Tag Archives: AutoDrill

Epiroc to deliver automation-ready Pit Viper 271 XC rigs to CITIC Pacific’s Sino Iron mine

Epiroc says it has won a large mining equipment order from CITIC Pacific Mining in Australia to deliver a fleet of Epiroc Pit Viper 271 XC blasthole drill rigs.

The drill rigs will come with advanced automation features for use at the Sino Iron open-pit mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, with the Pit Viper drills used to drill for magnetite. They build on the delivery of three other Pit Vipers the company made to the operation back in 2019.

The equipment order was booked in the September quarter of 2022 and is valued at more than SEK300 million ($26 million).

“Epiroc delivered Pit Viper rigs to the Sino Iron site in 2019, and we are proud to continue this productive partnership as CITIC Pacific Mining is expanding the mine while optimising productivity and safety,” Epiroc’s President and CEO, Helena Hedblom, said.

Xianglin Cheng, General Manager – Mining at CITIC Pacific Mining, added: “In the last three years, Epiroc has provided satisfactory after-sale services to help the three Pit Viper 351 drill rigs perform to expectation and has also successfully established mutual trust with CITIC Pacific Mining. The confidence and trust are the major reasons for us to choose Epiroc.”

The Pit Viper drills are manufactured in Texas, USA. They will be installed with automation features including AutoDrill, which allows for up to 100% of the hole drilling cycle to be in automatic mode with high consistency and reliability of operations; and AutoLevel, which minimises the time it takes to level and delevel and hence provides more time drilling, according to Epiroc.

Epiroc to deliver advanced autonomous drilling solutions to SNIM in Mauritania

Epiroc has won a large order for surface mining equipment from Société Nationale Industrielle et Minière, in Mauritania.

Société Nationale Industrielle et Minière, known as SNIM, is one of Africa’s largest iron ore producers. The mining company has ordered a package of Epiroc Pit Viper 351 drill rigs with advanced automation solutions that will be used at the new F’Derick mining site. Epiroc will, in addition, provide service supervision and spare parts.

The equipment order is valued around SEK150 million ($14.7 million) and was booked in the June quarter of 2022.

“Epiroc has a long-term relationship with SNIM, and we look forward to continue supporting the customer with optimal productivity and safety at the new mine site,” Helena Hedblom, Epiroc’s President and CEO, said.

The Pit Viper 351 rigs are manufactured in Texas, USA. They will be installed with automation features including AutoDrill, which allows for up to 100% of the hole drilling cycle to be in automatic mode with high consistency and reliability of operations, and with AutoLevel, which minimises the time it takes to level and delevel and hence provides more time drilling. They will also be equipped with Epiroc’s telematics system, which allows for intelligent monitoring of machine performance and productivity in real time, Epiroc says

Anglo moves Los Bronces Pit Viper drilling operations to remote operations centre

Anglo American has launched the first Epiroc Pit Vipers operating at its Los Bronces copper mine in Chile to be remotely controlled from its Integrated Remote Operation Center (IROC) in Santiago.

These five drills are the first in Chile and Latin America to be operated from outside the designated mine site, with the company planning to have all five blasthole drills running by fully-autonomous means by 2022, Anglo American Chile said.

All five drills have automatic drilling systems, such as AutoDrill and self-levelling. These features allow the controller to set the target depth of a hole, with the machine automatically drilling, while the self-levelling function results in the machine automatically altering the hydraulics to level the equipment. The rigs are also fitted with a high-precision GPS system with automatic navigation system, which enables the drilling sequences to be carried out after the controller issues the relevant instructions.

The sensors and advanced control systems of this equipment allows the continuation of work routines with minimal human intervention, translating into increasingly safer operations, Anglo American Chile said.

These five rigs in question were previously operated from the Operational Management Room in the Los Bronces mine offices.

The automation initiative is part of a plan for the development and implementation of new technologies for mining at the Anglo American group level, all guided by the overarching FutureSmart Mining™ approach.

“With these innovations, the operation will become autonomous in its drilling cycles, without the intervention of an operator, manually or remotely, turning the operator into a system controller, and making this task much more efficient,” the company said (translated from Spanish).

Anglo has a 50.1% interest in the Los Bronces mine, which it manages and operates.

Autonomous drilling transition sets IAMGOLD’s Essakane up for longer mine life

The roots of IAMGOLD’s automation ambitions at the Côté gold project in Ontario, Canada, can be traced back to remote and auto drilling developments at its 90%-owned Essakane mine in Burkina Faso, which, according to a recent presentation from Zhi Jun Zhu, has resulted in significant operational benefits.

IAMGOLD launched the first automated drill rig in West Africa with assistance from Epiroc back in February at Essakane. This followed a series of automation steps carried out on the company’s fleet of Epiroc PV235 blasthole drills, beginning with the ‘Operator Assist’ phase back in 2016.

Added to the seven PV235 blasthole drills on site are five Sandvik D45KSs. These drills are working in medium-to-hard material of 100-250 Mpa rock where they drill 229 mm and 152 mm diameter holes on 10 m benches. They come with a single pass limit of up to 12.2 m in down-the-hole drilling mode.

The business case for adopting automation at the site, which began operating in 2010 and was expanded in 2013 to reach a mining capacity of 55 Mt/y, was centred around a capex versus opex dynamic – should the company purchase a new rig to increase drilling performance by 15%, or try to increase the use of automation on its existing seven PV235s to hit this goal?

Alongside this, the company wanted to provide its best drillers with the ability to operate multiple rigs simultaneously, enhance operational safety, support continued sustainability, and improve performance and productivity.

Zhu, who worked at Essakane as Technical Services Coordinator for five years prior to his current role as Autonomous Systems Engineer at Côté, explained during the recent GMG-led Autonomous Drills Virtual Forum: “During the start-up of the mine, the required fragmentation size was difficult to achieve because the ore was coming from the soft area where it was highly weathered and fractured. As the mine depth increased, the material got harder. As a result, the blasting fragmentation became harder to achieve. At the same time as the percentage of hard material increased, productivity of the crusher became a concern and bottleneck.”

With the last life of mine study in 2018 showing a required increase in the total material mined to keep up an average gold production rate of 400,000 oz/y – and the requirement to strip hard material from phase four, five, six and seven to reach a new ore zone from 2026 – the company needed to embed a suitable level of blasthole drill automation in advance of another expansion in the mine life.

Prior to 2016, Essakane required two people to operate a PV235 – one to guide the machine to the desired location and another to operate it.

This was neither safe or efficient, Zhu said, adding that hole deviation and sub-optimal fragmentation were also common with this setup.

Breaking down the project key performance indicators after the initial ramp up of remote and autonomous operation, Zhu said the company was looking for:

  • An improved drilling penetration rate of 15%:
    • 23 m/operating hour (propel + setup + drill); and
    • 28 m/drilling hour.
  • Improved drilling productivity from 63% to 75%:
    • Eliminate stoppage delays associated with lunch and shift change;
    • Lean drilling, less propel/tram and setup/positioning time.
  • Increased drilling capacity from 81,714 to 108,800 drilling meters/rig/year.

Having progressed from the ‘Rig Operator Assist’ mode in 2016, which used Epiroc’s Rig Control System, Surface Manager, Auto Level, first generation AutoDrill module, and Hole Navigation; the company has progressed to the ‘Rig Remote Operation’ phase where (Multi) Remote and AutoDrill generation two functions are employed.

This second-generation system represents a “big advance”, Zhu said.

“The system is very smart and could continuously optimise the engagement to deliver the desired result,” he said. “The only manual input required is the ‘aggressiveness’ setting, which balances the bit life with the penetration rate.”

This led to the launch of its first fully automated drill rig on February 8.

While the project is on course to hit all the above-mentioned KPIs, there have been other benefits including an operating hours improvement of 645 hours/year/rig; a 14,835 m/year/rig drilling metres gain; a $356,040/rig incremental annual production benefit; and a net cost saving of $202,794/rig compared with the equivalent rental equipment drilling cost.

All of these add to fewer people being in dangerous areas on the mine site – with all operators in remote operating centres – more consistent operation from a fuels/lubricants and drilling consumables perspective and, of course, less maintenance.

Reflecting on the implementation, Zhu noted several key required inputs for a successful automation implementation program.

“It is a critical requirement to have a reliable network connection between the on-board device and the remote operations office,” he said.

On top of this, the sensors on the machines need to be kept in top shape, meaning maintenance teams should evaluate their health on a regular basis and always keep spare parts available.

And, while fewer people will be needed to oversee drilling in autonomous mode, the skills level of the required personnel will be that much greater.

Some of the next steps at Essakane include improving the bandwidth and latency time for real-time control of multi-automated drills, developing a preventive maintenance system checklist, and carrying out a business case study on upgrading four PV235s to either Teleremote/AutoDrill 2 operation.

Zhu will no doubt bring these learnings and opportunities to the Côté gold development in Canada, which is expected to operate six blasthole drills in fully autonomous mode when ramped up, alongside more than 20 fully automated haul trucks. These will help the mine reach an average production rate of 367,000 oz/y of gold.