Hexagon Mining success story across its range at Cuajone and Toquepala

Posted by Paul Moore on 10th July 2017

At HxGN LIVE 2016, Hexagon Mining nominated its customer, Grupo México, as a Shaping Smart Change honoree. Nominees are celebrated annually at the event for using Hexagon technology to push the boundaries of innovation. In the Peruvian Andes, Grupo’s subsidiary, Southern Peru Copper Corporation, is applying Hexagon Mining technology with outstanding results. The company invited Hexagon to document this success story at Southern Peru’s Cuajone and Toquepala mines, which are among the biggest copper mines in the world.

While its IDS radar and Leica total stations monitor slope stability, MineSight and Jigsaw help Southern Peru to achieve among the lowest production costs in the world. From Q4 2015 to Q4 2016, Southern Peru increased operating performance (EBITDA) by 90.6%. During the same period, net income rose by 182.7%. The company cut the operating cash cost per pound of copper by 14.2% to 95 cents, making it the highest margin major copper producer in the world.

During a visit to the mines, Hexagon Mining interviewed users of its solutions, including mine managers, and directors of operations. Their feedback encompassed fleet management, mine planning, ore control, drill and blast, and integration. Here are some highlights:

  • “Having as many programs, accessories or tools, as possible in one single platform is very beneficial because you get integrity of information. The data is more reliable and therefore the work one performs will have a greater level of certainty.”
  • “Since we got the unified software from Hexagon – Leica, MineSight – we’ve been able to make the day-to-day decisions in real time. We’ve been able to substantially reduce time.”
  • “Here at the mine we use Jigsaw. Here on the left we have trips to fuelling station – the percentage of fuel in the tank. And based on that, we send the truck to the fuelling station. This has made it so that instead of sending a truck to the pump 60 times in a month, we only send it 22 times, so the truck is being productive rather than spending time going to the pump unnecessarily.”
  • “Using MineSight in particular, we’ve been able to reduce execution times. This is a process that’s been in place for a number of years, and it’s allowed us to make these time savings and make better use of human resources.”