Tag Archives: Caterpillar

WesTrac celebrates 20 years of service and support in New South Wales and the ACT

Automation, Equipment maintenance, Mining equipment, Mining services, , , , , , ,

Leading Cat® dealer WesTrac is marking a major milestone today, celebrating 20 years of providing equipment, service and support across New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.

More than 16,000 Cat machines have been delivered by WesTrac in the region during that time, supporting customers in the mining and construction industries.

Chief Executive NSW/ACT, Adrian Howard, says: “Over the past two decades, WesTrac has been at the forefront of delivering Cat machines and products to meet rising demand, especially within the construction and mining industries.”

When WesTrac became the official Cat dealer for NSW and the ACT, work immediately began on fitting out the first purpose-built branch in Bathurst. The WesTrac team of 50 rapidly grew to more than 500 in just over two months.

Today, WesTrac NSW/ACT has 18 branches, six Click and Collect lockers and more than 1,500 dedicated team members, providing support and service to more than 6,500 customers each year. WesTrac continues to grow its workforce and develop its people and has nationally trained over 2,400 apprentices through the WesTrac Institute.

Howard says over the past 20 years, customer needs have changed and demands on business operations have increased with the rapid uptake of technology and rise in 24/7 working environments.

“WesTrac is committed to investing in our people and our facilities to continue to deliver world-class service and support to our customers by ensuring owning and operating Cat equipment is safe, easy and profitable,” he said.

“A big part of this commitment is our ongoing investment in our facilities and cutting-edge technologies and, in the last year alone, we have opened the Tomago Technology Experience Centre, installed an AI-powered AutoStore parts warehousing solution and commissioned a world-first automated fluid analysis laboratory.

“We’ve come a long way since 2004 and change is only going to keep occurring faster – our goal is to stay at the forefront of technology and innovation to ensure our customers continue to succeed from owning and operating Cat equipment.”

When discussing what has changed during the period, Howard lists safety, sustainability and diversity of background and thought as three important parts of doing business that have significantly evolved and changed, for the better.

“WesTrac is committed to building a more sustainable future – internally at WesTrac, for our customers and for our local communities,” he said. “We are taking on a collaborative approach to achieve this – one that sets the standard for our industry and strives for meaningful change.

“Thank you to our customers, Caterpillar and our WesTrac team members who through their loyalty and dedication have helped WesTrac to become the world-class business we have today.”

Dingo predictive maintenance solution cuts equipment downtime at Eldorado Lamaque

Communications in mining, Equipment maintenance, Mine operation news, Mining maintenance, Mining services, Mining software, Precious metals, , , , , , , , , ,

Dingo Software is helping Eldorado Gold’s Lamaque mine in Quebec, Canada, optimise maintenance and reliability practices through leveraging the company’s predictive and condition-based maintenance solutions.

The Lamaque mine faced the dual challenge of controlling capital costs and lowering all-in sustaining costs while also navigating the complexities of the global supply chain. With a current life of mine of 10 years, the mine sought to address some of these persistent challenges.

Lamaque decided to first focus on limited access to personnel with reliability skillsets, underutilisation of some of the existing digital platforms and its exposure to the global parts shortage. The team sought solutions to help control and reduce costs, extend the lifespan of major asset components and build world-class reliability expertise, Dingo says.

The site team, in collaboration with Dingo, identified opportunities to enhance equipment maintenance and reliability key performance indicators (KPIs). The chosen strategy aimed to reduce unplanned breakdowns, extend component life cycles, increase equipment availability and mitigate the impact of the global parts shortage.

Martin Pichette, Mine Operations and Maintenance Director at Lamaque Mine, said: “Partnering with Dingo allows us to leverage remotely-located condition intelligence experts from the get-go for a fraction of the normal cost to the company. This allows our few reliability experts to focus on the top issues and make important decisions to ensure our fleet availability is where it needs to be instead of having them analysing data and looking for the issues.”

Dingo also helped Lamaque acquire new sources of business intelligence with a fully documented and centralised asset health database plus integration with the ERP/CMMS, ensuring a complete maintenance and reliability context is available to support all maintenance decisions, it said.

Phase 1 of the Dingo solution involved consolidating oil sample data into a single platform for the first time at the mine. Within a short timeframe after the go-live, critical issues were identified and shared with the site team.

In the first week after go-live, the Dingo Condition Intelligence team observed a 2% fuel dilution, decreased viscosity, increased wear metal values and combustion by-products on a Caterpillar AD30 underground truck with a C15 engine with only 1,391 operating hours.

In response, the Dingo team assigned a ‘Priority 1’ action, providing work-stop level recommendations and provided site with a troubleshooting guide from their library, including recommendations to check the fuel injectors.

Not long after, the local OEM (Toromont) supporting Lamaque identified five defective fuel injectors that required urgent replacement. However, due to the ongoing global parts shortage, the mine was left with no alternative but to perform an engine oil drain on a weekly basis until the necessary parts could be procured. Once available, the injectors were replaced under warranty. This preemptive action not only prevented potential engine failure on the Cat AD30 but also restored up to 90% of the engine’s at-risk lifespan, according to Dingo.

While this proactive intervention circumvented much larger production losses had the engine been lost, it also highlights the significant risk unplanned breakdowns can have on Mean Time in Repair and associated production losses.

Dingo said: “The joint effort between the Lamaque personnel, CAT Toromont and Dingo Condition Intelligence specialists not only averted a catastrophic breakdown but also showcased the effectiveness and rapid results achievable through Dingo’s predictive maintenance solutions. The successful identification and repair of the AD30 injectors resulted in significant cost savings for everyone. In a nutshell, such a breakdown, if it had not been prevented by the team, would have generated production losses of about $65,000 per day due to equipment downtime and significant corrective maintenance cost to the OEM under warranty.

“Beyond financial value capture, this case also aligns with Eldorado Gold’s vision of ‘breaking new ground’ by implementing innovative solutions and enhancing maintenance processes, thereby ensuring the continuous growth of their high-quality business.”

After the AD30 engine save, the Lamaque maintenance team have continued to leverage Dingo to save equipment. For example: three leaking fuel injectors were found on a 45 t haul truck and a transmission was saved on a 15 t LHD; two key prime movers that would have impeded the operation from monthly production targets. Overall, working together, Dingo and Lamaque have now secured three significant equipment ‘saves’ within the first four-month period, Dingo says.

Building on these early successes, Lamaque and Dingo plan to continue to extend the project to the entire fleet, according to Dingo. Next steps will include interfacing with the mine CMMS and leveraging Dingo’s global benchmark tool to help select best practices from similar mines worldwide and to help the mine evolve towards increasingly condition-based maintenance decision making.

Dingo concluded: “This success story exemplifies how proactive maintenance strategies, coupled with innovative partnerships, can not only address immediate challenges but also pave the way for a more efficient future in the mining industry.”

MMG takes delivery of Cat R2900 XE diesel-electric loader at Rosebery

Base metals, Environmental, Mine operation news, Mining equipment, Power supply for mines, Sustainable mining, , , , ,

MMG has taken delivery of its first Caterpillar R2900 XE diesel-electric loader at its Rosebery mine, in Tasmania, Australia, as part of its strategy to achieve the group’s net zero emission targets.

The operation initially put a prototype vehicle to the test at Rosebery over a two-month period as part of Caterpillar field-follow trials conducted by several members of the Electric Mine Consortium, a growing group of leading mining and service companies, all of whom are driven by the imperative to accelerate progress towards the fully electrified zero CO2 and zero particulates mine.

The results of this trial showed a significant reduction in emissions, 56% drop in fuel consumption and a 15% reduction in heat generation, MMG said.

Following this, Rosebery mine has made a significant investment in three “hybrid vehicles” , it says, with these vehicles being the 18.5-t-payload R2900 XE, which is built on the platform of Caterpillar’s most popular underground loader, the R2900G.

The R2900 XE features a switch reluctance electric drive system alongside a Cat C15 diesel engine, which offers up to 335 kW of power, with Caterpillar saying the machine comes with about 30% increased fuel efficiency compared with the R2900G, with its lower engine revolutions per minute resulting in reduced fuel burn, heat, noise, vibration and exhaust emissions.

MMG Rosebery General Manager, Steve Scott, said investment in initiatives that reduce emissions and have a positive impact on the environment and in turn the local community, are a priority.

“We have aspirations to continue to decarbonise our mining operations and this is a step forward in our efforts to achieve this,” he said. “This is a great result, as we strive to meet MMG’s vision of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.”

He added: “As we navigate higher operational costs and a community expectation to reduce our environmental impact, the vehicles also provide the added bonus of a cost saving.”

The loaders were purchased from a local Tasmanian dealership, as part of Rosebery mine’s commitment to provide direct investment in small to medium businesses across the state, it said.

MMG Rosebery says it will continue to look at new and innovative ways to meet its net zero emissions targets.

Orders for the R2900 XE have been growing in Australia, with Westgold Resources recently confirming it would purchase another six of the diesel-electric vehicles after initially taking on the first unit off the shelf, and Gold Fields committing to acquiring three R2900 XE’s to work at its underground mines in Western Australia.

Orica, Caterpillar to provide customers with high-fidelity rock property information

Explosives and blasting, IoT, Mining equipment, Mining services, Sustainable mining, , , , , , , ,

Orica and Caterpillar Inc have confirmed they are teaming up to improve real-time data exchange and integrate workflows across the mining value chain.

The collaboration is aimed at providing customers with intelligence to improve decision making and optimise their entire operations, with the announcement following a mention of this tie-up in Orica’s most recent FY2023 financial year results webcast.

The mining industry has started to unlock the potential of combining data, sensors and intelligence to optimise workflows for real-time decision making and value chain optimisation, the companies said. Digitally integrated workflows enable customers to achieve a step change in safety, productivity, recovery and sustainability outcomes for their operations.

“To realise the full potential across the entire value chain, technology domain leaders, customers and academia need to increase collaboration in an open ecosystem to develop integrated, end-to-end operational workflows which link orebody intelligence, drilling and blasting, material characterisation and processing,” they said.

Recognising this, Orica and Caterpillar have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to explore opportunities to integrate key elements of their respective domains. The initial focus will be on the potential integration between Orica’s Rhino™, BlastIQ™, and FRAGTrack™ technologies with Cat® MineStar™ Terrain.

The goal of this integrated workflow is to provide customers with high-fidelity rock property information enabling significant improvements to on-bench safety, drilling and blasting program accuracy and productivity, along with higher quality blast outcomes that generate enhanced mill performance.

In the future, the two companies intend to extend their collaboration to optimisation of the entire value chain, from mine to mill. This approach aligns with both organisations’ ambitions to create sustainable solutions and services that will build the momentum for more intelligent and solution-driven mining ecosystems.

Sean McGinnis, Vice President of Technology & Global Sales Support, Caterpillar, said: “Our customers are looking for every opportunity to optimise the productivity and safety of their mining and processing operations. By combining and leveraging the insights unlocked by Orica and Caterpillar’s technologies, we will be able to provide customers greater access and visibility to the data and information they need to make, better real-time business decisions.”

Rajkumar Mathiravedu, Vice President of Orica Digital Solutions, said: “The mining industry requires greater collaboration amongst its leading technology players to build connected workflows across different domains to address the current issue of value-leakage arising from traditional and disconnected silos. Collaborative end-to-end ecosystems are critical to harnessing the full potential of advances in sensors, data processing and intelligence to enable the development of safer, more sustainable, and productive methods of resource recovery.

“Orica Digital Solutions is excited to be working with Caterpillar across a range of domains as we aim to better connect the digital and physical worlds to give our customers more timely and actionable insights across their value chains.”

Orica and Caterpillar set for mine to mill collaboration

Automation, Explosives and blasting, Mineral processing, Mining services, Mining software, Sustainable mining, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Orica’s Digital Solutions segment continues to make major inroads across the mining value chain, with its latest mine to mill initiative set to involve a collaboration with Caterpillar.

Speaking during the company’s FY23 financial results webcast, Sanjeev Gandhi, Orica Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, said demand for software, sensors and data science continued to increase as orebodies become increasingly hard to find and extract against a backdrop of high commodity prices and increasing ESG obligations and commitments.

“Customers are continuing to seek operational efficiencies across the mining value chain and unlocking the value of digitisation and automated workflows is key to achieving these efficiencies,” he said.

Orica was reporting Digital Solutions’ first full year result, with Gandhi highlighting a doubling of earnings alongside a significant improvement in margins.

“This was driven by growth across all three sub-verticals, namely Orebody intelligence, Blast design and Execution solutions, GroundProbe,” he said.

The Digital Solutions business has been identified as one of Orica’s key growth verticals as it continues to build and invest in the next generation of digital technologies and solutions, beyond its blasting core.

This was witnessed during the company’s most recent financial year, when, among other developments, it acquired Axis Mining Technology, a leader in the design, development and manufacture of specialised geospatial tools and instruments for the mining industry; as well as released what it said was its most innovative fragmentation monitoring solution yet, FRAGTrack Gantry.

Gandhi said: “Innovation continues to be a focus, and this year we have released 15 new digital features, with a focus on artificial intelligence-based solutions to support our customers.”

And, as the industry and Orica’s customers look to solve their biggest challenges through partnership, Gandhi announced its new collaboration with Caterpillar, saying the two companies had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to explore opportunities to integrate key elements of their respective domains.

He explained: “The initial focus will be on the potential integration between Orica’s Rhino™, BlastIQ™ and FRAGTrack™ technologies with Cat® MineStar™ Terrain technologies.”

Rhino (graphic pictured above) is an autonomous drill string-mounted geophysical sensor that measures unconfined compressive strength while drilling. It enhances orebody knowledge in real-time, enabling miners to make better blast planning, improve fragmentation profiles and increase throughput, according to Orica. The technologies in the BlastIQ platform, meanwhile, are, Orica says, designed to deliver economic and operational value individually, with the benefits maximised when integrated in a systemised process. And finally, FRAGTrack is Orica’s state-of-the-art fragmentation measurement tool designed to provide rapid insights into the outcome of blasting processes.

Caterpillar says of MineStar Terrain: “Cat MineStar Terrain uses high-precision guidance technologies, material tracking and more to help your machines work according to plan – increasing efficiency, reducing variability and helping you get the most out of your drilling, digging, loading and grading operations…The solution helps you increase drill capacity, crusher throughput and material accuracy while driving consistency in payloads and bench heights.”

Gandhi said on this MoU: “The goal of this integrated workflow is to provide customers with high-fidelity rock property information enabling significant improvements to on-bench safety, drilling and blasting program accuracy and productivity, along with higher quality blast outcomes that generate enhanced mill performance.”

In the future, the two companies intend to extend their collaboration to optimisation of the entire value chain, from mine to mill, according to Gandhi, who said the approach aligned with both organisations’ ambitions to create sustainable solutions and services that will build the momentum for more intelligent and solution-driven mining ecosystem.

Thiess turning autonomous mining opportunities into reality

Automation, Communications in mining, IoT, Mine operation news, Mining equipment, Mining services, Mining software, Steel and iron ore, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thiess may have deliberately started small with autonomy, however, 10 years into its journey, the company is now being recognised as a mine automation leader in the ever-competitive mining services space.

Whether it is drilling, dozing or haulage, Thiess has plenty of autonomy expertise to offer.

The company started off in 2013 with maintenance and service work on the autonomous haulage fleet a major producer had assembled at its iron ore operation in the Pilbara. This has since broadened out to semi-autonomous tractor system (SATS) operations at major coal mines in Australia, autonomous drilling advances using Epiroc and Caterpillar platforms and, most recently, autonomous haulage and drilling operations at Pembroke Resources’ Olive Downs Complex greenfield operation in Queensland.

Trent Smith, Head of Autonomy and Operations Technology at Thiess, says the company seeks to involve itself early on with autonomy projects to ensure benefits can be realised.

He explains: “We like to help identify the opportunity for automation, which initially involves answering two big questions: is the application suitable? And does it deliver a financial benefit to the project? If there are positive answers to both questions, we try to work with those potential clients on how to bring the vision to life.”

Thiess’ involvement in this process is extensive, looking at network options, OEM selection, the “people element” and more, according to Smith.

“Our strategy was a bit different to others, where, aside from the work at our first autonomy project in the Pilbara, we started with small pilot projects on drills and dozers,” he told IM on the side lines of IMARC 2023 in Sydney earlier this month. “This enabled us to establish some solid foundations, understand the significance of the required changes, understand what the key enablers like networks were and put support models behind those aspects.”

To date, the mining services provider has worked closely with OEMs Epiroc and Caterpillar on modifying their autonomy platforms to fit its clients’ operations to improve safety and efficiency.

“With Caterpillar, we were able to take an emerging technology platform like Cat® MineStar™ Command for drilling and ensure it was fit for purpose for the coal environment we were planning to deploy it in.

“With Epiroc’s solution, we took a mature and proven product from the iron ore environment – equipped mainly for single pass, vertical drilling in competent ground with big and open drill pads – and tailored it for a coal application. This application required the introduction of autonomous rod changing and angle drilling for drilling in varied ground within tighter working areas.

“We worked hand-in-hand with Epiroc to understand the complexities of translating the solution for this environment, utilising all of the on-board data in the early trial stages and filtering that down to identify areas of waste and opportunity that could be used by the OEM and ourselves to realise an improvement in performance within that new environment.”

This evidently worked, with the companies, earlier this year, achieving the significant milestone of drilling more than one million lineal metres at the Lake Vermont coal mine in Queensland.

Pembroke Resources’ Olive Downs Complex has become the world’s first mining operation to deploy Command for hauling and Command for drilling solutions simultaneously

Thiess is also expecting to later this year reach the same autonomous drilling milestone with Cat’s Command for drilling platform; this time at a major coal mine in New South Wales.

The company has also helped achieve an industry first at Pembroke Resources’ Olive Downs Complex, with it becoming the world’s first mining operation to deploy Command for hauling and Command for drilling solutions simultaneously.

This assignment, which moved from concept to implementation of autonomous trucks and drills within a matter of 18 months, will ultimately include the deployment of 21 haul trucks (15 Cat 794 ACs and six Cat 793Fs) and three drills (Cat MD6310s) fitted with autonomous technology. Additionally, Thiess has established a private LTE network on Pembroke’s on-site communication infrastructure, enabling the safe operation of more than 85 connected assets within the autonomous operating zone. It has also upskilled more than 280 team members to, Thiess says, support the delivery of autonomous operations at Olive Downs to enable improvements in safety, operating hours, cycle efficiency and cost.

There is potential to add Command for dozing at Pembroke Resources’ Olive Downs Complex in future years, according to Smith.

“We have built the network and control room with the anticipation that this will be used,” he said. “We are already the first company in the world to have all three Caterpillar autonomy products running at operations, but Pembroke Resources’ Olive Downs Complex would be the first operation in the world to have all three Cat autonomy products operating at one mine.”

Thiess now has six autonomy projects out in the market, all of which are performing well against industry automation benchmarks, according to Smith, who says this capability is being recognised within the mining company community and OEM space.

The company has already announced its first automation project outside of Australia – at a coal mine in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, where it will deploy autonomous drilling operations – and Smith says the company is exploring further autonomous drilling opportunities in Latin America.

As well as continuing to engage with the wider OEM market on automation options, Thiess is working on different automation applications for existing products.

“With the SATS Command for dozing product, for instance, we are looking to take the platform and work with Caterpillar to move it towards a rehabilitation application,” Smith said, referencing the Thiess Rehabilitation business the company launched last year. “The requirements in mine rehabilitation are somewhat different to standard dozer push and stockpile applications, with multi-push vectors and the ability to potentially control several small-scale projects from one centralised hub.

“This is an example of where we work with an OEM, bring our knowledge of working with the product, identify a new application for the product, and then lay out what new set of capabilities need to be addressed to meet the requirements and fulfil that market opportunity.”

The company has a track record of proposing and advancing such autonomous dozing opportunities in certain niche applications, Smith said, adding that it recently achieved the 10 million cubic metres push mark with SATS.

The first rehabilitation application for SATS could end up being at a project in central Queensland – a project the Thiess Rehabilitation team started work on last year.

Thiess recently achieved the 10 million cubic metres push mark with SATS

Against this advancing autonomy backdrop, Smith says the company continues to be asked about combining the “decarbonisation” and autonomy pieces of the mine operating puzzle, with a staged approach typically being recommended.

“At the moment, these two (autonomy and decarbonisation) are a little bit separate, but they will converge at some point,” he said. “I imagine artificial intelligence and predictive capabilities will play a role in that – evaluating when the truck might run out of charge, when is best to pull that truck out of service for a 30-minute fast charge, etc.

“What I would say is if you have taken a step in either direction (autonomy or decarbonisation) already, you are well placed for this convergence.”

Smith offered up one last piece of advice to any company looking to take its next automation step: “Don’t forget the people and process part.”

He explained: “Most organisations know how to deliver a technology project, but I think the real value in automation is bringing the people and process along with that. Automation is a business transformation.

“We worked with Pembroke Resources’ at their Olive Downs Complex to ensure the appropriate change management process to enable automation was implemented across all business functions. Each function was reviewed to understand what needed to change to bring in automation and create a cohesive environment.

“It’s already starting to pay off at that project, where we exceeded our target of 6,500 annualised hours within two months of commencing autonomous haulage operations.”

Vesconite Hilube bushings provide boost at Codelco operations

Base metals, Equipment maintenance, Mining equipment, , , , , ,

Codelco has achieved exceptional results through the implementation of Vesconite Hilube wear-resistant bushings on underground LHDs, according to Vesconite.

Departing from traditional bronze bushings, the mining company’s adoption of Vesconite Hilube on Sandvik and Caterpillar LHD booms has led to an unprecedented increase in bushing lifespan, exceeding their initial expectations, it says.

Previously, the company relied on bronze bushings and with 1.5 months of operational life. Vesconite Hilube bushings were introduced in December 2022, with an initial goal of extending bushing life to three months. The reality, however, has far surpassed this objective, as the Vesconite Hilube bushings have endured for nine months and counting.

This transformation has been particularly significant, with the Vesconite Hilube bushings fitted to 30 LHD booms in 2023, with only one instance of a boom fitted with Vesconite Hilube bushings requiring repairs. Notably, the company’s repairer has reported that the bronze bushings occasionally suffered from cracking, making it clear this is not a recurring issue with Vesconite Hilube bushings.

The copper producer has expressed its satisfaction with the results obtained and is actively exploring the expansion of Vesconite Hilube bushings for other applications, Vesconite says. These include trials on mining jumbos and larger LHDs, as well as applications for bushings associated with rear shaft oscillating movement.

Vesconite Bearings’ Argentine distributor, Vesarg, plays a pivotal role in supplying the mine with Vesconite Hilube bushing stock. During a visit to the Chile site, close to Santiago, where booms were being fitted with Vesconite Hilube, Leandro Panzini of Vesarg was briefed on the outcomes of the Vesconite Hilube bushing testing.

Panzini says: “As the world’s leading copper producer explores broader applications for Vesconite Hilube, the mining industry, where Vesconite first proved itself, is showing itself to be an important market for Vesconite products.

“Vesconite Hilube lasts much more than three times the length of bronze in this application.”

Cat R2900 XE

Cat R2900 XE diesel-electric LHDs brought into Gold Fields net zero plan

Environmental, Mine operation news, Mining equipment, Power supply for mines, Precious metals, Sustainable mining, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

As part of a strategy to reduce carbon emissions from its operations and achieve a ‘net zero’ status by 2050, Gold Fields is investing in three Caterpillar R2900 XE diesel-electric loaders for its underground mines in Western Australia.

The gold miner’s ESG strategy, launched in December 2021, was at the same time embedded as one of three pillars in the company’s strategy. Gold Fields has demonstrated this focus over the last few years, especially when it comes to its efforts to decarbonise its mining operations.

In addition to constructing and commissioning several solar plants, renewable microgrids and low-carbon gas turbines across some of its operations in South Africa and Australia, Gold Fields has been at the forefront of decarbonising the load and haul part of the underground mining cycle.

In 2021, Gold Fields started trialling a Sandvik LH518B 18 t battery-electric underground LHD, in addition to a 50-t-payload battery-electric Z50 truck, also from Sandvik. The machines were put through their paces at the Hamlet North mine, part of the St Ives operation, near Kambalda in Western Australia. The results of these trials were shared with members of the Electric Mine Consortium (EMC).

Rob Derries, Unit Manager: Innovation & Technology at Gold Fields Australia, says the results from testing the loader and truck at St Ives have shown the need for an alternative to assist the battery swap functionality for its local underground mines.

“The depth of our mines and the resultant ramp inclines indicate that a battery swap system alone will be a challenge from an infrastructure or financial perspective when rolling out on a larger fleet-wide basis,” he told IM.

Alongside this work, Gold Fields has trialled a hybrid diesel-electric drive Komatsu WX22H (formerly the Joy 22HD), which uses a Kinetic Energy Storage System to capture and reuse braking energy from each of the four wheels, reducing fuel burn and boosting productivity, according to the OEM and Gold Fields.

In 2021, Gold Fields started trialling a Sandvik LH518B 18 t battery-electric underground LHD

Now, the company has committed to bringing three Caterpillar R2900 XEs into two of its underground mining operations, according to Derries.

Built on the platform of Caterpillar’s most popular underground loader, the R2900G, this LHD features a switch reluctance electric drive system alongside a Cat C15 diesel engine, which offers up to 335 kW of power. The OEM says the machine comes with about 30% increased fuel efficiency compared with the R2900G, with its lower engine revolutions per minute resulting in reduced fuel burn, heat, noise, vibration and exhaust emissions.

Derries said Gold Fields does not consider the R2900 XE a “hybrid” machine given it has no battery or energy storage component on board, but stressed that it still offers the reduced fuel burn and productivity advantages the company is looking for as part of its modernisation strategy.

“From the field-follow trial reports we have seen, it can produce a 35% fuel burn reduction,” he said. “This is why we consider it to be part of our plan to transition our operations to zero emissions, just like the Epiroc machine we are working on.”

Last year, Gold Fields entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Epiroc to develop and test a proof of concept for the 65-t class Minetruck MT65 E-Drive with the aim of having a prototype diesel-electric truck running at the miner’s Granny Smith mine, near Laverton in Western Australia, in late 2024.

Derries says the company is also continuing discussions with all OEM partners on potential battery-electric vehicle deployments at its Australian underground mines, explaining that variations on trolley infrastructure, battery charging and battery swapping were being evaluated.

EMC collaboration builds confidence

The field-follow trials Derries references were integral to Gold Fields making the investment in the Caterpillar diesel-electric vehicles.

“In Australia, there were four field-follow units that Cat sent out, all of which went to EMC member operators,” he said. “The feedback and learnings that came back from these trials, which was shared internally within the consortium, provided the confidence we needed to make the investment decision.”

The EMC is a growing group of leading mining and service companies, all of whom are driven by the imperative to accelerate progress towards the fully electrified zero CO2 and zero particulates mine. In the short time since establishment, the consortium’s membership has grown almost two-fold with over 40 equipment trials in 15 different locations mobilised.

Outside of these Caterpillar R2900 XE field follow units, Westgold Resources took delivery of the first commercial R2900 XE at its Midwest operations in Western Australia, as part of an agreement with WesTrac. The mining company has since agreed to purchase another six of the diesel-electric vehicles.

A separate R2900 XE is due to be delivered to another mining operation in Australia later this year, IM understands.

Derries says Gold Fields has felt the benefits of signing up to the EMC.

“The EMC is a great platform for operators like us to gather information without having to trial everything out there,” he said. “Like the companies that shared their data from the R2900 XE field-follow trials, we shared the learnings from our Sandvik trials – not just our operational performance data.

“We were then able to do a cross check between our battery-electric trial data and the field-follow trials from the Caterpillar machines, giving us the confidence to invest in the three LHDs.”

Derries says the new units are expected to arrive at its operations in the next 12 months.

Centamin-Sukari

Centamin to boost Sukari underground fleet with Cat, Sandvik, Normet and Volvo units

Environmental, Explosives and blasting, Mine operation news, Mining equipment, Mining services, Power supply for mines, Precious metals, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The transformation of Centamin’s Sukari underground mining operations looks set to continue, with the company having committed some $16 million of capital towards an underground fleet expansion in 2024 and 2025 as part of a push towards increasing mining rates.

Centamin issued a new life of mine plan for the asset in Egypt earlier this month, saying the plan would deliver long-term increased gold production, lower operational costs, reduced operational risk and significantly reduced carbon emissions, according to owner Centamin.

The underground operation, which the company transitioned to owner-operator status last year, is set to become a bigger contributor to the overall operation in future years. This will see underground output rise from 800,000 t/y in its 2022 financial year to 1.4 Mt/y.

This is a shade under the optimal mining rate of 1.5 Mt/y that came out of an underground expansion study completed in the December quarter of 2022, but Centamin said full engineering of this plan had provided opportunities to simplify the mine plan by removing the requirement to expand production by developing underground portals in the open pit, and therefore further reducing the delivery risk. Not only did this reduce the complexity of a potential expansion, it also brought the capital cost down to $16 million, from the $25-35 million previously mooted.

This capital will be deployed on a new equipment fleet for the operation, which includes three 63-t payload Caterpillar AD63 trucks, three 18.5-t payload Caterpillar R2900 XE diesel-electric loaders, one Sandvik DD421 face drill, two Sandvik DL421 longhole drills, one Normet Charmec emulsion charger, a Normet Spraymec concrete sprayer, two Normet Utimec material transporters and a Volvo L120F integrated tool carrier.

Earlier this year, a spokesperson for Centamin told IM that the company was assessing a staged approach from conventional diesel units to hybrid diesel-electric units in the interim at Sukari, with plans to move to full battery-operated loading and haulage units over the longer term.

The Caterpillar 2900 XE offers such an interim step, being a loader that features both a diesel engine and a switch reluctance electric drive system.

Barminco and RCT partner on ‘world first’ agnostic remote installation of Cat 2900 XE

Automation, Base metals, Environmental, Mining equipment, Mining services, Power supply for mines, Sustainable mining, , , , , , , ,

Barminco has enlisted the help of RCT to carry out what it believes to be the world’s first agnostic remote installation on Caterpillar’s R2900 XE diesel-electric underground loader.

The mining services company will be using the R2900 XE loader which has a diesel engine and electric driveline at the IGO-owned Spotted Quoll underground mine, in Western Australia.

Built on the platform of Caterpillar’s most popular underground loader, this new LHD – which was previewed at MINExpo 2021 in Las Vegas – features optimised lift arm and component geometry plus load-sensing hydraulics to improve breakout force by 35% over the Cat R2900G, Caterpillar claims.

RCT’s Kalgoorlie Branch Manager, Rick Radcliffe, said: “Technology and innovation are two of Barminco’s core components, so it made sense they chose RCT to carry out the installation of this automation project. We are receiving a lot of interest in this project as it is a hybrid loader which reduces fuel burn resulting in low diesel particulates, which is something companies are looking at doing to mine more sustainably in the future.”

This project is currently underway with RCT’s Kalgoorlie branch completing the installation.

The world’s first R2900 XE was delivered to Western Australia-based Westgold Resources, with the gold miner having since agreed to purchase another six of these loaders.