7 minute read
Interview with Heng Huang Financer, HOT Mining Tech Co., Ltd, Beijing.
HENG HUANG
FINANCER, HOT MINING TECH CO., LTD BEIJING
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The idea I always pursuit in my career is the “pirate spirit” which enlightens me to observe and develop. Our team keeps sharp to the development of cuttingedge technologies. With a strong team, I’m able to find the vision whenever the time requires. Mr. Heng Huang (Steven) graduated from the China University of Mining and Technology. He also took up advanced studies at MIT and Imperial College London. He is a fellow AuSIMM, Senior Mining Engineer, funder of Beijing HOT Mining Tech Co., Ltd. Steve has more than 15 years of engineering delivery experience in the resources industry. With rich experience in international mining, he has participated in and is responsible for mining projects in major mining countries such as Australia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Indonesia, Mexico, and Mongolia.
PROFILES IN MINING
Please share your company profile where you work/own now
Steven works as a senior executive of several companies and organizations. He is the Founder and CEO of Beijing HOT Mining Tech Co., Ltd, the Chairman of Alpha Industrial Intelligence Holding Co., Ltd, the Founding Partner of RockX Capital, and the Director of BDLP(Indonesia).
Beijing HOT Mining Tech Co., Ltd is committed to providing “One-Stop" X-technologies and associated services to the resource industry from Exploration to Mine Closure. Alpha Industrial Intelligence Holding Co., Ltd is dedicated to providing intelligence mining solutions, based on IoT (Internet of Things), for Mining & Mineral projects.
RockX Capital focuses on investment in rare and precious mineral resources and venture exploration investment, and is committed to becoming a world-class mining private equity investment fund management company.
BDLP is independent, competitive, and has good relations with the government to boost the economy through the mining sector. BDLP is developing a gold polymetallic mine in Hulubalang Indonesia.
Kindly throw some light on your professional journey so far, how you started, your experience, and what you wish to achieve?
I started my career journey with John Finlay in 2004 and created lots of sales records as a team member which was a great experience for such a young miner to build confidence.
For the next 3 years from 2007, I worked as sales director to be in charge of team management, marketing development, clients’ relationship maintenance, project financial raising. My career had rapid growth with experience distillation.
I started my own company (HOT Mining) in 2011, nearly the end of the golden decade of China's coal industry. The development of the coal industry was at a historical turning point at that moment, and companies were facing the impact of enterprise mergers and energy structure adjustment. I must say it was an era of encouraging technological innovation, and an era that was full of challenges and chances.
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profiles in mining
The idea I always pursuit in my career is the “pirate spirit” which enlightens me to observe and develop. Our team keeps sharp to the development of cutting-edge technologies. With a strong team, I’m able to find the vision whenever the time requires. Our goal is to build a top 50 mining company around the world in the next 20 years.
AI is transforming the way the mining sector works. What is your opinion is the most important in this regard and how can miners achieve it?
First, this is an irreversible trend. As for China, we are a little ahead in this AI revolution. I think the most important part to achieve is the technological innovation and some driven motivations.
THE MINING INDUSTRY IS CHALLENGED BY 3 MAIN INTERNAL MOTIVATIONS:
1. The global mining grade has decreased and the mining depth has increased. It’s required a new mining method that is why the autonomous haulage system has been fully applied to the Pilbara iron mine and the XRT sensor-based sorting technology has been used in the Laos copper mine to improve the cutoff grade and prolong the life service of the mine.
2. Safety will be prior to future mining.
The mining company will try to not dispatch the employee in the area with dangerous risky. So, AI, driverless technology, and automation technology will be the perfect solution.
3. Where in the east or west, it’s getting harder to recruit young miners to face the work in the dangerous and complex mining site. The miners themselves should find a way out, and the working mode changing will be necessary.
Remote Control, XRT Sensor-based Sorting, AI flotation, autonomous driving are some new technologies in the mining industry. What do you think is the rate of adoption by miners and what kind of training and facilities do they need to become proficient?
These technologies will go crazy. Safety, efficiency improving and cost saving will urge them to adopt most of them. But the rate of adoption will be a difference between companies in which specific
PROFILES IN MINING
industry they belong or how is the size of their volume. With the continuous evolution of these technologies, physical applications become pretty easy to operation. So, the operators just need professional training or pass a test something like that.
How do you rate different places like the USA, China, Mongolia, Africa, etc. from a mining standpoint? How developed or non-developed do you think these places are?
I have to say, speaking of the management standard and advanced technology, the USA, Australia, and Canada are giants. Take a look at other regions, whoever you name it, they get plenty of defects and underdevelopment.
China, with more than 10 years of development, got very close to Europe and USA in the technological innovation. For the rest of the world, the polarization is serious. Take Indonesia as an example, the mining projects can get well managed if they are led by Chinese or Indonesian companies.
But you can find hiring child miner still happen in Indonesia. The current situation in Africa is similar to that in Indonesia. Mongolia, in particular, the development of the mining industry started late, but the starting point is high.
They are benefited from the investment of western companies. Also, for the small size mining company, the polarization situation happens.
What is the future of coal, copper, gold, zinc, lead, silver, fluorite, barite, and other base metals in smart mining?
I want to stress smart mining will require a bigger volume of funding. Smart mining can be fully implemented in the mine
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with a scale effect. Some small and medium-sized mines can only realize a part it. For example, coal, lead, zinc, copper, nickel mines can easily adopt smart mining, as they have a scale effect. But it is difficult for like barite and fluorite mines to implement smart mining instead.
What are the most important SAAS services in mining and why?
The biggest role of SaaS is to break the information island and improve enterprise efficiency. Especially for large mining companies, there are time differences, information blocking, and other problems in communication, and SaaS can effectively eliminate these problems. What is your view on women in mining? What is the current industry ratio of such a workforce and how do you think can we achieve a more balanced one in the future?
My opinion on women in mining is that some countries will be more open-minded. But we can’t be too critical to the countries they not hiring women to work underground, most of them are acting as protection purposes.
I’m looking forward to a ratio increase of women in the mining industry, but probably not easy to reach a balance. Here is the ideal from me, no matter men or women, I’m longing the intelligent technologies can improve our working environment.
