ABB recently won an order worth $18 million to provide the complete electrical and automation system for six underground mine incline conveyors for Newcrest Mining’s Cadia East gold and copper project, located in southeast Australia, the country’s largest underground mining project. ABB’s scope of supply for the project includes a state-of-the-art conveyor control system that will optimise the overall performance, reliability, energy efficiency, and operational flexibility of the conveyor system over its lifetime. ABB will design, engineer and supply a full electrical solution with modular switchrooms, transformers, 33 kV ring main units, water chiller systems, motor control centers (MCC) and mine conveyor control program (MCCP) to manage ABB’s ACS 6,000 multi-drives and motors.  Delivery is scheduled for the first quarter of 2011.

Newcrest is a leading international gold company and one of the worlds lowest cost gold producers. The company is Australia’s largest gold producer and a global top 10 gold mining company.  Once completed in 2013, the Cadia East project will be Australia’s largest underground mine. Cadia East is one of the world’s largest known gold deposits – a resource of some 2,347 Mt containing 33.2 Moz of gold and 6.59 Mt of copper. The mine is expected to be in operation for at least 30 years.

“ABB’s global engineering resources and mining industry expertise, combined with our proven technology, provide a technically robust and energy efficient system that will optimise performance over the entire productive life of this mine,” said Veli-Matti Reinikkala, head of ABB’s Process Automation division.