing and maximising the value of the asset.

In many instances, relationships that should be strategic are managed transactionally on the basis of cost by procurement officers, putting optimal development pathways at risk.

The differences between large and small mining company innovation approaches are stark. Small mining companies are far more likely to say their innovation programme is failing to meet expectations. Their – very consistent – model is to use an unstructured, ad-hoc innovation approach and rely on existing hierarchies to implement already proven technology.

In contrast, large mining companies claim a far higher degree of success using a predominantly structured, company-wide innovation programme that employs a range of change-management approaches.

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FEATURE REPORT SPECIAL NAME

importance will increase over the next 15 years. This suggests that mining companies could continue to look closely at how innovation in data use could improve their profitability.

“In which specific technical areas will innovation have the greatest impact over the next 15 years?”

STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNICATION

These differences can be attributed to the availability of resources. But they do also illustrate a broader point that technical innovation does not happen without vision, structure and support.

“Data is the last INNOVATION FOCUS are in broad agreement on untapped Executives the areas of focus for their innovation orebody to efforts today, and on those likely to exploit” impact innovation over the next 15

years.

Extraction (chosen by 31% of miners and 34% of supplier respondents respectively), processing (43% and 30%), energy consumption (21% and 39%) and automation (27% and 46%) are the focus for all companies, big and small. The combination of these focal points is not surprising. Mining companies compete

on the basis of the total cost of extraction (capital and operating) and these elements go to the core of doing less work for a given product output.

Each of these areas is fundamental to the core process, and implementing significant change requires systemic design and long-term planning. The outlier of the highest-ranking focus areas is data and analytics, chosen by a surprisingly low number of mining companies relative to service companies, at 5% and 15% respectively.

Many across the industry expect this to be a strong focus in the future, reflecting the increasing focus on data-led operations and optimisation. Some leading mining companies rated data and analytics very highly and, as a whole, the industry is predicting that its

When asked what their companies could do to best improve innovation, the top answer for respondents for the past two years was to link innovation to corporate strategy.

The two most common responses to the question “Why is there a disconnect between strategy and innovation?” were simply: that there is no dedicated innovation strategy, and by inference probably no technology strategy (chosen by 33% of respondents), and that corporate strategy does not define competitive advantage (20%).

The industry overwhelmingly sees innovation as highly important to the success of corporate strategies, so why the difficulty in aligning the two? For over half of companies, this is driven by the fact that that their innovation processes are ad-hoc or unstructured, and are often led by more financially focused chief financial officers.

Recommendations Using these survey findings, we have developed the following recommendations to help companies ensure innovation success: • Develop and link business strategy and innovation strategy: Establish a framework by which corporate strategy directly drives innovation strategy. Look at your long-term drivers and ensure that there is a link to innovation strategy. Mining innovations are characterised by the long timeframes that need to be considered and planned for.

• Clarify intellectual-property stance: Consciously design your intellectual-property stance to balance competitive imperatives with the need for absolute improvement. Target the defence of intellectual property towards those areas where the company has, or is looking to achieve, a competitive advantage.

• Ensure that innovation is not just top-down or bottom-up, but both: The random generation of ideas that innovation requires is unproductive unless undertaken within a clear structure and with clear direction. Enabling the freedom to create and test ideas is important in allowing the serendipitous innovation that cannot be solely directed from the top down.

• Be deliberate on strategic partnerships: Be clear on where your company will have open partnerships and where it will not. Be clear on which relationships are strategic and which ones are cost-focused. With all other partnerships and suppliers, work with them to develop a pathway towards being a strategic partner with aligned innovation programmes.

• Communicate, communicate, communicate: All the best strategy in the world is redundant if no one knows or understands it.

Crystalise innovation strategy into easily communicable and relatable pieces. It is often the companies with the least resources that out-innovate those with capacity – this is because they set direction, expect change and communicate.

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SPECIAL REPORT

Behind the scenes Ailbhe Goodbody attended the unveiling of two Caterpillar products in November and got the inside track on the development and field testing of the new machines

C

aterpillar hosted a Loading and Hauling Mining Focus session for its customers, dealers and some members of the trade press at its Tinaja Hills Demonstration & Learning Center near Tucson, Arizona, in November 2014.

The session included the unveiling of the soon-to-be-launched Cat 994K wheel loader and Cat 6020B hydraulic shovel.

“The end result is that we’ve made a loader that is a good digger. Not all wheel loaders are good diggers, but this one is” Voice of the customer input was integral to the design of the Cat 994K wheel loader

994K wheel loader The Cat 994K wheel loader is Caterpillar’s largest ever wheel loader. Compared with its predecessor, the 994H, the 994K requires fewer passes to load large mining trucks and has higher productivity and a lower cost per unit of material moved. The standard model 994K carries 40.8t per pass, and the high-lift version moves 38.1t per pass – this is 18% and 20% more, respectively, than the 994H. In addition, compared with its forerunner, the new 994K has a 29% increase in payload, 28% more breakout force, 19% more power and 17% more rimpull. Randy Aneloski, marketing specialist for large wheel loaders at Caterpillar, said: “The end result is that we’ve made a loader that is a good digger. Not all wheel loaders are good diggers, but this one is.”

Kurt Norris, wheel loader product manager at Caterpillar, commented: “The platform of this machine really hasn’t changed fundamentally in 25 years. We took about 6-8 months and did a lot of ‘voice of the customer’ (VOC) research –

we really wanted to get the 994K right.

Our design team spent a lot of time talking with customers around the world, making sure that all the features and benefits we put into this machine are truly what the customer wants.”

For example, one issue that came out in VOC research was that customers wanted improved stability. Aneloski explained: “On a wheel loader, you’ve got side-to-side stability and forward-toaft stability. We’ve improved side-to-side stability by giving it a wider footprint. For forward-to-aft stability we moved the fuel tanks from the rear bumper area to the centre, and took the hydraulic tank that used to be in the front of the machine and moved it to the centre area.

“As the fuel tanks reduce their fuel load during the day, the machine would get lighter in the rear, which would affect forward-to-aft stability. Now, by having the tanks in the middle, that change in stability is not nearly as noticeable.”

Greg Gibson, mine manager at Cripple Creek & Victor Gold Mining Co, added:

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Special report

The Cat 6020B hydraulic mining shovel is ideally sized to pair with the Cat 777 series offhighway trucks

“The new shovel has been field tested and validated at sites in Canada, Finland, Suriname and the US”

The Cat 6020B features a new, state-of-the-art cab and operator station

“The stability of the machine has been pretty huge for us. We have a competitor large wheel loader that, when we’re digging on 10% ramps, is very unstable.

The first time we put the 994K out on the 10% ramp, it was able to dig without any issues. We’ve also got a lot of uneven ground and our operators have felt very comfortable operating it across that.”

The use of virtual product development (VPD) allowed the engineering team to use detailed computer simulations to test everything from bolted joints to powertrain, from structures to the manufacturing process itself. This made it possible for the company to test ideas and iterate virtually.

The 994K features a ground-level service centre, which is an important safety feature. Aneloski said: “In the US, the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) tells us that the highest incidence of injuries involves someone getting on or off the equipment, so we try to keep people off the equipment as much as we can – that’s where the ground-level service centre comes in.”

The increased size of the machine has also improved its serviceability. Mike Glen, mining and construction equipment sales at Wagner Equipment, noted: “With the machine being larger, Caterpillar has seized an opportunity to open things up, so to speak. When we get in and pull open compartments, and step down into areas to replace pumps or valves, the access is just incredible. I could literally walk around inside the machine, and that really makes it easy for a technician to replace components. It has been thought out very well; hose layouts have been done with a real common sense, serviceability-first kind of approach.”

Caterpillar has partnered with customers to put the 994K through extensive real-world testing. Bob Parham, an operator who has field-tested a pre-production model of the 994K, commented: “The hoisting on it is absolutely second to none. My load time used to be 3.8-4 minutes per load. But the 994K’s torque and digging power already have that down to 2.5-2.8 minutes per load – and that’s with only 40 hours under my belt on this machine.”

Gibson added: “The loader has exceeded our expectations – by tomorrow [November 11, 2014] we should have about 2,500 hours on the machine [since July 10, 2014] with no major issues and we’ve seen great production out of it. We’re hitting about 630 hours in a month.”

Caterpillar has stated that the 994K wheel loader will be commercially available in the March 2016 quarter.

6020B hydraulic shovel The Cat 6020B hydraulic mining shovel is a brand-new model in the extensive line of Cat hydraulic mining shovels.

Engineered from the ground up, the new shovel features a 22t payload and 224t operating weight.

Announced in 2013, and soon to be commercially available after extensive field testing, the 6020B is designed for simplicity and reliability without compromising safety. It is ideally sized to pair with the Cat 777 series off-highway trucks, providing a 4-5 pass match capability for optimised loading and hauling.

Development on the machine began in 2010 under Bucyrus, just before the company acquired Terex Mining, and Bucyrus was then acquired by Caterpillar in 2011. Both of these acquisitions played a role in the scope for the machine. Caterpillar has stated that the integration of Cat parts and components, as well as Caterpillar systems integration, ensures reliable performance and seamless dealer support.

The team started with virtual

prototyping to come up with the clean-sheet design for the new shovel to make sure all the sizing was correct. The next phase was more detailed design on structures and systems, and finite element analysis (FEA) to ensure that the unit met design targets. Finally, pilot machine prototypes were built for intense testing at Caterpillar’s Tucson Proving Grounds. These test programmes covered everything from engine installation audits to sound and temperature testing to make sure that the machine met its design goals.

Anita Russwurm, new product introduction manager for the 6020B, said: “VOC really drove the requirements of the machine, so every discussion, every design detail is based on the hundreds of customer comments we received during our field trips.

“When we reviewed all the customer comments, what really we found was that customers were looking for three things – safety, simplicity and reliability.”

The 6020B was designed with serviceability in mind – modular

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construction with an exchangeable walk-through power module enables easy access to components and excellent serviceability.

Tim Triscari, service engineer, 6020B at Caterpillar, remarked: “At -45°C everybody’s dressed up like marshmallow men, and there’s plenty of room to walk around inside.”

Danny Bernard, mining account manager at Hewitt Equipment, a Cat dealer, said: “Caterpillar has done a great job listening to the customer needs, and we believe that they responded with a very competitive and performing loading tool. It kept on growing throughout the Field Follow programme – early on we identified some areas of improvement, which have been addressed quickly, so it was really a joint project where the customer, the dealer and the manufacturer worked to come up with the best machine for the customer.”

The new shovel has been field tested and validated at sites in Canada, Finland, Suriname and the US as part of Caterpillar’s Field Follow programme.

These sites were chosen to test the machine in hot and cold climates, along with dusty and rainy environments and harsh digging conditions, to ensure that it can withstand the rugged conditions found at mining sites around the world.

For example, Frank Tegtmeier, technical lead for the 6020B at Caterpillar, explained: “In Suriname, there is 2.5m of rain every year so it gets very muddy. The machine is available with an optional belly plate that covers up the entire area underneath the car body, so that the mud and the dirt on the floor of these mines don’t get up in the hydraulics and do damage.”

The shovel includes an advanced operator cab, which provides excellent visibility, with a large windshield that allows unrestricted lines of sight to the crawler tracks and pit floor, aiding better repositioning of the shovel and safer truck loading.

Kris Ralph, maintenance supervisor at HJ O’Connell, which has been involved in Field Follow, said: “The operators really enjoy the cab. Visibility is excellent, especially the glass on the floor – they’re able to see the tracks, and they’re able to see better when they’re digging and loading. Even with all this glass, the noise level is very low in the cabin.”

The cab design also includes two additional seats for a trainer and an observer - having three seats in the cabin aids with training. Ralph commented: “At our operations in northern Quebec there have been some language barriers,

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days. This was only possible due to so to have an extra person in the cab having the proper equipment, proper during training has been phenomenal.”

The modular design of the 6020B also tooling and properly experienced and trained mechanics there. The modular allows for quick field assembly. Triscari helped with the assembly of the machine design really lets the team do a very well placed out build to reduce costs.” in very harsh conditions up in northern At more ‘normal’ temperatures, or Canada. The team started the build in mid-January 2014, which is the middle of over 0°C, Tim concluded: “With this machine and design, we’d have no the Canadian winter; temperatures at problem building and commissioning the time typically ranged from -35°C to -45°C, sometimes going as low as -50°C. this machine in 8-10 days.”

The 6020B is expected to be available Triscari said: “We completed the build during theMag.pdf June quarter 2015. and commissioning of this machine in 13Press_Mining 14-MC-645.MPS Filter 1 of 11/4/14 9:04

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FEATURE NAME INTERVIEW

Gold medal Synergen Met scooped an award for its innovative cyanide-process plant at the IChemE Global Awards in November 2014.

Carly Leonida caught up with managing director Chris Dunks (pictured) in London the day before the award announcement to find out about the new process

“Every mine has its own challenges and pinch points with cyanide”

Top: Synergen Met’s pilot plant is currently running in Australia and is designed to produce 60t/y of cyanide

A

ustralia-based Synergen Met beat over 60 nominees to win the IChemE Overall Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chemical and Process Engineering.

At the time of this interview, the company was just completing its pilot programme in Australia, and Dunks was on his way to Canada, where the company is in discussions with a major gold miner for the first commercialscale plant.

q

Tell us about Synergen Met’s new cyanide-production process: how does it work and what equipment is needed?

Our concept was initially developed by our technical director, Dr Geoff Duckworth, back in the 1990s while he was working on a cyanide plant development in Gladstone, Australia.

Geoff had exposure to many different technologies in previous roles and he realised that the process could be scaled down, made more efficient and put into a modular plant for operation on site.

We worked together at Jacobs in the mid-2000s, and a couple of years ago we discussed the technology and decided that there was an opportunity to create a model for safer cyanide production and reduced costs.

The pilot plant (which is the size of a 40ft skid) that we’ve built is essentially a miniature processing facility with pipes,

pumps and instrumentation. The process itself centres on a small plasma torch; an electric current is run to create an arc that then reacts with the gases present to produce the gases that you need to make cyanide.

The technology for making the gases isn’t new, and the back end of the process where the actual cyanide is produced is exactly the same as in existing manufacturing; it’s the way that we do it that’s innovative. The gas volumes are much smaller than current commercial production processes, there are no high pressures and the plant has been modularised so that production can take place on site.

q

What were the main drivers for developing the process?

This was demand-driven, on the back of a number of conversations with mining executives in Australia. Once Geoff and I had the technology in place, I picked up the phone and spoke to some clients and asked whether it was relevant to them, and the resounding response was “yes”. People have wanted this technology for 20-25 years… particularly as they came to understand the significant price and control advantages of our plant.

Also, there is a growing awareness of the environmental and community impacts of handling cyanide and difficulties in gaining regulatory approval.

On-site cyanide production is a game changer because it gives the miner control over an essential material in their production process, saves money and improves safety.

For the first time, mining companies can produce cyanide on demand and feed directly into existing mills, which removes the risk of shipping accidents and supply delays, and reduces the need to store large volumes of toxic chemicals in special facilities.

q

What is the current industry standard for sourcing cyanide?

And what benefits do you expect the new process to yield?

At the moment, mining companies truck in solid high-purity cyanide pellets, which mine employees dilute on site, or the cyanide comes as a 20-30% solution. The latter can only be trucked short distances.

In many parts of the world, the cost of transporting cyanide is very high due to remoteness, import issues and so on.

The safety and operational benefits of the new process are massive. Over time, our plant will completely eliminate the transport of cyanide; that’s a significant risk, not just for mining companies but also for local communities that could be impacted by a spill or leak.

The new process eliminates exposure for workers on site if they’re diluting sodium cyanide pellets – in our process no one sees the cyanide, it’s produced in a closed environment and pumped into

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the site’s holding tank. It will also reduce the storage of cyanide on site, which is a major management risk.

Our pilot plant that we’re running in Australia is designed to produce 60t/y of cyanide. An average mine will use between 500t/y and 1,000t/y of cyanide, and there are some sites around the world that use in excess of 10,000t/y. As a result, we’re aiming to create a 450-750t/y commercial plant that can be modularised, with multiples added for mines that need more production.

The size of the pilot plant is limited only by the amount of power that runs through the plasma torch. Most mines have excess power available. Our process uses relatively little power, so the cost of production is low.

In a number of locations globally where the cost of power is low, we’re looking at cutting cyanide costs in half by producing it on site. The cost varies per site but, on average, we’re looking at US$1,500-2,500/t of cyanide, compared with current costs around the world of US$2,000-5,000/t. Larger volumes generally come with a lower cost, but those locations can also have low power costs too, so our process is still very relevant.

q

The main thing is that these companies aren’t in control of the cyanide supply chain or cost.

The cost of cyanide varies so much at each mine site. Our process will dramatically cut those costs and the saving goes straight to the bottom line.

With current gold pricing, that’s a big benefit.

We’re targeting areas of the world where the power supply is reasonable and there’s a restriction on cyanide supply, or the cost of supply is very high.

This means we’re primarily looking at North America, certain areas of Australia, Chile, Peru, Brazil and parts of Europe. There’s a big opportunity.

q

What are the next steps for commercialisation of the technology and does Synergen Met have any improvements/further developments in the pipeline?

The key thing for us in 2015 is building the right technical and execution team.

We’re a small firm that has been running for about seven years as a typical start-up R&D company. We were recently awarded an Australian Engineering Excellence Award (Queensland), and that was the first time we presented what we had to the market.

Now, we’re progressing with additional capital raisings to take a commercial-scale plant into production next year. The mining-services business is taking a hammering at the moment, and we see ourselves as a shining light for investment in this space because we’re a cost reducer with a demanddriven technology.

In the next 12-24 months we will also be introducing a number of enhancements to help reduce costs: we’re looking at making calcium cyanide; the ability to introduce lime into the plant along with the cyanide offers potentially significant cost savings.

We’re also looking at burning some of the residual energy generated by the plant to help offset the cost of energy consumed, and there are other energy-capturing methods that we will be investigating.

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The pilot plant, which is the size of a 40ft skid, is essentially a miniature processing facility with pipes, pumps and instrumentation

I understand pilot testing is going well? What does this involve and what results have you seen?

We’ve seen very good commercial results. The plant is at an active gold mine in Australia, and the aim of the trial is to look at increasing our yield and efficiencies, and driving down the cost of production. Part of that involves working to increase the thermal efficiency of the torch and the availability of the system.

We’re in the final stages of our three-month programme and we’ve hit a number of our testing targets and are very happy with our progress. The next step is to ramp up availability and deliver the final product.

q

The first units are expected to go into production in 2015.

Which mines are you targeting for sales?

There’s a significant amount of interest from top-tier, mid and junior companies.

Every mine has its own challenges and pinch points with cyanide, whether it’s a small site in Peru where they’re struggling to get allocated cyanide and then, when they do, the price is enormous, to blue chips where there are community issues every time they truck cyanide into a site.

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“On-site cyanide production is a game changer because it gives the miner control over an essential material in their production process, saves money and improves safety”

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futurecasting

The Symbiotic Structure In their fourth article for MM, Jeff Loehr and George Hemingway of the Stratalis Group examine what the mining organisation of the future will look like While their need for physical involvement inside the mines will diminish, humans will still be needed to solve problems

F

uturecasting an operation is fun, because it entails blending different technologies and exploring the physical impact on an environment.

In our last articles we explored two operating visions of the future: The Rock Factory and The Living Mine; both concepts derive from observable technology trends and present-day operating innovations.

A lot of future benefit, however, will come from how mines are run and organisations are designed rather than the finding, mining and moving of ore.

The technology advancements that allow for the removal of people from hazards, and create continuous, flexible, more efficient operations, will both enable and require a new way of working.

They also raise new questions. What role will people have in the mines and what will the mining organisation of the future look like?

The Symbiotic Structure Our third scenario, The Symbiotic Structure, paints a picture of what the mining organisation of the future will look like. It is a model we are getting closer to every day.

Here’s the good news for humans; while the need for our physical involvement inside the mines will diminish, we will still be needed to solve problems and manage the business.

Companies, less able to differentiate through improving day-to-day operations, will shift their focus to the future and looking outwards.

Since people will work with information and be less tied to the physical mine, it will be possible to locate them anywhere.

In the future, employees will be focusing on one of three areas: prediction and planning, monitoring and maintenance, and demand and delivery.

George Hemingway and Jeff Loehr

Prediction and planning Edward de Bono, of Thinking Hats

fame, stated that: “In the future, instead of striving to be right at a high cost, it will be more appropriate to be flexible at a lower cost. If you cannot accurately predict the future, then you must flexibly be prepared to deal with various possible futures.”

Exception-driven, big-data enabled operations will elevate management thinking from daily operational fire-fighting.

Management will focus on how to avoid future challenges, such as options to rebalance production around possible market demand fluctuations.

This will involve strategic scenario thinking and real options thinking, as well as stochastic modelling and a better understanding of the societal, regulatory and macroeconomic drivers that create demand.

predicting human needs is a job best done by humans. Demand and delivery employees focus on understanding, managing and meeting the demands of the external market.

These employees interact with the outside world, including stakeholders and customers to balance supply and demand and better align corporate needs with stakeholder needs. They set the parameters for product development and operations, manage vendors and logistics issues and ensure that production meets demand.

No matter how much technology takes over, the power of human creativity and the comfort that a name, handshake and a smile carry will still have currency in the future.

Monitoring and maintenance Humans will design, program and maintain the machines that operate mines. As in the Rock Factory, even if machines operate on an independent basis, people will still be needed to maintain them.

Humans will also need to intervene (but only when the system indicates that an ‘exception’ has occurred) when the machines don’t work or hit a snag that their programming cannot overcome.

The well-worn concept of a remote operating centre as a centralised control room with centralised people will morph into something much more decentralised and broader in scope and scale.

Enabled by virtual reality and immersion technology, people will be able to work and connect to anything from anywhere in the world. Mines will operate 24/7 with continuous, remote management shifts from time zone to time zone to match production.

Miners will look idler than they do today. Instead of actively moving ore, they will watch and monitor for exceptions and variability, addressing

Demand and delivery Machines may do nearly everything else for us, but managing, interacting and

Operating in this new environment

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issues as they surface. When they do surface, teams will collaborate around factual data to solve problems.

Engineers, production managers, customer-facing resources and vendors will come together virtually to define, develop and deliver solutions in real-time.

Once solutions are developed, immersion technology or humanmachine convergence will allow physical maintenance to be performed remotely. Operators will be able to visit the mining environment by inhabiting the machines themselves, whether in a pit, underwater or deep underground in a nano-machine. The technology will enable them to see, hear and feel as if they were at the mine site, without ever leaving the office environment.

Glimmers of possibility Much of this thinking has already been put to test in one form or another, although less so in mining than in many industries. There are many examples including: • Decentralised operating centres and virtual reality: Used daily by a

•

variety of industries such as oil and gas exploration and transportation, remote operating centres enable the control of everything from underground drill bits to the monitoring of large truck fleets, from halfway around the world. Virtual-reality rooms, enabled by blending technologies such as Oculus Rift, Kinect VR, advanced processors and haptic feedback, allow organisations to enter immersive environments to command and control.

Integrated and collaborative decision making: The same oil and gas companies make decisions by gathering impromptu groups together from various companies, regardless of where they are in the world. Using real-time net-presentvalue calculations that take into account the latest information and expected future scenarios, all participants see the same data to collaboratively make key decisions.

We are using the same collaborative scenario-driven thinking today with consumer products, heavy industry and even some mining companies.

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• Managing by exception and

predictive analytics: Predictive analytics have already come to parts of the mining industry through companies such as GE, often within the maintenance function. In addition, most of our future visions adopted by leading miners involve remote-controlled systems that allow machines to operate semi-autonomously, with people becoming involved only when there is an error or an issue to be addressed.

Enabling new business models As mining operations change, so will their management. People will be able to focus on areas of the business that are only given cursory attention today.

This will change the way we work.

These developments will enable new business models and new ways of thinking about how mining companies extract value.

Next month we will explore ‘The Fluid Firm’ and how the mining company of the future may not look like the mining company of today.

“The power of human creativity and the comfort that a name, handshake and a smile carry will still have currency in the future”

The Stratalis Group is a full-service strategy and innovation consultancy focused on helping companies in the resource industry to discover, develop and deliver new pathways to growth, increased profitability and ROI. See: www.stratalisgroup.com

Your IMT® equipment gets the job done, day in and day out, to tackle even your toughest jobs. That’s commitment.

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Mining in the data Increasingly advanced analytics designed to turn the “astounding quantities of data … being measured by an increasing number of data sources” in exploration and mining are set to drive the industry towards new productivity, safety and cost goals, a landmark Mining Big Data Guide has reported Anglo American was one major talking up the need for the industry to get smarter in its use of technology in 2014

“Soon, we will see the lines between planning and design, and execution and construction blur, or even disappear”

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he guide, published by Mining Magazine‘s sister title Mining Journal, confirms that big data and big data analytics will be vital to an industry entering a clear transformation period over the next 5-10 years.

“For mining companies, being able to use and analyse big data will be the difference between success and failure in the future,” says Georg Gradl, SAP director, mining and metals.

Global enterprise software and business data-analytics leader SAP was one of six key contributors to the Mining Big Data Guide; others included Australia’s Maptek and Reflex, US-listed telecom Level 3 Communications and its African partner Liquid Telecom, and Swedish-owned mining technology company Hexagon Mining, part of Hexagon AB. “With the type of wrap-around technology available for big data, companies should never again be in the dark about their assets and should realise dramatic efficiency and cost improvements through better scheduling of maintenance and oversight of equipment,” Gradl says. “Mining may be one of the oldest enterprises in human history, but it can now be at the cutting edge of technology.”

Hexagon Mining president Guilherme Bastos Alvarenga says in the guide that the need for mining companies to have a holistic view of a mine – one with clarity, accuracy and timely reporting that everyone in an organisation understood – is central to the industry moving to a new level of productivity and financial performance.

“It will be the foundation of the digital mine of the future,” the Brazilian says.

“Without that view, cost efficiency is not only lost, but escalating losses from under-informed decisions send ripples downstream costing millions of dollars from unintended consequences, money that could be going to the bottom line.”

Maptek’s general manager Australia, Peter Johnson, explains that successful miners of the next 10 years will be set apart from those who fail to properly use, or ignore, the data they have access to. Johnson started developing long-range 3-D laser scanners for application in the mining industry 15

years ago. The work was boosted by an Australian government R&D grant and Johnson led the team that developed the first Maptek I-Site laser scanning products, released to market in 2004.

“There is a thirst for more data, and more combinations of data, and the technology to enable its exploitation is being applied in the mining industry in new ways thanks to increased connectivity and data analysis and visualisation capabilities,” Johnson says.

“A mining operation is always changing, so the measurement needs to be repeated frequently and continually during the life of the mine. Astounding quantities of data are being measured by an increasing number of data sources.”

Immersed in data Johnson says miners can now work “in the data”. “They are able to conduct various types of work on the data, actually during some of the processes that may be either collecting or using the data, so people can now be said to be working in the data,” he says.

“Workflows, tools and systems are now so immersed in data that it is everywhere.

“If you allow the Google app to access all the information on your smartphone, you will see this in action.

Instantly, all of your relevant data is collected, sorted, analysed and presented to you in the context of your normal day. You have been placed into your own data.”

Johnson says the creation of an industrial Internet of Things – where ubiquitous ‘smart’ devices in a network communicate with each other in a contextually relevant way – is also a key stepping stone for miners.

“Automated data sharing between systems and equipment is now possible, and can deliver productivity outcomes as a result of the accuracy, speed and precision that automation creates,” he says. “At this juncture, the concept of data having a source or origin, which is then followed by some process or other, and an end point – usually a report or database entry – starts to become blurred.

“The path of data use is not simple, and multiple, different uses may be enabled for a certain data type.

“At the core of a mine’s operational technical data is the block model. This is a mathematical, statistical model splitting the resource into 3-D geometrical and attributed shapes of various sizes so as to accurately represent the geology, geochemistry, structure, shape, location and size of the resource.

“An accurate block model makes a successful mine, and a massive amount of data and effort goes into creating, maintaining and updating the block models for a mine. Block models can comprise millions of blocks, with each block containing several hundred attributes. The block model will initially be created by exploration and project-development geologists. Drilling,

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New visualisation technologies are playing a vital role in big-data value extraction

“This type of integration leads to great leaps forward in precision and productivity”

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assays and downhole geochemistry data will all contribute to the creation of a block model, which may prove a resource of economic viability that will eventually become a mine.

“However, it is during the mine’s operation that the block model is able to deliver its greatest value, and also benefits significantly from the addition and combination of a vastly greater amount of information as it becomes available. Allowing machines and plant equipment to communicate and transfer data in a meaningful, yet ad-hoc, way between themselves is now starting to become possible, enabling machine-tomachine applications in mining to squeeze even more value out of more data.”

Johnson explains that the most immediate impact of this is cost reduction. “Consider a pit wall that is constructed according to a particular design. When it is complete, the shovels, excavators and dozers are all relocated to work on some other task. Following this relocation, surveyors would have, in the past, measured the pit wall, usually in some detail,” he says.

“If there was any nonconformity – possibly a geotechnical hazard such as

an overhang, or significant deviation from the design surface or batter angle – it was either too late, or time-consuming and costly to return dozers and excavators to the location to rectify the error, which in turn causes delays in the short-term mine plan, and additional operating costs.”

Measure, analyse, report It is now possible to measure, analyse and report on pit-wall conformance in real time, and have the shovel operator, production-shift crew supervisor and anyone else interested view conformance reports, volumes and sections

within minutes of the surface being created. Errors can be rectified immediately.

“This type of integration leads to great leaps forward in precision and productivity,” Johnson adds.

“Soon, we will see the lines between planning and design, and execution and construction blur, or even disappear. This will happen as the level of integration and online data analysis and communication increases so as to cause the mine design, planning and execution value chain to become a complex closed-loop feedback system.

“Here the overall objectives of a

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a discussion on technology, including project-management and supply-chain solutions to complex communication and simulation tools.”

Digital investment doubles

long-term plan are targeted by a self-correcting and self-governing set of systems and equipment working in concert to achieve those goals. This is not too far in the future now.”

Johnson says connectivity is the big enabler. It is increasingly common for sites, especially surface mines, to be connected and well covered with WiFi or 3G/4G networks.

“While it can still be quite expensive, this connectivity is a huge enabler not only for the collection of data from various primary and secondary data sources, but also for the transfer, dissemination and communication of the results of whatever analysis, comparison or reporting is created from the data,” he says.

“When this is coupled with the

increasing technical capability for mobile computing on tablets, phones and other devices, another advance becomes possible.”

Alison Marwick, director for natural resources business EMEA, at Level 3, says connectivity is the key enabler for analysis, comparison and reporting of data, as well as its collection, transfer, dissemination and communication.

The veteran of nearly 20 years in IT and telecommunications says mining companies are rolling out more connectivity and more technology to transform their operations. She quotes Chris Holmes of IDC Manufacturing Insights: “A fundamental rethink is happening on the way [mining companies] are run. There is a focus on productivity and efficiency that leads to

Accenture reported in 2014 that one-quarter of North American mining executives said their overall digital investment has more than doubled in the past three years. Ninety-six per cent of companies intend to increase their investments again over the next three years (with 33% saying they would increase their investment significantly).

“What this shows is that, in effect, connectivity has become the arterial network of the mining body – ensuring safe and efficient operations, and informing better commercial decisions,” Marwick says.

“While connecting up mines and deploying more technology to create smarter mines might be a no-brainer, getting the connectivity piece of the jigsaw right can make the difference between a mine being viable or not, and therefore a mining company flourishing or floundering.”

To read the Mining Big Data Guide, go to http://bit.ly/1tYrYrl

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Rio Tinto is developing new ways to maximise the value of the vast amounts of data its operations produce

“What this shows is that connectivity has become the arterial network of the mining body”

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feature naMe Software

One of the visulalisations available in Micromine 2014

Developer goes all out with latest release

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ustralian software developer MICROMINE says it is already hard at work on the next version of its flagship exploration and mining package after delivering what must have been a record number of new features in the 2014 re-release of the product.

The 29-year-old company says it added more than 310 new features for users of Micromine 2014, reflecting an ongoing focus on ensuring that its software meets “evolving user needs and industry conditions”.

Micromine 2014 allows users to capture, manage and interpret critical data, and is relevant to all stages of the mineral-extraction process, with easy-to-use modelling, estimation and design tools to simplify day-to-day production tasks.

“The Micromine product-management and development teams worked tirelessly to release Micromine 2014 only a year after the previous version, Micromine 2013, and to ensure that the application and its developments exceeded client expectations,” says product manager Daria Lvova. Updates were aimed at meeting evolving needs

of “all users, from GIS specialists and geologists through to mine engineers”.

“In addition to the company’s ongoing R&D programme, which has been supplemented by the largest ever grant awarded to a mining-software company by the Australian government, the Micromine product-management team manages an incredibly robust beta-testing programme,” Lvova says.

StatiStiCal funCtionS The most significant Micromine 2014 enhancement is the major update of statistical functions and the inclusion of new graphing functionality, providing improved visuals and increased user interactivity, according to Lvova. New

functionality, including ‘box-and-whisker’ plots and a new semi-variogram map, ensures that users can easily produce what they need with minimal effort, saving time, she says.

Although all users benefit from improved workflows, they are most pertinent to exploration and resource geologists who use statistics on a daily basis. The program’s stereonet display has also undergone a re-write, and is now more visual and advanced. New options are said to make summarising structural orientations easier.

Micromine 2014 has predictably been converted to a full 64-bit application to keep it technologically relevant after earlier versions used a hybrid 32/64-bit framework. Underlying systems such as wireframes and drill-hole databases were modified as part of the update.

Lvova says Micromine 2014 also provides enhanced pit-design tools, new road and switchback options, and new surface road design tools, plus CAD enhancements such as new snap modes, which allow users to easily create a string that follows a surface wireframe. A dynamic input mode allows specific numbers – such as a gradient or distance – to be entered in the middle of a graphical editing session.

“The most significant builDing bloCKS enhancement is Meanwhile, new block-model display the major update options, including interactive block visibility, mean users can display or hide of statistical blocks in the model by dragging sliders functions and on a histogram of data values. data values can be coloured using the inclusion of theThe same colour set as Vizex, making it new graphing easy to relate visible blocks with the functionality” slider positions. Drill-hole aligned

Micromine 2014 introduces many improvements compared with earlier versions

hatches also now provide more visually appealing results by aligning patterns to drill-hole traces. The application’s Plot Editor functionality has been improved, continuing previous enhancement work.

Lvova says users save time with the Micromine 2014 Plot Editor by being able to easily and quickly edit properties of plot features with a single click.

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Software

BOAMine looks for deeper market access Collahuasi in Chile, one of the existing bigname users of BOAMine’s DeepMine software

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Chilean firm looking to fill what it perceives as a significant void in the mine-planning software market believes a real tester of a year for mining technology suppliers generally could still provide opportunities for it to expand its business footprint beyond its domestic market.

The chief operating officer at Business Oriented Applications Mine (BOAMine), Guido Juárez, tells Mining Magazine from Santiago that the fledgling software provider has presented at international conferences in Brazil and Australia, and is currently having discussions with “international customers and re-sellers to bring DeepMine to a larger audience”.

Eighteen months after launching the DeepMine V1 strategic optimiser for open-pit mines at a mine-planning conference in Santiago, BOAMine has achieved good traction in the market with some significant international miners operating in Chile. They include copper giant Codelco, Anglo American and Glencore-controlled Collahuasi, Australia-based PanAust, Antofagasta Minerals and BOAMine’s parent, mining-services company Gestión y Economía Minera (GEM).

“We have implemented DeepMine with many mining operations through direct licensing of the software or using it ourselves and providing the results as a service to mining companies,” Juárez says.

Basically, the challenge for us was to do Broader focus something Spun out of seven-year-old GEM at the different, end of 2011, BOAMine initially provided mining evaluation services. In 2010, it and for that broadened this focus to include strategy we needed and economics.

“GEM joined Codelco’s Programa de to develop Proveedores de Clase Mundial the opti- [world-class supplier programme] to misation develop strategic-mine-planning-underuncertainty software,” Juárez says. That ourselves was in 2012, and the project resulted in

the formation of BOAMine and then the July 2013 official release of DeepMine.

“I was approached [in 2012] to design the initial architecture of DeepMine, and to form and lead a team of software engineers to build it,” Juárez explains.

“The formal development process started in August 2012, and in March 2013 we were doing industrial tests with the support of Codelco through its world-class supplier programme.

“The team at GEM had done some research on theoretical tools for open-pit mine planning, and in early 2011 they

realised that the strategic mine-planning process and the software tools built to support it relied too heavily on the results of the Lerchs-Grossman (LG) algorithm [generating what are called nested pits].

“Everything else comes from that initial optimisation and is strongly influenced by it. The only major change to its results is done basically by hand during phase design when, with the aid of CAD tools, some art and – hopefully – lots of experience, a mining engineer translates the mathematical results into a set of operational phases to organise mine development in time.

“The problem is that the LerchsGrossman algorithm, even though it has been incredibly helpful, is an optimal solution to a problem that is not the same problem as strategic mine planning. Lerchs-Grossman’s problem has basic assumptions that discard fundamental complexities of the real problem.” Principally, it assumed there were no time constraints and no limits on how much material could be mined or processed.

“This is the same as thinking that you are going to extract the whole mine instantly and immediately get all the benefit,” Juárez says.

“In the real world, a deposit can take 20-50 plus years to mine and you have to account for the restrictions that imposes.

Also, you only have so much capacity to process, transport or stock ore. The problem is exponentially more complex.”

Current practice Current industry practice is generally to take several LG runs and assemble them together to derive a logical sequence.

Juárez argues that a limited and static algorithm can’t provide the best dynamic sequence. “Despite its common acceptance, there is no mathematical basis to think it can,” he says.

He maintains that all strategic mine-planning software available – with the notable exception of BHP Billiton’s proprietary Blasor tool developed over the past 10 or so years – schedules either designed phases or the LG pits directly.

“So the optimisation can only help you do the best you can, given your existing design,” Juárez adds.

Most strategic analysis was reduced to schedule optimisation, which could “distort the relative value of strategic alternatives”. And, given that the best way to go about this was to create a specific mine design for each strategic alternative, with limited resources most teams had to do this with only two or three of the most promising scenarios.

“Basically, the challenge for us was to do something different, and for that we needed to develop the optimisation ourselves,” Juárez explains.

“First, we wanted to start from the block model and from the information of every block, along with all relevant operational mining restrictions and economic parameters, derive a dynamic sequence for mine exploitation, looking to maximise net present value (NPV).

“Second, and this is probably the main reason why there is very little industrial development of tools such as DeepMine, the mathematical complexity of the real problem is such that it cannot be solved with traditional mathematical programming methods if you want to work at block level. So we set out to write our own optimisation engine using domain-specific knowledge and heuristics.”

Hence DeepMine is design software that takes into account the time value of money, capacity and blending restrictions, and all other strategic considerations, from the point of the block model.

From there it generates a dynamic sequence, and an extraction and processing schedule.

“This solves the problem in one step, instead of the traditional two,” Juárez says. “This allows [the user] to really test each strategic alternative and realise its value, without the need to design first.

With DeepMine, design comes after the strategy has been settled.

“The software simultaneously schedules and creates different possible mining sequences, organised in automat-

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ically generated phases. This is important because it brings optimisation into a process that has until now been manual [phase design].

“The result you get from DeepMine is the best out of multiple possible sequences and is controlled by specific user parameters. This automatic process can be enhanced and refined over time, but there are some unique abilities required to produce a sound phase design that even very advanced artificial intelligence may not be able to reproduce effectively.

“So, the intention with DeepMine’s automatically generated phases is that they are used, instead of or along with the results of Lerchs-Grossman, as the key input to guide a final, much more informed, phase-design process.”

BOAMine’s team of 10 – including software engineers, PhDs in software and mineral economics, industrial engineers and supporting staff – has clearly been inventive and, so far, successful in securing DeepMine early breakthroughs.

The addition of more sales and business-development manpower looks like the obvious path to broader market penetration. Market headwinds notwithstanding.

An image from a Ventsim simulation

Chasm to add Pumpsim by mid-year

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iche mining software developer Chasm Consulting says it remains on track to deliver its new Pumpsim 3D mine-water management software by mid-2015.

The author of Ventsim Visual claims the “exciting addition” to its product range will aid accurate pumping and liquid-transport simulation and network data mapping.

Mining engineer and now veteran software designer Craig Stewart, principal of Chasm, says Pumpsim simulates pumping and transportation of liquids and slurries through piping

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systems and networks. “We have been busy developing our new Pumpsim pumping simulation software,” he says.

The product is “highly customisable and easy to learn”.

Model and simulate Built around the familiar interface and graphics of Ventsim Visual, Pumpsim can model and simulate water networks such as pumping and dewatering systems in mines and processing plants, and provides a “full 3-D dynamic environment to provide the most accurate simulation and data” from a network.

“The product is highly customisable and easy to learn”

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Pumpsim can be used to build pipe models in “true-scale 3-D”, overlay 3-D solid models of other infrastructure over pipe networks, estimate optimum pipe sizing, model and monitor flow, pressure and pump performance, import designs and solids from AutoCad, and model elevation adjustment of pipes over surface terrain wireframes or contours.

Meanwhile, Chasm says the second version of its CSafe workforce occupational health-and-safety management software package is due for release this month. CSafe 2.0, developing into “a complete and comprehensive safety and training management system”, is being used by mine operators, shipping companies and contractors in Australia, the Philippines and South America, according to the vendor.

Ventilation modelling Ventsim Visual 4 is also nearing completion, Chasm says. The mining industry’s top-selling mine ventilation modelling and management software is said to have “made big inroads” into the Chinese coal market in recent years and “continues to gain wide popularity in many countries for not only mining, but also in civil and research applications”.

The software is to appear in its latest form in the current quarter.

New features and improvements will include the following: • Fan curves on PDF files can be imported and fan curves digitised directly onto the paper, eliminating tedious fan point data entry. Multiple fan-blade angles can be included on the same fan; • Fan structure resistance can be included in simulations; • Full movie video can be used for recording of work at any time, for presentations, training and demonstration; • Video recording includes time-lapse video for long simulation, and automated image saving; • Better support for importing Autocad DWG graphics; and • Importing includes full Microstation DGN file support for the first time.

Chasm says improvements to dynamic simulation speed and accuracy have also been made, including to VentFIRE simulations, while the popular LiveView feature has also been enhanced to enable asynchronous data collection (without delays) and real-time transient simulation of sensor data to showing both sensor and simulated condition throughout the mine. This can be updated in real time.

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Accurate data a key to process-plant gains

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he managing director of a leading, specialist Australian engineering firm has at least two reasons to be optimistic that a recent steady flow of mineral process plant optimisation work will continue in 2015.

MIPAC’s Eddie De Rivera says one is the run of successful outcomes achieved by the company last year.

The second is the scope for significant improvement at many – De Rivera argues most – plants highlighted by both MIPAC’s extensive industry experience over the past 17 years, and the recent optimisation work it’s been doing.

“Many of MIPAC’s clients in mining and minerals processing have reduced capital expenditure and have focused on optimising assets this past year,” De Rivera said in the firm’s latest newsletter.

“They aim to achieve more with less.

“Clients have increasingly called on us to make the most of what they’ve already got by adopting MIPAC Process Advantage (MPA), a stage-gate approach which sees MIPAC audit sites and prioritise process control changes that, though sometimes minor, reap considerable gains in productivity and efficiencies.”

De Rivera said MIPAC’s operational intelligence products complemented its process control services, helping clients better understand and optimise plant data management.

“We have also developed a MIPAC Vantage data visualisation tool with PI Asset Framework exploring capabilities.

This tool, which uses a standard web browser, is empowering clients with operational data from their PI System to make better informed decisions to improve productivity,” he said.

Back to basics At the recent Automining 2014 conference in Chile, attended by about 280 automation specialists, MIPAC business development manager Darren Hill zeroed in on the theme of fixing process-control basics to drive productivity improvements.

Hill said analysing evidence from plant control systems was essential to prioritising plant control and instrumentation fixes, and that the analysis and prioritisation should occur before plant operators invested in process control solutions.

“In challenging commodity markets, mining companies typically focus on process optimisation instead of making large capital investments to expand or build plants,” Hill said in Santiago. But

process improvements could still be sizeable investments that should be managed systematically, observing industry best practice, to deliver productivity gains.

Operational analytics from plantwide data systems could be used to determine what needed fixing and in what order. “Such analysis sometimes provides the basis for simply fixing an instrument, adjusting a control strategy or implementing operator training,” Hill said.

MIPAC business development manager Darren Hill (left) and MD Eddie De Rivera on a recent trip to Chile

Expertise shortage A widespread shortage of on-site expertise often meant advanced process control solutions were not properly supported and therefore couldn’t generate the productivity improvements expected. MIPAC’s experience also indicated site personnel or managers aware of instrumentation or support issues didn’t always prioritise addressing them, “compounding problems”.

A ‘back to basics’ approach helped companies understand how to prioritise process improvements based on evidence and to achieve a high return on plant investments, Hill said.

“One such [client] engagement resulted in an overall improvement in recoveries for both gold and silver worth in excess of A$15 million per annum (US$12 million) with a payback of less than a month,” he said.

“If your business case is based on evidence, then your expectation of a return will be sound,” he concluded.

“If your business case is based on evidence, then your expectation of a return will be sound”

Enjoyed this feature?

Read more software articles online at www.MiningMagazine.com

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screening

FLSmidth Ludowici screens readied for transport

Screen time Ailbhe Goodbody spoke to some of the leading screening suppliers about up and coming technologies

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“The design trend that we notice is most prevalent is the growth of the selfcleaning screenmedia market”

here are a number of factors to consider when choosing screens for an operation – key items include the feed material and its characteristics, density, moisture content, the size of the material being fed to the screen, the tonnage needed in the process, the desired separation size and the overall process objectives.

Of these, the type of material to be screened is one of the most important considerations. Duncan High, division manager for process equipment technology at WS Tyler, says: “If it is abrasive, we recommend a more durable screen with higher wear life at the beginning of a screen deck. If the material is dirty and prone to blinding, we recommend a self-cleaning screen. If the material is likely to cause pegging, we recommend a screen with anti-pegging capabilities.”

When selecting the best screen media, details of the screen application such as feed-material abrasiveness, top size, moisture content and overall circuit requirements are also critical.

“Finding the balance between wear life and open area is the most important aspect in choosing screen media,”

suggests High. “Increasing the open area normally leads to screens with a lower wear life. Screens with a high wear life generally reduce the open area.”

There are many screen-media options, and different styles and configurations can vary between media material type (such as woven wire, self-cleaning, polyurethane, punch plate or rubber), opening size and type and installation/fastening style (such as modular or tensioned).

Alain Durand, vice-president of international sales for Major Wire, recommends: “Before a producer addresses screen-media choices or modifications, a complete screen-box evaluation and any necessary repairs to the screen box should take place to ensure it is working properly. If the screen box is not operating correctly, new screen media will not help production and the screen media will likely fail.”

Design trends Trends in screen design are currently tending towards more efficiency and capacity. Edwin Sauser, product manager at Terex Minerals Processing Systems,

says: “Manufacturers are adding elliptical, high-energy motions to their screen product lines due to the higher efficiency and capacity relative to size.”

This can be done when upgrading existing facilities to increase capacity without increasing the screen footprint.

Another trend is to incorporate features that reduce maintenance and downtime costs.

Michael Schum, sales manager, metallurgy at Schenck Process, explains: “The ongoing need to reduce power consumption has made the mining industry look at the way processing plants are now being designed. For example, instead of using two screens, which use more power and cost more, a single screen can often be used.”

Durand says: “The design trend that we notice is most prevalent is the growth of the self-cleaning screenmedia market. Major pioneered this technology, and it has evolved into our high-performance, premium Flex-Mat 3 line. No other screen manufacturer can provide a self-cleaning screen with the individually vibrating wires in a modular design.”

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Update from manufacturers

Mining Magazine spoke to various manufacturers of screens and screen media to find out about their latest products and projects.

Other global manufacturers not detailed below include Joest, Metso, Powerscreen, Sandvik, Sepro, Tabor and Weir Minerals.

Deister Machine Co Deister launched its new BFO11224-EX2 mine-duty screen at CONEXPO 2014 in Las Vegas, US, in March 2014, which the company states offers the next generation in machine size and production output. The 12ft x 24ft (365.8cm x 731.5cm) horizontal, single-deck unit is designed to deliver day-to-day reliability and high-volume capacities in a variety of hard-rock mining and mineral-processing applications.

The BFO-11224 mine-duty screen features the Deister EX series of geared exciters, which are designed to create the force output required to drive large screens. The geared exciters feature all-steel components, specially coated bearing inner races to deter wear on shafts, and shafts that are case-hardened and ground for minimal wear. Mechanisms are sealed to minimise oil contaminants and to maximise bearing life. Seals ride on replaceable ceramiccoated spacers to minimise heat and increase seal life up to 10 times that of conventional steel spacers and seals.

To meet the most stringent structural specifications, the BFO-11224-EX2 features fully bolted construction as well as the use of A572-grade 50 steel. For ease of maintenance, the unit is engineered with independent cross beams.

The Deister mine-duty horizontal BFO model screen series features a size range from 3ft x 4ft (91.4cm x 122cm) to 12ft x 28ft (365.8cm x 853.4cm) units, and deck configurations from a single deck up to four decks. Models are either eccentric shaft driven or geared exciter driven.

Deister can customise a screen to suit exacting requirements such as existing footprints, restricted overhead space, high-volume processing and more.

individual screen decks positioned one above the other and operating in parallel, the Stack Sizer can be fitted with Derrick’s high-capacity, long-life, urethane screen surfaces.

In the Derrick Stack Sizer, a customengineered single- or multiple-stage Flo-Divider system representatively splits the feed slurry to each Stack Sizer, and then to the decks of each machine.

Ample space is provided between each of the screen decks for easy observation during operation, and easy access for maintenance and replacement of screen surfaces. Each screen deck has an undersize collection pan that discharges to a launder with a single outlet. Similarly, the oversize from each

of the screen decks collects in a single hopper with a common outlet.

Easy to service and with low operating and maintenance costs, hundreds of Stack Sizers are currently operating at mineral-processing plants worldwide.

Derrick is also known for its screen surfaces; the company fabricates compatible screen panels for use on all models in its equipment line. Derrick’s line of Polyweb polyurethane surfaces have openings ranging from 6.2mm to as fine as 45 microns (325 mesh), and with open areas ranging from 35% to 45% they are suited to a wide variety of wet and dry applications. These screens combine long life with high open area, capacity and performance rivalling that of conventional woven wire screens. In addition, its anti-blinding properties now make it feasible to screen materials previously considered difficult or even impossible to screen.

The company states that it is not uncommon for Derrick urethane screens to last 10-30 times longer than conventional woven wire panels. They are also lightweight and easy to install.

Valine says: “While useful life varies with duty and opening dimensions, a 6- to 12-month life is quite common.

These surfaces are also non-blinding with slotted openings and tapered relief angles.”

A broad range of panel openings are currently available to fit screening machines manufactured by Derrick.

However, where a specific opening or

Deister can customise a screen to suit exacting requirements

“The company states that it is not uncommon for Derrick urethane screens to last 10-30 times longer than conventional woven wire panels”

Derrick Corp Derrick is a family-owned company that was founded in 1951 and is located in Buffalo, New York, US. The company designs and manufactures highfrequency screening machines for wet and dry fine-particle separations, and serves a wide variety of industries such as iron ore, coal, fertilisers, gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, industrial minerals, silica sand and kaolin.

Derrick’s Stack Sizer screening machine is used for efficient, fine-particle wet screening. Consisting of up to five

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Hundreds of Derrick Stack Sizers are currently operating at mineral processing plants worldwide

January / February 2015 20/01/2015 15:26

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screening

mine in Peru will be commissioning 20 large FLSmidth double-deck bananatype screens in 2015. In addition, FLSmidth has just completed the installation of 15 screens at Antofagasta Minerals’ Antucoya copper mine in northern Chile, which are due for start-up soon.

Major Wire

Major Wire’s premium FlexMat 3 line is now available in both tensioned and modular designs

preferred panel design is not available, one can be developed. In all cases, a Derrick engineer will work closely with each application to determine the appropriate panel and to address issues such as chemical compatibility or temperature.

Derrick’s main markets are the US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Russia, India, China, Australia and South Africa.

FLSmidth

“We are working on larger and smarter designs. Our accrued knowledge over 30 years is allowing us to do these things while minimising technical risk”

FLSmidth, which acquired Australian company Ludowici in 2012, makes all types of screens – including linearmotion vibrating screens and feeders, high-frequency dewatering screens, circular-motion screens and exciter drives. Its screens range from 0.6m wide to 4.8m wide, and in lengths from 1.2m all the way up to 11m. Total screen mass can vary between 200kg and 60,000kg depending on the application.

Eddie McKerr, global product director for screens at FLSmidth, notes: “Customisation is a key part of what we can offer and can be a differentiating factor. Custom retrofits are also quite common in problem installations.”

The company also makes a wide variety of rubber, polyurethane and steel screen media to suit almost every application, along with a range of ancillary equipment for screening operations.

McKerr says: “We are working on larger and smarter designs. Our accrued knowledge over a 30-year history is allowing us to do these things while minimising technical risk.”

FLSmidth’s market for screening is global, in line with the company’s footprint. Asked about whether the company would launch any new screening products in 2015, McKerr replies: “This will depend on demand, but it is safe to say that we are constantly innovating in order to deliver genuine solutions to our customers.”

Freeport McMoRan’s Cerro Verde

Major Wire manufactures screen media, with the aim of helping its customers achieve maximum screening performance to produce the highest spec material for the least cost possible.

Major’s Flex-Mat 3, which is available for tensioned and modular screen decks, has vibrating wires that virtually eliminate common screening problems while accelerating stratification, significantly increasing throughput. Its design binds the wires with flexible polyurethane strips, completely eliminating the cross wires with high-wear spots that are common to woven-wire and some self-cleaning screen media.

“Unlike most other screen media, this design allows the wires to vibrate independently along the full length of the screen, directly through the strips, from hook to hook,” explains Durand.

“The vibration of Flex-Mat 3’s wires vary from 6,000 to 10,000 cycles per minute – up to 13 times greater than the standard vibration of a screen box, which is around 800 cycles per minute.”

The higher vibration frequency accelerates the natural stratification process of the deck bed. The increase in screening action spreads material over the entire screen’s surface area on all decks, moving the material down the screen faster, while optimising contact for maximum throughput with no carryover – resulting in a high-quality retained product. The wires’ independent vibration virtually eliminates screen build-up from blinding, pegging or clogging.

In addition, the company says that its OptimumWire is the key durability component in most of its screen media.

It is manufactured with a higher carbon and higher manganese content than traditional woven wire, to provide more resistance to abrasion and better performance. Its high ductility, hardness and tensile strength make it less susceptible to breaking in high-impact conditions and with highly abrasive materials, so it lasts longer and minimises labour, maintenance and lost-production costs.

Major has been focusing efforts on expanding its network of dealer-certified

screening experts. “These dealer experts undergo rigorous training and testing in both the classroom and the field,” explains Durand. “In order to become a screening expert, our Major-authorised dealer salespeople must also conduct one of our screen-maintenance seminars, and at least one screen plant audit that includes a detailed report of the screen-box condition and current screen-media performance.”

Additionally, Major has been vetting and working with dedicated dealerships around the world to qualify and open woven-wire cut-and-hook facilities, in order to provide the quickest deliveries possible for its customers. These facilities receive woven-wire panels from Major, and then trim and hook the panels to order for customers. The company states that with local delivery, customers can receive their screen media within just a few days.

Major has been a global manufacturer for years. However, it has recently expanded its presence in Europe through its partnership with Haver & Boecker.

Durand adds: “Our presence in Africa has been strengthened recently with the signing of two new dealers to represent all of Major’s lines. ELB Equipment has branches to serve all of the provinces in South Africa, Burundi, Kenya, Lesotho, Rwanda and Uganda, as well as affiliated dealers that cover other sub-Saharan countries, including Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, the Republic of the Congo, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Techno Cast now represents Major’s lines in Algeria.”

Major is currently customising specific screen-media solutions for certain applications with key customers.

Polydeck Screen Corp Polydeck has been providing modular screening solutions for the aggregate, coal and mining industries for over 35 years. Its range includes an extensive selection of screen panels, frame systems and accessories.

The company offers special material formulations, a wide range of screenpanel design options and specialised frame services such as epoxy coating and rubber lining to meet challenges regarding wear life, material flow rate, plugging and corrosion.

Polydeck also has an excellent track record in trommel design and construction for semi-autogenous grinding (SAG), rod and ball-mill applications. The company’s PipeTop II frame design,

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World Leader

in Mineral Sizing

An independent company that remains focused on Sizer and IPSC solutions, MMD has for over 30 years been working with its customers to develop systems adapted to their needs, with installations for the production and processing of over 75 different minerals in more than 60 countries worldwide.

High capacity, compact size and robust construction, the MMD Sizer range is complemented by the MMD Heavy Duty Feeder, which has the capability of being directly fed without requiring a protective bed of material. These unique features facilitate their incorporation into many successful static, semi and fully mobile environmentally friendly systems.

MMD’s experience and global network of MMD companies, provides support and innovative Sizer Solutions to locations around the world.

THE MMD GROUP OF COMPANIES

WWW.MMDSIZERS.COM

Mining Magazine Ad 275x200+3mm - 1.indd 1

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screening

A Schenck Process LinaClass SLO single-deck banana screen with insulating frame

when installed in its trommels, provides a multitude of configuration options that optimise material flow.

The company also has a range of screen media product lines. The Polydex line of modular polyurethane screen media in 1ft x 1ft (30.5cm x 30.5cm) and 1ft x 2ft (30.5cm x 61cm) sizes features an extensive range of opening sizes, shapes and configurations.

Les Nady, mining industry manager at Polydeck, comments: “Since all polyurethane screen panels are made

with a high-quality injection moulding process, surface features such as dams and restricted flow bars are an integral part of the panel, not a glued or bolted-on option.”

The Rubberdex line of modular rubber screen media in 1ft x 2ft (30.5cm x 61cm) sizes are available in several material compounds for flexibility, stiffness, microbial resistance, or high-temperature applications.

Rubberdex panels are also injection moulded under extremely high pressure to ensure homogeneous construction for excellent performance.

The Armadex product line was recently expanded to address the most abrasive, abusive scalping applications.

Nady says: “This bolt-down rubber solution uses a binary injection moulding (BIM) process to provide extended wear life and customisation options that outperform existing competitive options.”

Available in screen section sizes from 12in x 24in (30.5cm x 61cm) up to 48in x 96in (122cm x 244cm), Armadex screen sections can be made up to 4in (10.2cm) thick.

Polydeck’s main markets are in North and South America. The company is cur-

rently focusing on longer-lasting materials to increase the plants’ availability. It also has several new products in development, but was unable to provide any further details at this time.

Schenck Process The Schenck Process range of single- or double-deck screening equipment includes flat, banana (multi slope) and dewatering screens. The various styles of screens have been developed over many years to accommodate applications such as scalping, wet and dry sizing, dewatering, desliming, drain and rinse and trash removal.

The company’s series of screening equipment have dimensions of up to 4.9m wide and 9.7m long. In order to meet the various applications and customer requirements, the company specialises in building new designs and retrofits. Schum explains: “Each screen proposed and supplied is offered with our own in-house manufactured screen-media solutions, which allows us to have maximum control over the application design and solution.”

Schenck Process can offer its own screen panels in either rubber or

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screening

polyurethane, with an aperture size range from 0.1mm to 250mm and including square, slot and zig-zag designs.

In order to achieve the best possible screening solution, each Schenck Process screen design is customised according to the specific site and duty requirements or specifications.

Schum says: “The screen is sized and checked to be capable of the duty/ process requirements as part of the application process. All elements and components that form part of our screens are engineered to provide an optimal construction that achieves longevity and function.”

Terex Schenck Process’ screens are used in Terex has an extensive range of screen all the major mining applications, types and sizes, which it states gives it including iron ore, coal, base metals, the ability to provide the best machine gold and industrial minerals. Schenck for each application.

Process recently created a massive The company’s products include large 9.7m-long, 4.9m-wide screen for a and small, multiple deck combinations coal-mine operator. for static plants as well as mobile The company has a range of products wheeled and track machines. All these that it anticipates will be released in types of screen can be provided as 2015. Schum opines: “The projected low-agitation inclined screens as well as outcome will strengthen our company’s horizontal or low-slope high-agitation position in the industry as either a screens. Each type has particular supplier of equipment or as a turnkey advantages in particular applications. supplier.”World 1.2 pg 2012 22/5/12Sauser says: “The motion Mining 15:21 Page 1 of Terex

37

A Terex Cedarapids LJ-TS V series horizontal screen

vibrating screens can be circular, elliptical, or linear, depending on the application and desired model of screen. A significant portion of our screens are customised to fit the application and envelope, especially when replacing or upgrading screens.”

Terex is a worldwide organisation but its representation is strongest in regions where its products and distribution were originally established.

Sauser notes: “North America, Europe and Australia are our strongest regions, but we are adding distribution and expanding in other regions.”

“A significant portion of our screens are customised to fit the application and envelope, especially when replacing or upgrading screens”

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screening

A WS Tyler F-Class vibrating screen

“The Rock Book is a good guide WS Tyler to the WS Tyler provides premium screening, washing and pelletising solutions parameters encompassing the complete screening of the circle of particle analysis, screen media, screens and process various vibrating equipment, as well as complete models of production analysis, service and parts machines” support.

High says: “The company’s

mineralprocessing screens are used where sharp separations and high efficiencies are required.”

In 2012, the company released The Rock Book – a guide to aggregate, mining and industrial minerals-processing knowledge and expertise that includes information on the latest technologies, definitions and specification tables for screening, washing and pelletising operations.

Originally published in English, its popularity grew and the company added Chinese, French and Spanish

editions in 2013. High explains: “The Rock Book is a good guide to the parameters of the various models of machines.

“The model or size is driven by the mineral size that you want to separate or the amount of surface area required to complete the job.”

Customisation of WS Tyler solutions is available, as not every screen fits every application. High says: “We have three levels: standard, custom (which is standard with some minor modification), and tailor-made, which is generally a vibrating screen made to fit an installation or application but still uses many standard components.”

The company also offers screen media; these too can be customised for different applications.

WS Tyler is a member of the Haver Group, and can supply screening technology across the world through its global subsidiaries.

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Awards Winners

2014

Exploration Mine Planning / Resource Modelling Surface Mining (Hard Rock) Surface Mining (Soft Rock) Underground Mining (Hard Rock) Underground Mining (Soft Rock) Mineral Processing Bulk Handling Ancillary Equipment Environmental Excellence Editor’s award

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Awards Advancing the state of play

E Carly Leonida, editor, Mining Magazine

Contents Introduction & winners Winner profiles: Immersive Technologies Strata Worldwide 3D Laser Mapping

2 4 6 8

ach year we celebrate excellence in the mining industry by inviting our readers to nominate people, companies or groups that they feel have demonstrated outstanding commitment to advancing the state of play in mining over the past 12 months.

Readers can nominate their clients, colleagues or even themselves for a variety of reasons. It could be for the development of a new technology, or the innovative application of an existing one. It can be for their involvement with a particular project that has seen amazing results, or for an initiative that has helped to change the industry’s mind-set towards a certain challenge. It can be for their research efforts into areas such as safety or energy efficiency, or for their approach to environmental stewardship.

2014 truly was a year of innovation, as the industry rose to overcome the huge challenges it faces. As always, there were many deserving people, companies and projects nominated and competition was extremely fierce.

Congratulations to this year’s winners and, of course, thank you to you, our readers, who took the time to nominate and vote for them.

And the winners are...

Exploration

Gold Road Resources: Gruyere gold deposit

Gold Road Resources in 2014 discovered the 3.8Moz Gruyere gold deposit in Western Australia, taking its gold resource to more than 5Moz. This maiden resource was achieved in August, within 10 months of the initial discovery in 2013, and at a low cost of less than A$2/oz (US$1.76/oz) discovered. The discovery has placed Gold Road in a group of just 10 ASX-listed companies with more than 5Moz in gold resources in Australia.

Mine planning/resource modelling

RPM: XPAC

RungePincockMinarco (RPM) released three solutions in 2014 as part of its XPAC scheduling software suite.

The AngloGold Ashanti Technology

The Oil Sands XPAC Solution (OSS) was launched at CIM in May, followed by Open Pit Diamonds XPAC

Innovation Consortium has worked

Solution (OPDS) later that month and Open Pit Metals XPAC Solution (OPMS) in June. The solutions, which are

to develop an innovative reef-boring

configurable to the specific requirements of the mine types and commodities, join the Underground Coal and

technology

Open Cut Coal XPAC solutions that were released in 2013.

Surface mining – hard rock

Strata Worldwide: HazardAvert

HazardAvert is a proximity-detection and collision-avoidance safety system designed to prevent accidents and injuries by detecting when a person or vehicle enters a specifically marked area, or zone, around an operating piece of machinery. A large global gold-mining group selected the system for a pilot test project, using 130 pieces of machinery. By analysing the reported collision incidents at the site, the system helped to reduce slow-speed machine accidents by as much as 66% in 2013 compared with 2012.

Surface mining – soft rock

Boart Longyear: sonic coring

On June 17, 2014, a Boart Longyear crew in eastern Australia successfully completed the deepest hole drilled Strata Worldwide’s HazardAvert

in Australia using a sonic rig. The LS600T rig drilled a record 212m using the 4.75in (12cm) conventional coring

detects when a person or vehicle

system and overriding with 6in (15.2cm) casing. The borehole was drilled at Nhill, which is 374km from

enters a zone around a piece of

Melbourne. The previous depth record for this sonic drill was 206m, which was accomplished at Menindee

machinery

near Broken Hill in New South Wales using the same drilling method.

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Awards Underground mining – hard rock

CRCMining: ODC

CRCMining’s oscillating disc cutter (ODC) is a technology for efficiently excavating hard rock to +250MPa. It combines a number of rock-breakage concepts into a single technology – enabling the excavation of hard rock using comparatively small and lightweight equipment as a continuous mining process, in both surface and underground mining applications. The technology has been successfully trialled by Joy Global, and could potentially replace batch drill-and-blast processes with dynamic continuous rock cutting. CRCMining stated that broad predictions for productivity improvements are in the order of 20% plus up to 20% reduction in total mining costs.

Underground mining – soft rock

TEC Systems: Lyons Salt automation

Lyons Salt Co introduced automation to its mine in Kansas, US, with the help of TEC Systems Group. TEC’s solutions included upgraded electrical controls throughout the facility, increased underground power, a

CRCMining’s Oscillating Disc Cutter was trialled by Joy Global

high-voltage electrical infrastructure upgrade project, improved communication systems and automation of the surface processing mill and the underground conveying-crushing circuit. The solutions increased efficiency at the mine by 35% and increased production output by 32%.

Mineral processing

Rio Tinto: Processing Excellence Centre

Rio Tinto opened its Processing Excellence Centre (PEC) in Brisbane, Australia, in March 2014 as part of its Mine of the Future programme. The first-of-its-kind PEC examines processing data in real time from seven operations, and an expert mineral processing team shares technical initiatives and solutions to colleagues on mine sites in Mongolia, the US and Australia about how to maximise productivity and improve performance. Rio Tinto worked with JKTech, Schneider Electric, Metso CISA, iGATE and the University of Queensland to develop the centre.

Bulk handling

Maptek: I-Site 8820

Maptek previewed its I-Site 8820 long-range laser scanner at the Australian Institute of Mine Surveyors (AIMS) conference in Sydney, Australia, in August. Compared with the previous model, it offers a 20% increase in range, twice the data-acquisition speed, 25% better range accuracy and a new modular design. It can quickly survey pits and stockpiles, and data is transferred to the Maptek I-Site Studio software to generate surface

The Lyons Salt mine, where TEC

models and volumes.

Systems Group implemented a major automation project

Ancillary equipment

3D Laser Mapping: ZEB1

ZEB1 is a hand-held, rapid laser-mapping system developed by CSIRO and commercialised by 3D Laser Mapping. It comprises a lightweight laser scanner mounted on a spring mechanism, which continuously scans as the operator walks through the environment, using robotic technology called simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM), and converts 2-D laser measurements into 3-D fields of view. ZEB1 was put through a rigorous testing process at Anglogold Ashanti’s Mponeng mine in South Africa, which extends over 3.8km below the surface, with excellent results.

Environmental excellence

Immersive Technologies

Cipta Kridatama, one of Indonesia’s leading mining contractors, has improved its haul-truck fuel efficiency using simulation-based training from Immersive. A comparison of fuel records from before and after training showed an improvement of 6.3% in a month, and on-site fuel usage went down each subsequent month.

The site now operates 5.8% under the budgeted L/h fuel consumption. Cipta Kridatama estimated that it can save US$500,000 per year as a result.

Editor’s award

AngloGold Ashanti Technology Innovation Consortium

The ATIC was set up with the aim of developing safe and reliable technologies for gold extraction. Aside from the huge strides that the team has made technologically with projects such as reef boring in South Africa, the MM team was particularly impressed with the open-platform approach used to tackle key challenges facing the mining industry, such as extracting ore from very narrow veins and mining at extreme depths. It is

Training machinery operators using

refreshing to see a global miner championing open innovation, and we hope that other mining houses will

Immersive Technologies simulators

follow the ATIC’s lead and adapt their innovation strategies in the future.

can improve a site’s fuel efficiency

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Awards

Winner

2014

Environmental excellence Immersive Technologies Advanced Equipment Simulator

Simulator-based training reduces environmental impact

M

“Operator behaviour is a key component of ensuring sites are running at their best”

ine management know that the behaviour of their equipment operators has widespread impact across all aspects of operations. From production and profitability to equipment health and safety, operator behaviour is a key component of ensuring sites are running at their best.

Simulation-based training solutions from Immersive Technologies are built with this in mind and go beyond the traditional basic in-cab training to deliver quantified operational improvement.

While average in-field improvements using Immersive Technologies simulators (such as a 14.2% reduction in spot time, 62.2% reduction in brake abuse, 10.4% improvement in tyre life, 69.8% reduction in abusive shifting, 54.5% reduction in engine overspeed and 6.85% reduction in fuel use) tend to take the spotlight with sites focused on controlling costs and increasing safety and profitability, customers with simulation-based training

4 Immersive Awards MM1501.indd 4

solutions from Immersive Technologies are seeing great results in reducing their environmental impact.

Properly trained operators directly affect areas of environmental importance, and simulators from Immersive have long been used to train on operator best practice.

“With over 260 global mining customers, we are proud that our simulation technology is reducing the environmental impact of mining around the world, including reducing on-site per-ton greenhouse-gas emissions, premature tyre replacement and dust emissions,” says Wayde Salfinger, executive director – marketing, Immersive Technologies.

Simulator training allows operators to be shown and assessed without the need to borrow machines from production. This allows new operators to practise many skills before being placed into a production circuit. Because operators are consistently shown and assessed on the proper operator techniques, they have a better understanding and knowledge of the real machine.

Highlighting the benefits of simulation training, four leading Original Equipment Manufacturers, Caterpillar, Hitachi, Komatsu and Liebherr, have chosen to

exclusively sign technical information licensing agreements with Immersive Technologies, providing access to proprietary technical information necessary to accurately replicate the operation of their mining equipment.

Widely recognised as the global industry standard, Immersive Technologies has extensive experience of delivering complete training solutions to the mining industry with measurable safety and business improvement outcomes.

Immersive has the global mining experience, innovative technology, product range, OEM relationships, proven support commitment and industry vision to partner with you to ensure your simulation-based training solution delivers the significant results you expect.

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Awards

Winner

2014

Surface mining: hard rock Strata Worldwide – HazardAvert

HazardAvert helps prevent accidents and collisions Insets: Strata’s new Proximity Module and a graphic showing a sample HazardAvert protective field around a dozer

About Strata Strata Worldwide LLC is recognised as a global leader in mine safety solutions.

The company’s product line includes wireless communications and tracking systems, emergency mine refuge chambers, secondary roof-support products, proximity-detection systems and contract construction services. Strata is committed to the design and development of technologies that are beneficial for today and that lay a foundation for improved solutions in the future.

Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, the company has service and sales support offices in the mining regions of the US, Europe, Australia, South Africa and Mexico.

6 Strata Awards MM1501.indd 6

Collision avoidance in surface mining

O

ver the last few years, the terms ‘proximity detection’ and ‘collision avoidance’ have become increasingly common in mining. The popularity of these technologies has reached an all-time high as the unfortunate occurrence of heavy mining machinery-related accidents and collisions has increased.

Collision-avoidance technologies including cameras, radar, RFID and GPS have been actively used in surface mining operations for some time, intended to help prevent vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-toperson accidents and collisions. In surface mining particularly, the combination of oversized haul trucks with regular-sized utility vehicles has exemplified the need for additional assistance in detecting and preventing accidents.

Studies have shown that a large majority of accidents occur at speeds less than 5mph – and when travelling in reverse.

These common scenarios have become a leading cause of accidents on the surface, especially when haul-truck operators, with an extremely limited view of their surroundings, have not been aware of small vehicles in close proximity to or in their travel paths. Many times, the resulting collisions and/or crushing accidents have caused serious injuries and fatalities.

Strata’s technology, HazardAvert™, has proven to be ideal in preventing these near-field blind spot-related incidents.

HazardAvert “sees” and “reacts” when people cannot. Normal visibility limitations and restrictions are non-factors for HazardAvert, since electromagnetic fields are completely unaffected by darkness, dust, fog, rain, snow, gravel, rock or other factors, and they do not require line of sight. Electromagnetic fields penetrate elements and substrates to always remain constant.

HazardAvert generators are installed on all mobile machinery and vehicles to create these fields, and the shapes and sizes are set at installation to range from 6ft to 85ft around a machine.

When HazardAvert-equipped vehicles or pedestrians come into close contact and breach these marked areas, the system automatically emits warning alerts to all parties involved. For instance, if a small vehicle is parked near to or behind a large haul truck, the operators of both vehicles receive warning alerts and can react safely.

Additionally, many times in these heavy mining operations, situations arise of which people are not immediately aware, or are unable to effectively react. As a result, HazardAvert is set in place to provide early warning alerts and to be relayed into machine controls to manipulate functions such as slowing, stopping or completely disabling machinery that is already in motion.

“HazardAvert can be used on berms,” states Mike Walling, product manager for proximity detection. “Berms are in place to prevent machinery from driving over an edge or into a pit. By installing HazardAvert on the berm, operators are alerted to their distance from the edge and, if need be, the system can be programmed to shut the vehicle down before they travel too close.”

All of HazardAvert’s activities, including warning alarms, are logged and stored in the system memory and can be retrieved later for analysis. This data is also valuable for training purposes and can help identify workers that require additional attention and instruction.

For more information, please contact Strata Worldwide at: US: +1 770 321 2500; South Africa: +27 12 450 0960; Australia: +61 02 4960 9705; EU: +48 32 733 1922; or email info@strataworldwide. com. Website: strataworldwide.com

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Awards

Winner

Ancillary equipment

2014

3D Laser Mapping 3D Laser Mapping: ZEB1 ZEB1 mapping system

Below: a sample of the imagery produced by 3D Laser Mapping software, and the ZEB1 handheld mobile mapping scanner

Deliver information for making decisions

E

stablished in 1999, 3D Laser Mapping is a world-leading provider of laser-scanning technology for the mining industry. It offers solutions that capture 3D data and then process this data to deliver information for making decisions.

Headquartered in Bingham, near Nottingham in the UK, the dedicated

team of over 35 staff designs, manufactures and supports solutions for the mining industry and infrastructuremapping applications.

3D Laser Mapping specialises in solutions for automated slope-stability monitoring, mobile mapping for underground mining and stockpile volume management.

The company achieves global reach through branch offices in South Africa, the USA and Australia, as well as its network of international distributors.

3D Laser Mapping prides itself in offering the very best technical support in the business and runs dedicated training packages and consultancy

services to suit each customer’s need.

The company is proud to serve its hundreds of customers, which include mining companies, governments, academic institutions and blue-chip owners and operators of assets such as highways, power lines, railways and buildings, to name but a few.

Every day, around the world, 3D Laser Mapping’s customers rely on it to deliver reliable, high-quality measurements.

Company contact details Miss Charlie Whyman Global Sales & Marketing Manager Charlie.whyman@3dlasermapping.com Tel: +44 1949 838 004

ZEB1: Survey Solution for Underground Mining

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Raise boring & shaft sinking

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The world heads underground Some of the world’s largest mines will require massive underground infrastructure and shaft systems in future as the orebodies are exploited further

W

hile the current malaise in metals markets has seen several projects revised smaller to access shallower material, more and more ore will still be accessed via underground in the longer term.

This is evidenced by the fact that two of the world’s richest mines, Grasberg in Indonesia and Oyu Tolgoi in Mongolia, are already mining underground. Meanwhile, a joint-venture copper project in North America between two of the world’s largest miners, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, will start its production life from over a mile underground.

In 2012, Allan Moss of Rio Tinto said that within 10 years, 40-50% of the company’s copper production would

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come from underground mines with production rates of 100,000t/d or more. To achieve this target, the company was looking at driving 60km/y of development and sinking 10 production and ventilation shafts.

Shaft sinking plays a major part in this new era for mining. Certain regions have been doing it for years, with South Africa’s platinum and gold belts the most obvious examples, while the copper mines in Zambia have also got a long history of modern underground mining.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo with its history of large open-pit mines will slowly head underground, with Randgold Resources and AngloGold already sinking shafts at their Kibali mine and Ivanhoe’s Kamoa

operation likely to start out as an underground operation.

Shafts can also be used as a technical solution or an alternative to open-pit mining. For example, at Gem Diamonds’ Ghaghoo diamond mine in Botswana, Redpath recently sank a decline shaft in order to bypass the task of removing 80m of Kalahari sand just to access the kimberlite pipe.

In North America too, the mines are getting deeper. In November 2014, the Resolution Copper Project accomplished a key milestone by completing construction of its 8.5m-diameter shaft 10 to a final depth of 2,116.2m. The company has used this project to gather geotechnical information needed to design a mine that is expected to produce enough

A Herrenknecht RBR 400 VF raise-boring rig

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The sinking of this shaft also highlights another key feature of underground mining: time. Work on the Resolution shaft began in 2008, meaning it took over half a decade to complete.

New records The Murray & Roberts Underground Mining platform not only has growth in its order book, but with 22 active shaft projects under way globally, also states that it is the single most active shaft-sinking group in the world outside of China.

The group has sunk the deepest single-lift shaft in South Africa (at South Deep), the deepest single-lift shaft in the US (at Resolution) and the deepest shaft in Canada (at Kidd). It is also busy sinking what will be the deepest shaft in the US, namely a winze at Lucky Friday.

Allan Widlake, business development director at Murray & Roberts Cementation, says that co-operation between the group’s South African and Australian businesses has involved the establishment of internal joint ventures to bring skill sets together for projects elsewhere in Africa.

The Murray & Roberts mining platform comprises the following businesses: Murray & Roberts Cementation (Johannesburg-based); Cementation Canada (North Bay, Ontario-based); Cementation USA (Salt Lake City, Utah-based); Cementation Sudamérica (Santiago-based) and RUC Cementation Mining (Perth-based).

“We are utilising both the Australian and Canadian experience in our platform to introduce first-world development and shaft-sinking expertise into the South African mining industry,” Widlake explains.

“We have opened an office in Zambia and entered into a partnership with Enterprise Générale Malta Forrest

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Raise boring & shaft sinking

Master Drilling will start a contract during 2015 to establish two of the largest raisebored shafts to date in Africa

in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In terms of Ghana, the Murray & Roberts Group opened an office in Accra in 2013.”

In Zambia, Murray & Roberts Cementation is blind-sinking and equipping the main shaft at Mopani Copper Mines’ synclinorium shaft and is also

carrying out shaft sinking and high-speed development at the company’s Mufulira Deeps expansion project.

In South Africa, Murray & Roberts Cementation is delivering a twin vertical and single decline shaft (blind sink) at Sasol Mining’s Impumelelo coal

project. It is deepening the No. 1 and 3 shafts at Petra Diamonds’ Cullinan mine, in addition to slope and line development, while it is blind-sinking a ventilation shaft at Assmang’s Gloria mine.

Murray & Roberts Cementation has just been awarded a multi-billion-rand contract mining project at Northam Platinum’s Booysendal platinum mine, while the negotiation on the multibillion-rand Kalagadi Manganese contract is at an advanced stage. The decline shaft at Venetia is under way and the pre-sink of the vertical production shaft began recently.

Cementation USA holds a full order book with work on existing projects progressing very well. Cementation Canada is participating in considerable tender activity and is in final negotiation with Compass Minerals to upgrade the shafts at its Goderich mine in Ontario at a cost in excess of R1 billion.

For RUC Cementation Mining, the platform’s smallest contributor, conditions in Australia remain challenging. However, the business continues to bid and secure various opportunities.

On Murray & Roberts Cementation’s outlook, Widlake comments: “We are

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Raise boring & shaft sinking

seeing a lot more opportunity on the continent in terms of new projects.

We’ve seen recent growth in our order book and we are hopeful of adding additional projects in the short term.”

43

A Master Drilling raise-boring rig

Raise boring Master Drilling (MD) has a fleet of 100 raise-boring rigs operating around the globe. The company is currently completing a 1,000m and two 700-850m shafts in Africa and Europe.

Work on a project in central Africa is progressing well and ahead of schedule as part of a five-year contract to establish raise-bored shafts/passes of various scopes.

“What makes this contract unique is the degree of supporting services that we offer with our raise boring, thus simplifying for our client the establishment of infrastructure through contracting a single specialised drilling contractor,” notes Koos Jordaan, a director at Master Drilling.

The additional scope led to the establishment of surface shaft foundations and piling of depths ranging between 20m and 40m deep, as well as all underground core drilling required for the mining project.

The company will start a contract

during the first half of 2015 to establish two of the largest raise-bored shafts to date in Africa. The scope entails single-lift raise-bored shafts to a depth of 1,200m and diameter of 6.2m each.

According to Jordaan, innovative solutions for varying ground conditions, remote shaft support and foundation construction will be applied.

This will allow the client to establish these shafts at a fraction of the cost and schedule compared with conventional shaft sinking and without anyone

needing to enter the shaft barrel.

MD has also been awarded work to build a shaft over 500m deep and 6m diameter in North America that will be used as a hoisting shaft. It is the first shaft of such a scope in this region.

An interesting project that MD is working on is a system that is being prepared for mobilisation to South America. It will enable the company to drill up and down slots at 2.5m diameter, but is still mobile for fast inter-mine/level moves, moving away

“Cementation USA holds a full order book with work on existing projects progressing very well”

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44

FEATURE Raise boring NAME& shaft sinking

Murray & Roberts has sunk the deepest singlelift shaft in South Africa (at South Deep) and the deepest single-lift shaft in the US (at Resolution)

“The mining and shaftsinking industries are struggling with a move towards mechanised blind shaft boring”

from the normal concrete bases for machine erecting/securing required during drilling.

This is in response to problems currently experienced in the market in relation to slot diameters that are too small and rigs/equipment being damaged, being too large for certain excavations and cluttered with componentry as well as dealing with certain operational layouts.

Over the last year MD has successfully tested and evaluated a 50t remote-controlled crawler unit for moving box-hole boring machines between holes, which reduced manhandling between rig down and rig up.

Further units are being prepared for contracts awarded in South America and Africa, and units are being converted to move raise-boring

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machines as large as the second-largest rig in MD’s fleet from site to site without disassembly.

The company is interested in expanding its offering to services such as horizontal raise boring, tunnel boring and shaft boring from a raise-boring and box-hole/slot boring service base. MD predominately designs, manufactures, maintains and operates its own fleet of equipment, which includes all rigs, drill rods, cutter head and reamers.

The company says it has also noticed that the mining and shaft-sinking industries are struggling with a move towards mechanised blind shaft boring,

River View coal mine US raise-boring operator Frontier-Kemper ordered an RBR600VF rig from Herrenknecht, which was used to drill a ventilation shaft for the River View coal mine in Kentucky, US, in November 2013.

Within 16 days, the shaft-sinking specialists drilled the pilot hole and reamed it to a diameter of 4.3m and a depth of 90m.

It was the first time that the system for remote maintenance of the rig with the ‘Digital Drilling Report’ was used.

Over a network connection it offers Frontier-Kemper the possibility of monitoring the drilling performance of the rig, its availability as well as any difficulties encountered during operation, in real time, from the jobsite office or from company headquarters.

The system replaces the usual manual drilling report, simplifies evaluation and allows more reliable drilling data analysis that can be used for the optimisation of future projects.

The supplied integrated cooling unit ensures the operational readiness of the rig at outside temperatures of up to 40°C. As a result, dependence on an external and potentially costly cooling water supply is not necessary.

At the customer‘s request, Herrenknecht equipped the RBR600VF rig with control components from a US manufacturer (Allen-Bradley) and hydraulic components in accordance with Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) specifications. This adaptation makes maintenance and procurement of spare parts in the customer’s home market easier.

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Raise boring & shaft sinking

and believes it can potentially play a role in this industry.

Jordaan says: “We believe that the high cost/power, complex systems approach currently on offer to the market complicates commercial considerations and that a systematic approach needs to be followed through implementation to a full application of this new technology.”

MD’s division that deals with slim drilling focuses on core, percussion, reverse-circulation, air and mud rotary types of drilling.

Jordaan comments: “We remain excited and passionate about what we do, considering always our clients’ needs and moving with a fast-paced and ever-changing world. We believe that the future would require more mechanisation and fewer people to drive performance in delivery/cost/ safety that encourages a partnership between contractor and client.”

Jordaan adds: “We remain very competitive in current markets, interested in considering any remote project, wherever it might be, and have had interest from clients or projects in developed mining countries such as Canada and Australia for establishing services.”

contractor Macmahon. According to Herrenknecht, it is the most powerful raise-boring rig currently on the market.

Depending on the project requirements, Herrenknecht engineers develop individually customised raise-boring rigs. Examples include modular reaming heads for the state-run Huanuni tin mine in Bolivia and a remote monitoring system for Alliance Resources Partner’s River View coal mine in Kentucky, US.

45

The company explains that reaming shafts with raise-boring rigs is safer, less labour-intensive and more cost-effective than conventional shaft sinking, which was previously the only possible method beyond 1,200m.

Herrenknecht also developed the automated drill-pipe feeder, which, compared with manual handling, ensures more efficient workflows as well as significantly greater safety for the personnel during installation and removal of the drill string.

New specs Herrenknecht offers a portfolio of four raise-boring rig types, allowing for the drilling of shafts at depths of up to 2,000m. Drilling shafts this deep with large diameters of up to 8m requires rigs with high torque and high thrust forces.

This need is met particularly by the RBR900VF raise-boring rig with torque of 900kNm and thrust of 2,243t, developed by Herrenknecht in co-operation with Australian mining

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SNAPSHOT

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SNAPSHOT

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Stand to attention It’s not often you will see this many mining trucks parked up…

But at Newmont’s Boddington gold mine in Western Australia, during a recent state-of-the-nation presentation given by the general manager, the fleet parked up to mark the occasion, filling the go-line with 41 trucks and other equipment. The early-morning October light and still conditions gave the rare opportunity for a great photo.

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January / February 2015 20/01/2015 15:25

48

In-situ mining

All’s well that ends well Roman Popielak, senior program leader for mining hydrogeology and engineering at Golder Associates, gives Carly Leonida an introduction to in-situ leaching Above: a typical example of an ISL wellfield at a uranium project in Australia

I

n-situ leaching (ISL), not to be confused with in-situ extraction methods used for oil-sands mining such as steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), is not a mining technique with which I was well acquainted.

The use of potentially hazardous chemicals such as acids and their interaction with groundwater, plus the fact that the technique takes place entirely below ground, away from human eyes, means that it is often misunderstood (particularly by the public), and subsequently can get a bad rap from the environmentally conscious general media.

So in order to better understand the process, as well as its benefits and challenges, I sought out an industry expert who could tell it to me straight, and the results were somewhat surprising.

What is in-situ leaching?

ISL works for a variety of minerals, but it is most commonly used to extract uranium, copper and salts.

In the past, there have also been attempts to extract gold through ISL. However, these were less successful, mainly because current technology is not yet developed enough to make

in-situ extraction of gold more cost-efficient than commonly used ex-situ processes.

The idea behind ISL is pretty straightforward. In a nutshell, leaching takes place via a borehole or an injection well through which a leaching solution – the lixiviant – is injected into the mineral deposit.

The lixiviant dissolves the mineral and is then pumped to the surface through a recovery well. Once resurfaced, operators can extract the mineral from the solution through hydrometallurgical processes.

Which lixiviant is chosen varies

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In-situ mining

machinery, such as cranes and backhoe loaders, which are easy to obtain and relatively inexpensive.

Restoration and environment

The steps involved with ISL

depending on the mineral that a company is looking to win. For salt dissolution, plain water is usually sufficient, while copper extraction usually requires an acid solution, and sodium bicarbonate can be used for uranium extraction.

“At Golder we have been working at the San Miguel mine in Arizona, which is a good example of copper extraction using ISL,” explains Popielak.

“Here, sulphuric acids were pumped into the old mine workings to recover copper minerals that were then processed above ground.

“Copper is usually found in dense rocks, so extraction is often more complicated than with other minerals.

Often, the ore requires hydraulic fracturing and well stimulation with explosives, or other kinds of stimulation such as acidising.”

“When extraction and monitoring are carried out properly, the environmental Why mine in-situ? effects of ISL is not new; it is a well-established method of mining and a process that ISL are Popielak describes as “already very much less mature”. the US, the technique dates back significant to “In the 1960s when uranium was first than those extracted in Wyoming using acids as of more lixiviants,” he says.

The ISL method is applied widely at conventional mines across the globe. Take uranium forms of mining for example: in the US, ISL for around 90% of recovered mining” accounts uranium, while around 47% of

worldwide uranium extraction is carried out this way.

Factors such as the local mineralogy, geology and hydrology regime will determine whether a deposit is favourable for ISL, and this is partly why the method is used in such a diverse set of countries, including: the US, Canada, Australia, across Europe, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, China and Mongolia.

“Successful ISL projects can be found all over the world. From my own experi-

ence at Golder, we have a number of examples in Texas, Wyoming, Nebraska, New Mexico and Colorado where mines have been completely restored or are undergoing extraction at the moment,” explains Popielak.

“There are a number of reasons why this method is so popular, but there are two that really stand out. First, the method is relatively cheap compared with more traditional mining methods.

In the past, we have seen how much the cost argument works in favour of the ISL method; when uranium prices declined, the use of ISL increased massively.

“Also, with in-situ mining you don’t need a large excavation that can require additional infrastructure, such as transport networks and tailings ponds and all the expenditure that comes with it. All in all, the ISL method costs only a fraction of the expense demanded by conventional mining.”

Secondly, and somewhat surprisingly, when extraction and monitoring are carried out properly, the adverse environmental effects of ISL are much less significant than those of other more conventional forms of mining.

This is a particularly important factor when considering the post-mining, site-decommissioning phase.

Worker safety is considerably improved due to less exposure to heavy machinery, geotechnical endangerment including, for example, the instability of open-pit walls, re-routing drainage around the mine or rock control in underground excavations, and minimal dust and radon emissions.

Other advantages include the fact that in-situ mining allows the extraction of minerals that lie at great depths and in deposits that are too thin for other mining processes. And when it comes to mining equipment, the shopping list is usually quite short.

An ISL operation primarily requires drill rigs and a range of supporting

One of the great benefits of ISL is that mining permits are often easier to obtain than with other extraction methods, and this is mainly due to the lesser environmental effects. “Our experience shows that it usually takes no more than a few years to have everything ready to begin mining,” comments Popielak.

“The chemicals involved do not normally present a problem when getting permits. The ISL technique pumps more water out of a mine than it injects into it and chemicals will therefore not migrate to neighbouring areas of an aquifer.

“Instead, upon termination of mining and at the decommissioning stage, the surrounding groundwater is used to wash out the affected parts of the deposit to ensure the re-establishment of the area to pre-mining conditions.”

The timeline for ISL projects is also much shorter than with other mining techniques; the permitting process is much quicker, and the usual lifetime of an extracting well amounts to only three years, with up to 60% of extraction taking place within the first year.

The biggest task comes at the decommissioning stage, and involves the restoration of affected groundwater. However, past projects have shown that a complete re-establishment of initial groundwater conditions is achievable.

“At a project in Kazakhstan, for example, we have seen a reduction of chemicals in the affected water by 50% after just four years. After 12 years, conditions in the ground were completely restored,” states Popielak.

Although the environmental impact of an ISL operation is usually less than with other mining techniques, the scale of the environmental challenges facing each mine can vary quite significantly.

These depend mainly on three factors: the mineralogy, the chemistry of the lixiviant and the geological conditions.

It is of paramount importance that no lixiviant enters areas of aquifer outside the zone of mineralisation during the injection and recovery operation.

If a migration occurs, corrective measures in the form of pumping from strategically located wells must start immediately and must continue until

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53

the excursion of lixiviant is curtailed.

Popielak says: “The main environmental challenge after such a project is the restoration of the affected groundwater. In the US, you need to reduce the chemicals in the water to the standard they were at prior to the mining activity. This is done by pumping the affected water out of the wells, allowing clean water to enter the mine.

“This process can be accelerated by simultaneously injecting clean water through other wells. As a rule of thumb, only 10-20 times the aquifer pore volume that has been in contact with the lixiviant needs to be recycled.”

Once the underground restoration is completed successfully, surface restoration begins and the land is returned to its previous use. This process is generally much easier than with other common forms of mining, such as open-pit operations.

Pushing technology forwards While the ISL method is well established, the technology used is constantly evolving and improving.

“Over the past few years we have seen some major steps forward, especially in the digital monitoring and automation of well fields and technical improvement of the wells themselves,” says Popielak.

Innovative solutions that help to shorten the restoration timeframe can be the key to operating an in-situ mine more cost-efficiently.

Various projects in recent years have demonstrated that the restoration process can be significantly accelerated by changing the way in which the boreholes are arranged; restoration is much faster if the wells are situated closely together, and it is also more effective when previous injection wells are turned into pumping ones and vice versa.

Furthermore, the injection of water that has been purified through reverse osmosis can speed up the process of aquifer restoration.

Regulatory arrangements worldwide have also become more pragmatic, allowing more site-specific factors to be considered when it comes to the permitting process. For example, if the aquifer-restoration efforts demonstrate that attaining the prescribed target concentration is not practical, relaxed standards – so called Alternate Concentration Limits – may be considered.

“I am wondering what changes we will see in the near future regarding gold mining. So far, there is no economic incentive for producers to push ahead with this,” says Popielak.

“But don’t underestimate the rapid progression of technology, and do not forget the immense increase in gold prices that we have seen in recent years. I, for one, am looking forward to what the future holds.”

Diagram showing steps involved in the clean-up of mine water from an ISL project

Roman Popielak, senior program leader for mining hydrogeology and engineering at Golder Associates

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54

Mapping, surveying & UAVs

Aerial perspective The use of UAVs in the mining industry is increasing rapidly.

Ailbhe Goodbody looks at their applications and technology, and examines their future in mining A Trimble UX5 UAV working over a quarry

“A UAV represents a means to put a camera, or any other small sensor, somewhere in a 3-D space, occupying a niche between boots-onground work and manned aviation/ satellites”

U

nmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also sometimes known as drones, are ideal for a number of applications in the mining industry, depending on the size of the mine.

Some of these include mapping, inspections, monitoring and communications.

UAVs can be used to generate 2-D or 3-D maps, both for exploration and to survey existing mines. They can also be used for complementary mapping of haulage road profiles, and vegetation impact and revegetation mapping, which includes using near infra-red imagery for chlorophyll mapping of vegetation.

Monitoring is another important use for UAVs in mining; mostly for the volumetric surveying of stockpiles and waste dumps, including assessment and inventory, volume calculation of stockpiles and determination of removed volumes. This can also involve pipeline monitoring, slope stability monitoring, and environmental management tracking.

Additionally, they can be used for boundary surveillance and incident evidence capture to contribute to the security of remote or difficult locations.

Inspections of equipment, tailings ponds and buildings, some of which can be difficult or dangerous to access, are another useful function of UAVs. Jörg Lamprecht, CEO of Aibotix, says: “The Aibot X6 is applied to inspect difficult-to-reach parts of big machines used in mining, for example draglines. It can fly along the high mast and boom and take high-definition pictures that show potential damage or evidence of wear in deep detail.”

UAVs can also be used for communications on a mine site. Brandon Basso, senior R&D engineer at 3D Robotics, notes: “Many mines are in the middle of nowhere out of cell range; UAVs can easily help set up ad-hoc networks and be used for local communications to all ground assets.”

UAVs can add significant value to other mining applications including drilling and blasting, for example for the optimisation of blast designs and collecting pre-and post-blast data, construction projects such as feasibility studies and quality control, and providing imagery for community relations and marketing projects.

The type of UAV and the technology that is most suitable for a mine site depends on the user’s needs, the application and the size of the area to be surveyed. UAVs with up to an hour’s endurance generally deliver the most cost-effective data.

Robert Lednor, operations manager at Global Unmanned System, explains: “A combination of multi-rotor and fixed-wing UAVs, operating at low altitudes, are most suitable to serve the range of applications that a large mine site requires. A UAV represents a means to put a camera, or any other small sensor, somewhere in a 3-D space, occupying a niche between boots-onground work and manned aviation/ satellites.”

A ‘small’ class of UAV (under 25kg) is generally recommended for surveying open-pit mines. Low-altitude flying is considered to be an advantage, as the flight flexibility of the unmanned aircraft allows the exploration of complex or narrow environments that are difficult to capture efficiently with conventional airborne or terrestrial surveying methods.

Usually, UAV flights need to be repeated regularly to generate comparative datasets. Thomas Gaisecker, senior manager, international sales at Riegl, explains: “For these single scanning missions, a flight time of typically 15 minutes up to approximately one hour, depending on the spatial extent and the degree of complexity of the zone of interest, is required.”

Blair Walker, sales manager at GEM Systems, adds: “As long as the UAV has enough range to acquire data along the longest line segment in the survey area, and can fly a line segment of similar length on its way back to the operational base, then refuelling (or replacing

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batteries) and re-launching the UAV can be accomplished in minutes.”

Long-endurance UAVs would really only be needed for large regional surveys, or when carrying heavier payloads. These types of UAV are relatively heavy, and fly at higher altitudes and potentially out of line-of-sight, so their usage is often more restricted from a regulation standpoint. In addition, their higher cruising speeds and heavier weights make them more potentially dangerous in the event of a crash.

Jean-Christophe Zufferey, co-founder and CEO of senseFly, says: “In our experience, working with mining customers around the world, clients are most concerned with having a lightweight, safe, easy-to-use system, rather than endurance above all else.”

Thomas Tadrowski, managing director at DroneMetrex, adds: “The accuracy and repeatability of this accuracy is the prime importance for UAV mapping for the mining industry.

Endurance should never be confused with accuracy.”

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Technology

Benefits

There is an ever-increasing range of different sensors used in UAVs, including regular high-definition cameras, video recorders, infra-red cameras and thermal cameras. The main technology used over the past few years has been digital cameras, ranging from point-and-shoot to high-end DSLR cameras, that leverage the miniaturisation and increasing resolutions offered. Advances in processing software have also allowed for the creation of extremely detailed digital surface models and orthoimagery from the raw images.

However, with continued sensor miniaturisation and development of processing software and workflows, sensor technology options are growing rapidly for UAVs. Lednor says: “Multispectral imaging (visible to near infra-red) is starting to become very achievable in UAVs. We see many applications in the mining industry, but predominantly in environmental monitoring, e.g. vegetation health around mining operations.”

Thermal infra-red (long-wavelength infra-red) has many infrastructureinspection applications in the mining industry. For example, conveyors are essential to production, and the reduction of conveyor downtime due to failed bearings is a high priority.

Thermography is an effective conditionmonitoring technique that could potentially be done regularly and cost-effectively from a UAV to identify and repair mechanical systems before they fail. Thermal infra-red also offers opportunities to potentially identify leaks in underground pipework.

Tadrowski comments: “Currently, most commercial, practical UAVs have focused on camera systems – with a notable minority implementing true photogrammetric mapping solutions. LiDAR, RADAR and aeromagnetics are yet to be presented as fully commercial, integrated systems on UAVs.” The main reason that these are not widely available commercially is due to the larger UAVs and the associated legislative requirements to operate them. LiDAR also currently has limitations in sensor accuracy, range and UAV payload capacity. In the meantime, photogrammetry allows for the creation of very detailed topographic models, which in many cases presents a viable alternative to LiDAR. In addition, these techniques are more associated with mineral exploration, which is generally carried out over larger areas and is more suited to manned aviation.

There are many benefits to using UAVs over other types of aerial surveying, such as those that use helicopters or fixed-wing plane services. Lamprecht says: “Rotary UAVs give you the freedom to do what you need to do, and offer distinct advantages over traditional fixed-wing design.”

The first and most obvious benefit is that it is cheaper to hire a UAV and operator instead of a full-sized aircraft. It can be used almost without preparation time, and only one person is required to operate it rather than a crew.

Eric McCuaig, market manager for Trimble’s Land Mobile & Aerial Mapping, states: “UAVs allow for more flexible deployment and reduced cost in terms of generating deliverables from the collected data. This flexibility and lower cost, when compared with helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, has fuelled the growth of the UAV market for geospatial applications in recent years.”

Jeremy Byatt, chief operating officer at ING Robotic Aviation, says: “If you think of penicillin, GPS, or the internet – all of these technologies began as high-priced items for military use, but slowly became more cost-effective as they began to be used in the commercial market.”

Furthermore, many UAVs use rechargeable batteries rather than a fuel such as kerosene. Not only does this make them cheaper, but it gives them a lower environmental footprint.

In terms of reducing risk, with UAVs, risk to human life is taken out of the equation. Some mineral-exploration sites are either too remote or too dangerous to be evaluated with manned aircraft, but UAVs can fly fully autonomously over the area of interest.

Basso comments: “UAVs, like many other robots, are great for dull, dirty and

55

“If you think of penicillin, GPS, or the internet – all of these technologies began as high-priced items for military use, but slowly became more costeffective as they began to be used in the commercial market”

Example of Sci.Aero thermal inspection of a conveyor-belt system

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An Aibotix X6 UAV was used to survey the Argyle diamond mine in Australia

A 3-D model of the Argyle mine generated from the UAV survey

3-D digital terrain model with volumetric calculations from DroneMetrex UAV data

dangerous tasks. They can go places where people can’t or shouldn’t for safety reasons. They can fly for hours and don’t experience operator fatigue.”

Another huge benefit of UAVs is that they save time. Ground portable surveys cannot match the rapid acquisition of data that a UAV survey would yield; a UAV operator can be on site capturing data within a few hours, while manned systems are usually more time-intensive.

Tadrowski says: “Because the UAV mapping system can be stored on-site, surveys can be performed rapidly, repeatedly and economically.”

The manoeuvrability and accuracy of UAVs is often superior to bigger aircraft as well. Thanks to their flexibility, they are capable of approaching surfaces and following narrow corridors, which enables gapless surveying of complex structures, cavities or protruding elements.

Michael Cohen, president at Industrial SkyWorks, notes: “Their lower operating altitudes also increase the accuracy of data collected.” Many can achieve high resolutions of down to just a few centimetres per pixel, which is higher than current satellite data can offer.

UAVs can also take vertical and horizontal photographs and change flight altitude and camera angle during the flight as required.

They have increased scheduling flexibility when compared with larger manned aircraft, and can carry a wide array of sensors without the need to have a human operator on board, including digital cameras, thermal imagers or hyperspectral cameras, which can be utilised for a wide range of applications.

UAVs can make safer, more controlled landings as they require only a small amount of surface to safely take off or land – this added control means they can be relied on to carry more delicate equipment.

In addition, projects in smaller areas that were not previously commercially viable to access for aerial imaging are now able to obtain and use this information at a fraction of the cost.

UAVs can be operated in remote and challenging locations where traditional remote sensing methods are either not possible or severely compromised; for example, as a result of persistent cloud cover, which is very common in tropical regions where satellite imaging can be problematic.

Of course, the benefits of UAVs are dependent on the application. Joshua Portlock, chief technology officer and co-founder of Sci.Aero, explains: “UAVs offer distinct advantages in areas where line-of-sight access covers the area of interest and it is easy to access for ground-based personnel. Manned aviation still offers advantages in

large or difficult-to-access regions.”

Lednor says: “UAVs definitely don’t represent a ‘silver bullet’ rather a ‘tool in the tool box’ that should be used to complement, augment and verify other methods of data collection. Used correctly, they provide a cost-effective, high-resolution data source over reasonably large areas, at a temporal frequency of the user’s choosing.”

Zufferey comments: “We see drone technology as complementary to existing aerial data services. By allowing operators and service providers to provide high-resolution, geo-referenced images of smaller areas, quickly and efficiently, companies such as manned-aircraft imaging providers are able to address a market that was never economically viable for them in the past.”

There are a number of factors that should be taken into account when considering UAV surveying for a mine site. For example, it is important to understand what type of data is required, as this will influence the choice of sensor and the spatial resolution of the imagery. Projects requiring high-resolution imagery, and those where timing is important, are likely to be most suited to surveying using UAVs. The scale of the project is an important consideration. A project that needs repetitive surveying or that is too large for terrestrial surveying is a good candidate for a UAV survey.

Basso says: “A UAV outfitted with a camera can generate an extremely accurate digital elevation model for volume estimation and measurement in 1/10th or even 1/100th the amount of time it would take a human to accomplish the same task.”

However, mapping sites that cover several hundred square kilometres using a UAV may not be practical. Most of the UAVs being used cost-effectively in commercial applications have limited endurance and can only cover relatively small footprint areas. In addition, where regulations exist, UAVs are generally restricted to line-of-sight operations.

There is often a point when manned aviation becomes more cost- and time-effective.

In addition, areas where it may be dangerous or difficult to deploy more traditional surveying techniques, such as harsh terrain, are good applications for UAV surveying. Mine sites where heavy and noisy machinery is operating and there is a large amount of traffic would also benefit from using UAVs, as walking around the site taking measurements poses health-and-safety risks.

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Mapping, surveying & UAVs

Above: ING Robotic Aviation’s Responder in action Above right: Riegl RiCOPTER

Regulations While UAV activity is increasing significantly, the regulations on UAV use vary widely from country to country.

Some countries have restrictions concerning the take-off-weight or require the pilot to have special qualifications, while others have no restrictions at all.

While national regulations display a great disparity, several common points are evident. Gaisecker states: “In most countries, a permit to fly has to be obtained from the local aviation authorities. With regards to the surveying location, the surveying

scenario and the type of UAV used, the technical and operational requirements for this permit determine the necessary degree of technical sophistication and safety features.”

In general, UAVs can only be employed in isolated airspace. Many regulations specify line-of-sight operation, not flying near airports, and some aviation authorities also stipulate a maximum flight altitude (typically 120-150m). As well as aviation law, restrictions defined in the data-protection laws have to be considered.

McCuaig says: “The adoption of UAVs for geospatial and other applications will

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depend on how easy it is for companies or individuals to fly legally. While the regulations currently in place restrict many professionals from legal UAV operation, aviation authorities have recognised the large economic and potential productivity gains of allowing UAV use.”

In Australia, all companies operating UAVs are required to hold an operator certificate, which involves an audit of the company’s work practices and riskmanagement systems and third-party liability insurance coverage by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), the aviation regulatory body. Each operator

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Mapping, surveying & UAVs

is also required to hold a UAV Controller Certificate.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) requires UAV operators to complete a ground school course with an examination to ensure that they have the required knowledge to operate within the airspace.

The second phase is a flight assessment, which is intended to demonstrate the operator’s competency at

flying their UAV and making sure the correct pre-flight and post-flight procedures are followed. A variety of emergency procedures are also simulated.

If it is determined that the operator has the required competency to operate the UAV, then they must submit an in-depth operation manual to the CAA. The CAA will decide whether to grant permission to conduct aerial work.

Chris Slee, director of ATEC-3D,

explains: “Throughout the year, checks are made to ensure that you remain competent and current on your airframe.

I believe that this is where most countries want to be with regards to giving UAV operators permission to work, but the UK CAA certainly seems to be at the forefront of this.”

In Canada, a Special Flight Operating Certificate (SFOC) is required to operate a UAV. SFOCs are issued by Transport Canada’s regional inspectors and are issued on a case-by-case basis. There is not currently a certification process or licence for UAV pilots in Canada.

Walker says: “Blanket SFOCs can be issued to operators that have demonstrated over time that they will operate safely. A declaration of compliance with a UAV Best Practices document published by the non-profit association Unmanned Systems Canada can accelerate the process of obtaining an SFOC.” In addition, from November 2014, Transport Canada began issuing exemptions that apply to UAVs with a maximum take-off weight between 2kg and 25kg. These exemptions are issued to operators that comply with 57 conditions, including a 91.5m altitude limit, no deployment over built-up areas,

59

A senseFly UAV ready for action

“The adoption of UAVs for geospatial and other applications will depend on how easy it is for companies or individuals to fly legally”

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Mapping, surveying & UAVs

Near right: a 3D Robotics UAV Far right: UAVs can be used for the volumetric surveying of stockpiles and waste dumps Photo: ATEC-3D

“Pardon the puns, but ‘the sky’s the limit’ once we ‘get off the ground’”

day-time flying only and visual line-of-sight operational conditions.

UAVs under 2kg do not require a SFOC for commercial operations.

Zufferey adds: “Other countries such as France, Poland, Spain and Australia also have this same first weight threshold.”

In many other countries, there are few or no restrictions. For example, Walker says: “Regulation of domestic UAV use in Latin American and African countries where mineral exploration is widespread is virtually non-existent.”

Lednor comments: “This is an evolving industry, and at the moment the pace of technological evolution is outstripping the pace at which the legislation can evolve. The key for operators is to act safely and responsibly, delivering value to clients, thus ensuring that the public perception and longevity of this exciting industry is maintained.”

The future A 3-D model of an openpit mine in Argentina based on data from a Trimble UAV

All of the companies that MM spoke to agree that the upsurge in the use of UAVs in mining will continue as more and more organisations come to understand the efficiency and safety benefits that using a drone can bring.

The technology is becoming more capable and affordable, while people in the industry are also becoming more aware of the opportunities to employ UAVs. There is great potential given the large number of mines in the world and many benefits that the mining and exploration industry can derive from UAVs. A SwissDrones spokesperson says: “We are convinced that UAVs will have a big future in the mining industry, because of fast developments in safe and accurate operating systems.”

Their use is likely to become more prevalent, particularly as more novel ways to handle, manipulate, analyse and visualise the data become available.

UAVs are ideal for the safer, more automated mines of the future.

Basso suggests: “Mines are perfect candidates for automation and already highly automated in many ways. They are vast and often dangerous tracts of land that are best navigated by unmanned machines operated from the safety of a control station. UAVs not only offer this, but also a frequent, accurate and low-cost new perspective from the air.”

It is clear that the technology will advance rapidly. Tadrowski says: “Advances in automation, batteries, software and system designs will mean that UAVs will become more common and be integrated with different sensors for a wider range of uses in mining. The rapid progress of this technology will surpass most people’s predictions and expectations in a very short time.”

New and lighter sensors will also open up new applications, and with this new potential benefits. McCuaig opines: “UAVs will likely follow the path of many other technologies that surround us in our daily lives. As more

companies get involved in the industry, new applications are developed and science progresses, we expect to see aircraft become smaller and more lightweight. Workflows can become simpler and faster; and the on-board technology more intelligent. Pardon the puns, but ‘the sky’s the limit’ once we ‘get off the ground’.”

UAV-borne magnetometer systems could replace most ground portable and high-resolution airborne magnetometer and magnetic gradiometer surveys. Walker says: “The predicted adoption of UAV-borne magnetic and magnetic gradient systems will only be possible if the data quality is comparable to what is collected with manned systems today.

“As mineral-exploration sites become more and more remote, the costs to bring manned systems to these remote areas often prohibit the evaluation of the mineral potential of these properties. Small UAV-borne systems can be economically transported to even the most remote site.”

As the regulatory environment evolves and adapts, the operation of UAVs will change with it. Key to this will be the successful and safe integration of longer-endurance UAVs into manned airspace, allowing for larger areas to be surveyed in shorter timeframes.

Lednor explains: “UAVs will never replace boots-on-ground mining professionals, or satellites at the other end of the spectrum; but their niche and applicability will continue to evolve and expand. However, I believe there will for some time be a well-defined niche where small UAVs are cost-effective and outside of this a point at which manned aviation, due to the maturity and ubiquity of the technology, is more cost-effective over larger areas.”

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