Tag Archives: Butcherbird

Scania’s autonomous trucks to debut at Element 25’s Butcherbird manganese mine

Scania and Australia-based services provider Regroup say they will launch the world’s first fleet of Scania autonomous in-pit mining trucks in the Pilbara in 2025 with a rollout planned at Element 25’s Butcherbird mine.

Building on the recent announcement of the start of sales for commercially-available autonomous trucks, Scania today announces it will supply its first fleet of autonomous trucks to Regroup.

The world-first fleet of 11 autonomous rigid G 560 8×4 tippers, transporting manganese ore for Element 25 at its Butcherbird site, is planned to start work in late 2025 in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. Scania, Regroup and Element 25 will now work collaboratively to finalise the particulars regarding this solution, and to align with the expansion of the Butcherbird mine.

“Scania in Australia has been working closely with several partners in the local mining industry over recent years to finesse our autonomous truck programme in advance of this announcement,” Scania Australia Managing Director, Manfred Streit, says. “We are delighted that this historic event, the first order globally for a fleet of Scania’s new autonomous trucks, has been made by a privately-owned Australian company, which will provide these trucks for use in an Australian mining environment.”

Peter Hafmar, Head of Autonomous Solutions, Scania, said: “With this fleet order, we bring to commercial reality the concept of an autonomous fleet working at scale in demanding real-world conditions. We anticipate the Regroup fleet deployment will be the first of many, as operators around the world see the safety, productivity and ease-of-use benefits of Scania’s technology.”

Regroup, a fully integrated civil, mining and bulk commodities haulage partner, sees the autonomous truck fleet as the first critical stage in its path towards a zero-tailpipe emissions mining fleet future.

Regroup Managing Director, Michael Still, says: “Along with Scania, we are excited to be establishing our first fleet of autonomous vehicles in the Australian mining industry. It is not lost on us that we are able to collaborate with one of our key, and long-standing partners in Element 25 as we look to roll this solution out across their site. We have always been aligned in our values in supporting industry innovation and the electrification of the global vehicle fleet. It is great that we can demonstrate this on site.

“Regroup has excelled at initiating and delivering sustainable and renewable practices, and these new autonomous trucks are just the first step in our transport plan. We are looking forward to adding Scania zero emission autonomous mining trucks as the next step. In addition to the autonomous trucks coming next year, we have also ordered a driver-operated battery-electric Scania rigid 8×4 truck that we will look to incorporate into the Element 25 Butcherbird operation which will serve as a water cart, underlining our overall aim of decarbonising our mining activities.

“We’re investing eight figures with Scania to establish a fully autonomous onsite mining haulage fleet. Regroup has a track record in investing in innovative fleets.”

Still says he views the autonomous Scania fleet as being able to also reduce its diesel consumption, as the operator moves from a larger capacity fleet of 100-200 t vehicles to a smaller class unit. From a decarbonisation perspective, Regroup is also expected to burn less fuel on site.

Regroup has grown tenfold over the past four years. It provides plant, people and expertise across several construction and mining sectors.

“We worked out early on that we needed to develop into a full-service offering,” Still says.

“We’ve grown quickly from 22 staff to 250. In that same time, we have spent and committed over A$100 million ($68 million) on new assets. So, we’re very serious about fresh fleet…When new technology and opportunity comes along, we’re able to invest. Our aim longer term is to fully electrify the fleet.”

Regarding the new autonomous fleet, Still says there will be no reduction in the driver cohort, because the new fleet will be operating as an expansion of a current program, so no additional drivers will be sought.

He said: “We’ve certainly done our homework in terms of people that are using the Scania product. But there is a leap of faith involved with commercialising an autonomous solution from Scania for the first time in the world. With anything that you do for the first time there’s going to be a leap of faith because there’s no baseline data, but one of our values is to think big.

“Looking at our data projections, against maybe a small site, autonomous is more expensive, but the more volume you’re required to move, the cheaper the solution becomes, because your operator numbers don’t increase.

“Yes, your trucks increase, but your operators don’t necessarily increase because you’ve got a control room with the same setup. Your setup costs are in fact locked. So, it’s then spread out over more trucks and more volume and then the trucks made complete sense.

“But even at the lower volumes, whilst it looked like on paper there was an increased cost to us providing the solution, when you consider the cost of flights, the cost of transporting people to sites, and the cost of accommodating people, almost got it to a cost neutral point, even with four trucks.

“But at 10 to 11 trucks running, there is a financial benefit to our client. And even while still a diesel truck, just in fuel economy and reduction in carbon emissions, there’s a benefit to our client,” he says.

Robert Taylor, Head of Mining at Scania Australia, said: “Regroup is a business on a rapid path to expansion, having been voted the top regional business of the year in Western Australia.

“We can see that Regroup and Element 25 will benefit from reduced operating costs using our autonomous trucks, decarbonising their operations, and transferring labour requirements from the field to remote control room locations, which are also safer working environments. So, this fleet will provide a win-win for all parties.”

Element 25 targets Butcherbird upgrade with STEINERT KSS ore sorters

Element 25 Ltd has acquired two STEINERT 2-m-wide KSS ore sorters fitted with multiple sensors that are now installed at its Butcherbird manganese project in Western Australia.

The sorters will be used to upgrade the high-quality manganese concentrate for export markets, STEINERT says.

The Butcherbird operation has a proven and probable manganese ore reserves of 50.55 Mt at an average grade of 10.3% Mn for 5.22 Mt of contained manganese.

Element 25 plans to use the STEINERT KSS sensor-based sorters to upgrade the washed feed material to an average grade of >32% Mn, STEINERT says.

The miner has already shipped its first consignment of ore and the second is scheduled to be loaded at Port Hedland, in Western Australia, in late August. Current annual production is estimated at 365,000 t of manganese ore concentrate with a 40-year mine life for Stage 1 of the operation.

Element 25 previously said Butcherbird is ideally placed to feed potential demand, with advanced flowsheet development work undertaken in 2019 and 2020 confirming a simple, unique, ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure leach process for Element 25 ores which, when combined with offsets, will target the world’s first Zero Carbon Manganese for EV cathode manufacture.

Element 25 progresses Zero Carbon Manganese vision with AK Evans pact

A day after securing the sale of the first parcel of material from its Butcherbird manganese project in Western Australia, Element 25 Ltd has signed a letter of intent with AK Evans Group Australia for transportation of manganese concentrate from the project to Utah Point in Port Hedland.

AK Evans is a privately owned construction, civils, heavy and bulk haulage company, founded in Port Hedland, with locations across Western Australia. AK Evans also has a strategic partnership with Kurtarra Pty Ltd, an 100% indigenous-owned earthmoving and services company.

The letter of intent will cover the initial transport arrangements – with haulage for the maiden cargo undertaken using agreed terms and rates – and the parties are in the process of finalising a long-term commercial arrangement, which will see the introduction of new quad road trains during the remainder of 2021, Element 25 said.

Element 25 Managing Director, Justin Brown, said: “We are excited to be partnering with AK Evans with a view to having new dedicated road trains to transport our manganese to Port Hedland. We are also excited to know we can work with our commercial partners in delivering solutions to fulfil our vision of delivering Zero Carbon Manganese™ for the electric vehicle (EV) battery revolution. This is another important milestone for the project and company, and we are excited to be heading for our first shipment of Butcherbird’s material to our offtake partners.”

On May 26, Element 25 announced the sale of the first parcel of material from Butcherbird to OMH under offtake agreement terms. The material in the contract specification is 30-35% Mn concentrate, with the first shipment planned for June 2021.

Last year, Element 25 completed a prefeasibility study on Butcherbird that outlined a start-up manganese concentrate export scenario as part of a staged development strategy. It outlined a maiden proven and probable reserve of 50.55 Mt at 10.3% Mn containing 5.22 Mt of manganese, with a base case assuming annual production and sales of 312,000 t/y of medium-grade lump manganese concentrate grading 30-35% Mn.

“The project team will now turn its focus to the next stages of the multi-stage development strategy of the project including a Stage 2 expansion of the concentrate business followed by a Stage 3 development to convert the concentrate material into high purity manganese sulphate monohydrate for electric vehicle (EV) batteries to power the global transition away from fossil fuel powered mobility,” the company said.

Element 25 says Butcherbird is ideally placed to feed potential demand, with advanced flowsheet development work undertaken in 2019 and 2020 confirming a simple, unique, ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure leach process for Element 25 ores which, when combined with offsets, will target the world’s first Zero Carbon Manganese for EV cathode manufacture.