Tag Archives: Goldcorp

Canada Government asks miners to ‘Crush It’ with new challenge

Base metals, Comminution of minerals, Energy minerals, Environmental, Industrial minerals, Metallurgy, Mineral processing, Mining equipment, Mining services, Power supply for mines, Precious metals, Steel and iron ore, , , , , ,

Canada’s government, through Natural Resources Canada, has challenged the mining industry to come up with a new clean technology solution that cuts energy consumption for crushing rock.

The C$10 million ($7.6 million) “Crush It! Challenge” is aimed at tackling the disproportionate amount of energy used in mining to extract valuable minerals, NRC said, while helping the country transition to a low-carbon economy.

The process of crushing mined rock has not fundamentally changed in more than a century; consumes more than 50% of the total energy used in a mining operation; is the industry’s largest operational cost; and is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions from mining, according to the NRC.

“Finding and advancing innovative solutions that reduce energy use for crushing and grinding mined rock will reduce pollution, improve productivity and help our mining industry become more competitive,” the NRC said.

The 25-month Crush It! Challenge, will see up to 12 semi-finalists selected to pitch their concept at Goldcorp’s #DisruptMining event in March 2019 – an event that coincides with the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada convention. A ‘Challenge Jury’ made up of key experts from the Canadian mining sector will select the top six finalists, who will each receive up to C$800,000 to build and test their cleantech solution. The Challenge Jury will, ultimately, choose the best breakthrough clean technology and award the winner a C$5 million prize grant.

“This initiative will mobilise new ideas from inside and outside the mining industry to modernise an important energy consuming process and will grow the cleantech sector to enhance Canada’s mining innovation ecosystem as part of the Government of Canada’s efforts to transition to a low-carbon economy,” the NRC said.

For this challenge, the NRC will be collaborating with Goldcorp and the Centre of Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI), two industry champions who will spread the word on this unique initiative and enable its success.

The Crush It! Challenge is the fourth of five clean technology challenges under the NRC’s Cleantech Impact programme, part of Impact Canada. It is part of the government’s commitment to deliver meaningful results for Canadians through measurable economic, environmental and social outcomes. Cleantech Impact will invest C$75 million over four years in the five challenges.

Goldcorp’s Borden all-electric underground mine moves towards production

Environmental, Mineral project development, Mining equipment, Precious metals, , , ,

Those watching the all-electric Borden gold project in Ontario, Canada, will have been pleased with the takeaways from Goldcorp’s latest financial results.

In the September quarter, ramp development reached 1,884 m, on schedule, with a corresponding depth of 314 m, while bulk sample extraction began in August, two months ahead of schedule, with a first zone of extraction on levels 225 and 240.

The company said early results from the bulk sample were confirming the geological model and all operating permits were expected to be obtained by the end of 2018.

All of this indicated Goldcorp could increase the pace of development of the project, as well as construction of the remaining critical mine infrastructure including a ventilation raise and secondary egress, meaning the mine could be in production somewhat earlier than expected.

On the benefits of the project itself, Goldcorp said: “With an all-electric underground mine operation, it is estimated that operating costs will be reduced by over C$9 million ($6.9 million) per year due to the elimination of approximately two million litres of diesel fuel, and with reduced ventilation needs, a decrease of approximately 32,000 MWh of electricity and a corresponding decrease in propane required to heat the ventilation.”

As well, a reduction in annual greenhouse gas emissions of more than 7,000 t, or 70%, over a baseline mine is expected, according to the company.

Based on these numbers, it is hardly surprising the Government of Ontario has agreed to invest C$5 million into the deployment of the all-electric fleet through its target greenhouse gas programme.

The fleet is composed of state of the art mining equipment, including Sandvik DD422IE automated battery/electric jumbos and MacLean Engineering 975 Omnia Bolter battery bolters as well as Sandvik LH514E electric LHDs. All services vehicles are electrified, including a conventional Caterpillar 12M3 grader which was converted into a battery-operated unit by MEDATECH Engineering.

The project, which currently has 950,000 oz of reserves, is scheduled to begin commercial production in the second half of 2019.

Goldcorp cleans up with VoD and battery-electric operation at Borden

Automation, Communications in mining, Environmental, IoT, Mine ventilation, Mineral project development, Mining equipment, Mining project news, Mining services, Power supply for mines, Precious metals, , , , ,

In a recent blog post, Goldcorp explained how ‘going electric’ at its Borden gold development project in Ontario, Canada, is having a positive impact on ventilation requirements and mine air heating.

The company previously laid out plans to use all-electric equipment at the project with a fleet that includes Sandvik DD422IE automated battery/electric jumbos and MacLean Engineering 975 Omnia Bolter battery bolters, as well as Sandvik LH514E electric LHDs.

Goldcorp, which recently said all mine infrastructure to support production at Borden was in place, is now seeing the benefits of this equipment on the planned ventilation network.

“Worker health and safety is of the utmost importance at Goldcorp and air quality is a high priority in underground operations,” the company said in the first of three blog posts on Borden’s ‘going electric’ strategy.

“Ventilation fans, air ducts, and infrastructure such as fresh air intake raises, are necessary to distribute fresh air, and as a result are indispensable to ensure the health, safety and comfort of anyone working underground. However, as mine development progresses deeper, costs rise as it takes more effort to deliver quality air.”

To conserve energy and save money without compromising safety and air quality, Borden has implemented a ventilation on demand (VoD) system. The amount of energy supplied to the fans is governed by the air flow, which in turn is determined by workplace conditions and the amount of equipment and people in an area. VoD allows a mine to automatically adjust underground ventilation by controlling the fans remotely through a computer interface on surface.

This system rides on the quality of the IT infrastructure, Goldcorp says.

At Borden, this is accomplished by using coaxial cables and backing them by fibreoptic cabling back to surface. “The coaxial cables are great for underground environments,” the company said, explaining they are cheap and easy to maintain – a big advantage in areas that are impacted by blasting and see a lot of mobile equipment moving back and forth.

The VoD system then automatically determines the ventilation requirements in that area and will supply fresh air accordingly.

The system makes those decisions by collecting and analysing data from underground sensors for air quality, temperature and equipment and personnel locations. This significantly reduces the amount of energy consumed by the fans. In addition, maintenance costs will decrease as they are not running constantly when not needed.

But, Goldcorp stresses the big synergy between battery electric equipment and VoD is the need for a solid communications backbone.

“As with any source of energy, there are associated risks, which in the case of batteries is the integrity of the battery itself,” the company said.

To manage the risks around batteries, the battery temperatures and voltages are monitored continuously at Borden to look for anomalies that indicate issues.

This communication network is, in turn, also beneficial to enable proximity detection, VoD, tagging and tracking, and in more general terms, “turning Borden into a modern data-rich mine”, the company said.

The absence of diesel equipment has not only significantly reduced ventilation requirements and costs, it has even impacted the design of the mine itself, according to Maarten van Koppen, Senior Project Engineer at Goldcorp.

“Drifts are now designed to be smaller since the ventilation ducting is smaller, and the number of auxiliary fans was cut by half or more. In addition, we avoided the need to develop a return air raise in the mine, which probably would have been very visible from the lake in winter due to the condensation plume,” he said.

“Keeping the Borden operations invisible to our neighbours on the lake is one of the key design criteria for the project, and we saved a fair bit of money along the way.”