In its 2019 full year results released yesterday, Shandong Gold Mining Co Ltd, which has a Hong Kong listing, gave some insight into the technology moves being made by the big Chinese mining companies. The company is the leading domestic producer, and achieved a gold mine production volume of 40.12 tonnes or 1.42 Moz during the year, representing an increase of 2.03% year-on-year. This compares to a Chinese domestic total production across all mines in 2019 of 314.37 tonnes or 11.09 Moz, representing a decrease of 9.13% year-on-year. Shandong’s Jiaojia, Linglong and Sanshandao gold mines have all produced over 100 tonnes of the yellow metal in total, again a first for Chinese gold mining complexes.
The company says it aims to boost its large-scale operations by “vigorously enhancing the mechanised operation and the efficiency of enterprises.” At present, Shandong says “the equipped production level and mechanisation degree of the mining enterprises firmly occupy the leading position in the domestic mining industry. Moreover, the underground trackless mining equipment configuration has always been remaining at an advanced level in the world.” The company is steadily advancing the implementation of the planning programmes including the ‘Mineral Resources Development and Utilisation Project of Sanshandao Gold Mine’ and the ‘Resources Development and Utilisation Project of Jiaojia Gold Mining Belt.’
The three major laboratories of the company, namely the deep underground mining laboratory, filling laboratory and beneficiation laboratory, have begun to take shape, and some of the scientific research results are playing or will play a key supporting role in the company’s technological innovation development. For instance, the national-level ‘Key Technologies on Safe and Efficient Mining of Large-scale Submarine Metal Deposits’ worked on by the deep underground mining laboratory are being implemented at the Sanshandao gold mine; the mine rock mechanics data management and visualisation system fills in the gaps in rock mechanics work for domestic underground metal mines; and the first domestic industrial application of 5G technology in the mining area has been successfully realised in Laixi mine. The company stressed the importance on reform and innovation and gathered resources on transformations and upgrades. Sanshandao gold mine is being built into a ‘safe, efficient, intelligent and ecological’ modern mine this year.
On the Laixi 5G project, China Mobile and Huawei successfully deployed the first network of 5G base stations 500 m underground. The 5G coverage is across the entire 500 m level of the underground mine and it has been used to control the unmanned electric rail transportation cars successfully. This is one of the first times that 5G has been deployed for an underground mine operation in China. China Mobile and Huawei says they will continue to deepen cooperation and promote the construction of 5G smart mines.
At Laixi, field test data shows that the downlink rate is stable at more than 800 megahertz. In addition, the uplink rate is stable at more than 100 megahertz while the end-to-end delay is less than 20 milliseconds. This actually exceeded the customer expectations. In the future, Shandong Gold’s Laixi mine plans to combine the 5G, edge computing, unmanned motor, cloud platform and other new-generation information technologies to gradually realise remote control and automation of its underground production fleet as well as scrapers and rock drilling rigs.