Through a decade-long commitment to improving safety and efficiency in underground mining, Anglo American’s steelmaking coal operations in Australia have reached a significant milestone. The company’s 10-year vision for a ‘mine of the future’ became reality when all its underground coal mines in the Bowen Basin began operating simultaneously from Remote Operation Centres (ROCs).
The Central Queensland underground operations have also hit another remarkable milestone, notching up 10,000 longwall mining shears from those ROCs.
Anglo American Australia automation superintendent Matthew Wakeford said the rapid pace of technological innovation – especially in areas like data analytics, automation and digitalisation – had unlocked incredible opportunities for the mining sector to be safer, more productive and more sustainable.
“At Anglo American, we have re-imagined mines where our people can remotely manage operations from a safe distance, using real-time data to make informed decisions,” said Wakeford, who will speak at the Longwall 2025 conference in the Hunter Valley next month.
“Since transitioning to remote operations, we have reduced exposure risk to hazardous areas by 22,500 hours across our Bowen Basin mine sites.”
Before Anglo American’s Australian operations began their focus on autonomous mining in the 2010s, only one known mine globally had achieved sustainable remote operations – San Juan Mine in the United States.
Head of Operations Matt Cooper said more than 1,000 system initiatives had enabled remote operation success during the company’s 10-year journey to this point. “Each advancement towards our vision introduced new obstacles, requiring the development of further technology capable of meeting the unique demands,” he said.
“But if we are to unlock the full potential of these advancements, we must consistently integrate the seasoned expertise of our workforce — those who have deeply understood and mastered the complexities of coal mining through decades of experience. Our people are irreplaceable, and we are equipping them to grow with the industry, preserving a legacy of knowledge that will always be essential to our success.”
He adds: “By developing state-of-the-art technologies and prioritising the well-being of our workforce through a collaborative approach, our steelmaking coal mines in Australia have emerged as leaders in the industry, reshaping the future of underground coal mining on a global scale.”
Anglo American’s automation and remote operation technology journey in Australia has also involved industry-leading Personal Proximity Detection systems to keep coal mine workers safe underground as well as a trial of remote-controlled stockpile dozers. The tele-remote dozers, designed to improve operator safety on site, has been trialled at the Capcoal Complex, near Middlemount, to reduce exposure to concealed stockpile voids.
The move is expected to reduce in-cab dozer exposure time by 45,000 to 75,000 hours a year once the technology is fully deployed across all sites. Wakeford said the pilot included the retrofit of a stockpile dozer with the latest Wi-Fi enabled technology to set up connectivity between the machine and operator chair in the control centre.
“Operating our fleet of dozers from a safe distance will reduce the number of hours in the cab and fully remove our operators from the dozer seat in what is another significant advancement in autonomous mining,” he said.
In Australia, Anglo American has five steelmaking coal mines in Queensland’s Bowen Basin, along with additional joint venture interests in steelmaking coal and manganese, and base metals exploration projects in Queensland.