Tag Archives: Cadia East

Responsible mining practices recognised at Newmont’s Cadia mine

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Newmont Corporation has announced that its Cadia operation in New South Wales, Australia, has achieved The Copper Mark and The Molybdenum Mark following an independent assessment, recognising responsible production practices at Australia’s largest underground mine.

Cadia is Newmont’s first site globally to receive the award after successfully meeting more than 30 criteria needed in critical areas including environment, community, human rights and governance, among others, it says.

Newmont’s Cadia mine is the nation’s second largest copper producer and the third site in Australia to receive The Copper Mark. Cadia is the only operating mine producing molybdenum in Australia and, thus, the only mine to receive The Molybdenum Mark.

Newmont Chief Safety and Sustainability Officer, Suzy Retallack, said: “Meeting growing global demand for copper brings an obligation to sustainability and responsible mining which prioritises environmental stewardship, social responsibility and economic development for the communities in which we operate.

“We take great pride in being at the forefront of the copper industry with The Copper Mark, which highlights our dedication to responsible production and transparency.

“This means our global customers can now choose to source copper concentrate from an independently evaluated mine that meets the highest standards in environmental, social and governance practices, responding to the increasing demand for sustainable supply chains.”

In 2020, Cadia entered into a 15-year renewable Power Purchase Agreement with Tilt Renewables Limited to buy 55% of the wind farm’s output. Now fully operational, Rye Park is supplying approximately half of Cadia’s power needs.

“Cadia’s commitment to the community supported an investment of almost A$6 million ($3.96 million) in the 18 months to December 2023 to support community projects, education and infrastructure,” Retallack said.

The Copper Mark’s Executive Director, Michèle Brülhart, said, “Congratulations to the team of Cadia for being the third site in Australia to achieve The Copper Mark and the first site to get The Molybdenum Mark. With this, about 35% of Australia’s copper is produced at sites that have obtained The Copper Mark.”

The Copper Mark says it is the leading assurance framework to promote responsible, sustainable and ethical practices across the copper, molybdenum, nickel and zinc value chains.

Cadia comprises the Cadia East underground mine, which is one of the largest gold and copper deposits in the world, and Ridgeway underground mine, currently in care and maintenance.

NextOre’s in-pit sorting advances continue with development of mining truck sensor

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NextOre and its magnetic resonance (MR) technology have made another advance in the ore sorting and material classification game with the development of a new “open geometry” sensor that could enable mines to scan mining truck loads.

The company, in the last year, has surpassed previous throughput highs using its on-conveyor belt solutions, accelerated the decision-making process associated with material sorting viability with its mobile bulk sorter and made strides to branch out into the in-pit sorting space via the development of these open geometry sensors.

NextOre’s MR technology is the culmination of decades of research and development by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), with the division spun out from the organisation in 2017. Since then, NextOre has gone on to demonstrate the technology’s viability across the globe.

NextOre’s MR analysers were first fitted on conveyor belts, yet interest in solutions for in-pit equipment predates the company’s inception.

“A significant portion of the time when CSIRO would show people the technology, they were working on for fitting on a conveyor belt, many would ask: ‘could you possibly put it around a truck somehow?’,” Chris Beal, CEO of NextOre, told IM.

After workshopping many ideas and developing increasingly large prototypes – commencing at the start with an antenna made up from a copper loop and a couple of capacitors – two in-pit solutions leveraging CSIRO’s open-geometry sensor have come to the fore.

The first – a 3-m-wide sensor – underwent static and dynamic tests using chalcopyrite copper ore grade samples in a material feeder setup in 2022, in Australia.

This test work, observed by several major mining companies, laid the groundwork for a bigger installation – a 7-m-wide ruggedised antenna that weighs about 5 t. This can be positioned over a haul truck and manoeuvred using a crane supplied by Eilbeck and guidance systems developed for NextOre by CSIRO and the University of Technology Sydney.

The advantage of MR in a truck load scanning scenario, just as with a conveyor, is the ability to make accurate, whole-of-sample grade measurements at high speeds. Yet, to operate effectively, this system requires significant amounts of power.

“The truck system we are building is between 120 kW and 200 kW,” Beal said. “For people in the radio frequency space, power of that magnitude is hard to comprehend; they’re used to dealing with solutions to power mobile phones.”

For reference, a NextOre on-conveyor system rated up to 5,000 t/h has around 30 kW of installed power. And conveyor systems above 5,000 t/h have 60 kW of installed power.

The idea is that this new MR truck sensor station would be positioned at an ex-pit scanning station to the side of the main haul road at a site and trucks will be directed to ore or waste as a result. The test rig constructed in NextOre’s facility has been built to suit the truck class of the initial customer, which is a major copper mine using 180-t-class and 140-t-class haul trucks.

The first prototype has now been built (as can be seen by the photo) and is awaiting of shipment to the mine where a one-year trial is set to commence.

While pursuing this development, NextOre has also been increasing the scale of its conveyor-based installations.

Around nine months ago, IM reported on a 2,800 t/h MR ore sorting installation at First Quantum Minerals’ Kansanshi copper mine in Zambia, which had just shifted from sensing to sorting with the commissioning of diversion hardware.

Now the company has an ore sensing installation up and running in Chile that has a capacity of 6,500 t/h – a little over 50% higher than the highest sensing rate (4,300 t/h) previously demonstrated by the company at Newcrest’s Cadia East mine in New South Wales, Australia.

Beal said the unit has been up and running since December, with the copper-focused client very happy with the results.

For those companies looking to test the waters of ore sorting and sensing, another big development coming out of NextOre in recent years has been the construction of a mobile bulk sorter.

Able to sort 100-400 t/h of material on a 900-mm-width conveyor belt while running at 0.3-1 m/s, these units – one of which has been operated in Australia – is able to compress the timeline normally associated with making a business case for ore sorting.

“As people can now hire such a machine, they are finding it either resolves a gap in proving out the technology or it can be used to solve urgent issues by providing an alternative source of process feed from historical dumps,” Beal said. “They want to bring a unit to site and, after an initial configuration period, get immediate results at what is a significant scale.”

Such testing has already taken place at Aeris Resources’ Tritton copper operations in New South Wales, where the unit took material on the first surface stockpile taken from an underground mine.

While this initial trial did not deliver the rejection rate anticipated by Aeris – due largely to rehandling of the material and, therefore, a reduction in ore heterogeneity ahead of feeding the conveyor – Aeris remains enthusiastic about the technology and Beal is expecting this unit to be redeployed shortly.

“We now know thanks to results from Kansanshi, Carmen Copper Corp/CD Processing, this new Chilean site and Cozamin (owned by Capstone Copper) that this in-situ grade variability can be preserved, and that mixing impacts directly on sorting performance,” Beal said. “Even so, we have seen really good heterogeneity persist in spite of the unavoidable levels of mixing inherent in mining.”

He concluded: “People want this type of equipment not in a year’s time, but next month. Capitalising the business to put more mobile units out in the world is a priority.”

Newcrest grads underline automation possibilities with SmartHog development

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The use of an all-terrain unmanned ground vehicle, incorporation of military spec hardware and sensors, a bank of lead/acid batteries, and the ingenuity of three mechatronics graduates have brought Newcrest Mining closer to its goal of automating the PC1 extraction level at its Cadia East gold-copper underground mine in New South Wales, Australia.

The company has progressively been rolling out automation-focused technologies at this mine steered by its Mining Innovation and Automation (MIA) Team.

Last year, this team, with the help of Epiroc, successfully implemented the first semi-autonomous integrated production level at the mine, with, at the time, an autonomous Scooptram ST18 capable of full 24/7 production across seven drives of a whole panel cave at the operation.

It is a slightly smaller machine that is helping the company progress from the automation of production and support equipment at the mine to autonomously completing a range of inspection tasks on the fully-autonomous PC1 extraction level.

The seeds for the SmartHog vehicle – a WartHog all-terrain unmanned ground vehicle with ‘smarts’ – were sewn back in early 2021, when Cadia’s first mechatronics graduate arrived to join the MIA team.

“A challenge was set to build an automated underground inspection robot utilising a WartHog chassis,” Aaron Brannigan, Cadia General Manager, told IM, explaining that the challenge provided a hands-on task for the graduate that would result in a solution that was beneficial in realising the team’s key focus of improving safety through technology and innovation.

The new graduate began to design this robot with the WartHog chassis as the base and, over time, was joined by two more mechatronics graduates – one with a dual computer science degree – where the conceptual work behind the robot really started to accelerate.

In early 2022, the three started to build the robot from a range of hardware, all based on military specifications to withstand the underground environment.

Brannigan explained: “To achieve this, the graduates made every cable themselves, crimped every connector, assembled all the components and sensors and wrote the software code for various aspects of the sensor outputs.”

Since the inspection robot was designed to replicate tasks typically performed by people on the level, it had to be fitted with a range of sensors including LiDAR, Radar, a PTZ camera, stereoscopic camera, LED spotlights and a weather station for wet bulb temperatures and measuring wind velocity for ventilation purposes, the company explained. Powered by a bank of lead/acid batteries, the SmartHog was commissioned on surface and, in June 2022, completed trials underground, including being ‘checked in’ to the autonomous system.

“With some further testing and improvements, the SmartHog will soon live permanently underground in the autonomous zone and will be able to complete a range of inspection tasks,” Brannigan said. “This moves us closer to our goal of automation at the extraction level and is a key focus of improving operational safety and sustainability through technology.”

IM put some questions to Brannigan to find out more.

IM: How are you leveraging technology from the automotive sector in the SmartHog? What kind of adaptations are required for this to work underground?

AB: The SmartHog utilises automotive industry radars as a way of localising its position underground. LiDAR is vulnerable to interference from dust and moisture in the air, whereas radar can ‘see’ through these, allowing the SmartHog to continue to navigate and know its position underground when these are present. We believe the use of radar in this context is industry-leading and our intent with this is twofold: first, it demonstrates the advantages and reduced downtime of radar over LiDAR and, second, it encourages original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to move from LiDAR to radar for their autonomous equipment so they can take advantage of the benefits it offers.

IM: What existing underground communications infrastructure is in place at PC1 to help facilitate the real-time transmission of data from the SmartHog?

AB: Our underground PC1 level has Wi-Fi throughout which forms the basis of the autonomous system, and this is connected to the surface via fibre optic cables.

IM: How are you using the new data you are collecting with the SmartHog at Cadia? What tasks is it allowing you to do that you couldn’t previously carry out (or conducted differently)?

AB: The primary purpose of the SmartHog is to undertake a range of tasks that a person has usually performed in the past, improving both safety and efficiency. One example is geotechnical inspections of draw points and extraction drives. In the past when it was necessary for a Geotechnical Technician to undertake an inspection, the autonomous level would need to be deactivated and the autonomous equipment removed to ensure there was no risk of vehicle on person interaction. This is a time-consuming process and means production is stopped for the duration, not to mention the potential risk to the person entering the level on foot.

With the various sensors fitted to the SmartHog, it can scan and photograph the draw point (using the conventional digital camera and stereoscopic camera) and send this information to the surface where a Geotechnical Engineer can review it, all while autonomous loading operations continue.

As the SmartHog is ‘checked in’ to the autonomous system and is ‘seen’ by the other equipment, it can operate independently but also become part of the autonomous traffic management system. Should the Geotechnical Engineer require further information about the draw point, the SmartHog can return and drive up to the limit of the draw point and capture further data from the range of sensors.

IM: Are there other projects outside of the PC1 where you could use the SmartHog?

AB: We anticipate in the future that each panel cave could have their own SmartHog, so that a range of tasks can be completed as previously outlined.

IM: Are there plans to make more SmartHogs? Could they be adapted to carry out other tasks?

AB: The way we have developed the first SmartHog may look very different to how any future SmartHogs may look. The value the graduates gained from solving a current problem using a hands-on approach is priceless and helps demonstrate the value of the graduate program. We believe the graduate program at Newcrest is industry-leading given the types of challenges our graduates can address and solve using the skills recently acquired at university on real-world challenges.

Given the SmartHog is battery powered, as battery technology improves, the next generation of SmartHogs will be able to carry lighter and higher capacity batteries allowing for larger payloads and longer run times. This could allow the inclusion of other sensors and different types of cameras, such as infrared and thermal, which are traditionally heavy items and would limit the range of the current battery performance. The options available are endless once battery technology improves to the point where runtimes are increased and recharge times are reduced. This is not far off given the speed at which battery technology and design is improving.

NextOre’s magnetic resonance tech up and running at First Quantum’s Kansanshi

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Australia-based NextOre is onto another ore sorting assignment with its magnetic resonance (MR) sensing technology, this time in Zambia at First Quantum Minerals’ Kansanshi copper mine.

NextOre was originally formed in 2017 as a joint venture between CSIRO, RFC Ambrian and Worley, with its MR technology representing a leap forward in mineral sensing that provides accurate, whole-of-sample grade measurements, it says.

Demonstrated at mining rates of 4,300 t/h, per conveyor belt, the technology comes with no material preparation requirement and provides grade estimates in seconds, NextOre claims. This helps deliver run of mine grade readings in seconds, providing “complete transparency” for tracking downstream processing and allowing operations to selectively reject waste material.

Having initially successfully tested its magnetic resonance analysers (MRAs) at Newcrest’s Cadia East mine in New South Wales, Australia, the company has gone onto test and trial the innovation across the Americas and Asia.

More recently, it set up camp in Africa at First Quantum Minerals’ Kansanshi copper mine where it is hoping to show off the benefits of the technology in a trial.

The MRA in question was installed in January on the sulphide circuit’s 2,800 t/h primary crushed conveyor at Kansanshi, with the installation carried out with remote assistance due to COVID-19 restrictions on site.

Anthony Mukutuma, General Manager at First Quantum’s Kansanshi Mine in the Northwestern Province of Zambia, said the operation was exploring the use of MRAs for online ore grade analysis and subsequent possible sorting to mitigate the impacts of mining a complex vein-type orebody with highly variating grades.

“The installation on the 2,800 t/h conveyor is a trial to test the efficacy of the technology and consider engineering options for physical sorting of ore prior to milling,” he told IM.

Chris Beal, NextOre CEO, echoed Mukutuma’s words on grade variation, saying daily average grades at Kansanshi were on par with what the company might see in a bulk underground mine, but when NextOre looked at each individual measurement – with each four seconds representing about 2.5 t – it was seeing some “higher grades worthy of further investigation”.

“The local geology gives it excellent characteristics for the application of very fast measurements for bulk ore sorting,” he told IM.

Mukutuma said the initial aim of the trial – to validate the accuracy and precision of the MRA scanner – was progressing to plan.

“The next phase of the project is to determine options for the MRA scanner to add value to the overall front end of processing,” he said.

Beal was keen to point out that the MRA scanner setup at Kansanshi was not that much different to the others NextOre had operating – with the analyser still measuring copper in the chalcopyrite mineral phase – but the remote installation process was very different.

“Despite being carried out remotely, this installation went smoother than even some where we had a significant on-site presence,” he said. “A great deal of that smoothness can be attributed to the high competency of the Kansanshi team. Of course, our own team, including the sensing and sorting team at CSIRO, put in a huge effort to quickly pivot from the standard installation process, and also deserve a great deal of credit.”

Beal said the Kansanshi team were supplied with all the conventional technical details one would expect – mechanical drawings, assembly drawings, comprehensive commissioning instructions and animations showing assembly.

To complement that, the NextOre team made use of both the in-built remote diagnostic systems standard in each MRA and several remote scientific instruments, plus a Trimble XR10 HoloLens “mixed-reality solution” that, according to Trimble, helps workers visualise 3D data on project sites.

“The NextOre and CSIRO teams were on-line on video calls with the Kansanshi teams each day supervising the installation, monitoring the outputs of the analyser and providing supervision in real time,” Beal said. He said the Kansanshi team had the unit installed comfortably within the planned 12-hour shutdown window.

By the second week of February the analyser had more than 90% availability, Beal said in early April.

He concluded on the Kansanshi installation: “There is no question that we will use the remote systems developed during this project in each project going ahead, but, when it is at all possible, we will always have NextOre representatives on site during the installation process. This installation went very smoothly but we cannot always count on that being the case. And there are other benefits to having someone on site that you just cannot get without being there.

“That said, in the future, we expect that a relatively higher proportion of support and supervision can be done through these remote systems. More than anything, this will allow us to more quickly respond to events on site and to keep the equipment working reliably.”

Newcrest, Epiroc and MacLean achieve interoperability first at Cadia East

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Newcrest Mining’s Cadia Valley Operations has achieved a world first in mobile equipment interoperability – integrating a remotely operated MacLean water cannon into its Epiroc automation fleet at Cadia East, in New South Wales, Australia.

In 2018, Cadia commenced a loader (LHD) automation trial with Epiroc, with the aim of removing operators from the Cadia East underground environment, while maintaining productivity and performance. The loader trial proved successful and the next phase involved integrating non-Epiroc machinery into the existing automation fleet, Epiroc said.

Cadia’s Mining Innovation & Automation team worked with Epiroc and MacLean to integrate a MacLean water cannon capable of localisation with Epiroc’s traffic management system and safety hardware, so that it could be introduced into the automation safety system.

Water cannons are used for secondary break operations, using high pressure water to release wedged rocks in underground drawpoints.

By integrating the MacLean IQ Series tele-operation system with Cadia’s automation safety system, the water cannon could be safely operated from the surface in a tele-remote capacity, allowing it to work alongside Cadia’s semi-automated loaders, Epiroc said.

The water cannon was trialled and commissioned during July and August and is now in use at Cadia East, according to Epiroc.

Cadia General Manager, Aaron Brannigan, said that integrating the water cannon into Cadia’s automation system has improved the efficiency of the production level and removed human exposure from drawpoints.

“We are constantly pushing the envelope of change in the innovation and technology space,” Brannigan said. “Automated machinery allows for shift in technical capabilities of our workforce, while ensuring we continue to eliminate safety risks from our operation.”

The success of this milestone paves the way for further integration of other key pieces of secondary break equipment into the automation system, according to Epiroc, which added: “This project is part of Newcrest’s ongoing drive to increase its automation and innovation focus on site.”