Newmont Akyem gold mine achieves productivity gains with Orica’s autonomous measurement technology

Posted by Paul Moore on 20th July 2021
Orica’s FRAGTrack™ technology is enabling Newmont’s Akyem Gold Mine to make timely decisions based on automated fragmentation data, to improve the productivity of the mine. The Akyem Gold Mine is a large open-pit project located in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Owned and operated by Newmont Golden Ridge Ltd, the mine employs over 450 people and mines approximately 32 Mt per annum.

Orica and Newmont have been working in partnership to deliver a series of value delivery projects at Akyem. First among these projects was the trial of a higher energy bulk explosive, Fortis™ Extra, to optimise fragmentation and reduce downstream costs. Another challenge that Akyem faced was to baseline the current blast performance and objectively assess any potential improvements. They decided that the best indicator of actual blast performance was Particle Size Distribution (PSD), measured at the point of excavation. Newmont identified a need for an automated system that could capture a large unbiased sample size and be capable of performing in varying lighting conditions as the Akyem site operates 24/7.

FRAGTrack™, Orica’s state-of-the-art fragmentation measurement tool, met all the requirements that Newmont had specified. In September 2020, amid the COVID-19 global pandemic, Newmont successfully installed two FRAGTrack™ cameras on two Liebherr 9400 face shovels. Augmented reality support, detailed installation guides and online training enabled the cameras to be installed remotely without the requirement of onsite specialist support.

Newmont Akyem Senior Mine Engineer Elvis Kyeremeh commented on the success of the technology installation, saying: “Since we started using FRAGTrack, access and monitoring of data related to fragmentation has been very efficient. We were able to make timely decisions and vital business plans to improve productivity on the mine”.

FRAGTrack™ has now been running continuously at the site without issue for over ten months. Within the first three months of operation, the two FRAGTrack™ units collected over 30,000 images. Each sample is tagged with a spatial co-ordinates and timestamp information which allowed Newmont to attribute the results to specific blasts. Based on the initial results, Newmont was concluded that a change to Fortis™ Extra based on measurements obtained from FRAGTrack™ resulted in a 17.8% improvement in fragmentation; P80 reduction from 359mm to 295mm; and 5% increase in dig rates across both shovels. “On average, 50% of the ore now blasted will pass through the gyro crusher without requiring additional work. This reduces power consumption and ensures lower comminution costs for our operations,” Kyeremeh explained.