Tag Archives: Granny Smith

Aggreko to help expand renewable energy generation at Gold Fields’ Granny Smith mine

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Aggreko is set to expand the solar farm and battery energy storage system (BESS) at Gold Fields’ Granny Smith gold mine in Western Australia, further reducing the carbon intensity of the mine and the overall power cost for the mining company.

The decarbonisation of Granny Smith began almost eight years ago with Aggreko replacing the existing diesel power station with a high-speed, gas-fuelled reciprocating engine station. Aggreko further advanced the mine’s power system in 2019 by adding 7.7 MWp Solar and 2 MW/1 MWh BESS of renewable generation.

Aggreko won the original contract to build, own and operate the power station in 2016. Since then, Aggreko has continuously worked with Gold Fields to expand and decarbonise the mine’s power system adding increased gas engine capacity along with a solar farm and BESS.  

Once expanded, the gold mine will have a total of 19 MW of solar capacity and 9 MW/4.5 MWh of BESS capacity installed.  This will result in a renewable energy fraction of approximately 21%, saving 443,304 GJ of gas and 22,843 t of CO2 emissions per annum.  

“Aggreko’s focus is on efficiency and reliability in line with the power demand over the life of the mine, as well as contributing to the decarbonisation of the region,” George Whyte, Managing Director of Aggreko APAC, said.

Aggreko’s ESG strategy is underpinned by two goals:

  • Net zero emissions from facilities and operations by 2035; and
    30% reduction in the emissions intensity of energy solutions by 2030

These environmental commitments sit alongside the company’s social and governance commitments: investing in its own skills and communities and being an ethical and transparent business.

The solar farm expansion comes ahead of Gold Fields conducting a prefeasibility study, investigating how it could go on to generate 75% of Granny Smith’s energy requirements from renewable sources, including increased solar, a larger battery and a wind farm later in the decade.

General Manager of Granny Smith, Mark Glazebrook, said: “The expanded hybrid power station not only makes our operation more cost efficient and improves energy reliability, but it also demonstrates our commitment to accelerate renewable usage across all Gold Fields sites. This is a great step forward in Granny Smith’s decarbonisation journey as we seek to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and deliver on our ESG commitments.”

In 2019, Granny Smith was one of the first mines in Australia to add renewable generation, establishing Aggreko as a market leader in microgrid hybridisation. Since operational, the solar farm and BESS has produced approximately 48 GWh of clean energy, preventing 25 Mt of CO2 emissions.

MLG Oz’s integrated operating model to be tested at Gold Fields sites

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Gold Fields has formally awarded the provision of site services and haulage at its Granny Smith underground gold mine, and open-pit mining services at St Ives for the Swiftsure deposit, to MLG, the mining services provider says.

The letter of award from Gold Fields is subject to both parties reaching agreement on formal terms.

Along with these new opportunities, MLG has also successfully extended its contractual arrangements to support Gold Fields’ Agnew site in a planned cut back of its Barren Lands open pit.

The Granny Smith contract is for a three-year term with an option to extend for another two years, with the contract expected to contribute some A$9 million ($5.9 million) in additional revenue in MLG’s 2024 financial year.

The Swiftsure open-pit mining services at St Ives comes with projected revenue of circa-A$20 million, with the project comprising a single open-pit gold mine incorporating load and haul services. The initial project is expected to be completed in eight months, starting in January.

The planned cut-back of the Barren Lands open pit at Agnew involves supplying the necessary mining equipment to execute drill and blast and load and haul activities, with the works having commenced in November 2023 and expected to continue through to March 2024.

MLG founder, Managing Director and majority shareholder, Murray Leahy, said: “We are delighted to expand our integrated services model across Gold Fields’ portfolio and to bring our site services expertise to their Granny Smith operations. MLG can now provide a consistent approach across all of Gold Fields’ Australian mine sites. In addition, the award of the open-pit mining scope of works at the Swiftsure deposit at St Ives, and the extension of works at the Barren Lands open pit operation at Agnew, acknowledges the breadth of service and overall capabilities across MLG’s integrated operating model.”

Cat R2900 XE

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

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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.

Gold Fields, UFR collaborating on automated underground truck pilot at Granny Smith

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Gold Fields will soon begin an autonomous truck trial at its Granny Smith underground mine in Western Australia, leveraging the robotic smarts of Universal Field Robots (UFR) and an existing Epiroc Minetruck MT65 it has within its fleet.

In the company’s recently released annual results, Gold Fields stated it was developing its first underground automated truck, ready for trials at Granny Smith in the second half of this year.

Later, the company told IM that this project involved Brisbane-based UFR, with the machine in question having already received the custom paint job (see photo above).

The purpose of this trial is to validate autonomous truck haulage over shift change when the mine is evacuated for blasting, the company said in its annual results, with Rob Derries, Unit Manager: Innovation & Technology at Gold Fields Australia, confirming the truck will initially be tested and validated in a separate area underground at Granny Smith.

“Once validated, we will be operating the automated truck on the main decline over shift change when the mine is normally evacuated for blasting activities, enabling further material haulage in time where activities are normally halted,” he told IM.

The initial truck pilot is expected to continue for up to 12 months with plans to retrofit further trucks in the Granny Smith fleet to operate autonomously over shift change after validation of this initial pilot.

Gold Fields says it is investigating and partnering to develop a number of automation solutions to ensure the safety of its people while also enabling increased productivity.

Derries said: “This trial aligns with Gold Fields’ approach to adopting agnostic technology and automation solutions. In the future, this technology can be adopted on a number of different machine manufactures and types and will integrate with existing teleremote guidance LHDs and Mine Operating Systems.”

UFR, for its part, has been involved in the development of several automation projects within mining, including BLAST DOG™ blasthole sensing and physical measurement technology – in collaboration with IMDEX – and a robotic application for zero-entry work on underground production blastholes – a project it is working on with METS Ignited and several mining companies, including Gold Fields.

Granny Smith produced 288,000 oz of gold at an all-in cost of $1,171/oz in 2022. It is currently mining four lenses from the Wallaby orebody (Z70, Z80, Z90 and Z100), accessed from a single decline. Mining administration and maintenance is located at the Wallaby mine, while ore is processed at the Granny Smith carbon-in-pulp processing plant, 15 km east of the Wallaby underground mine, under campaign milling conditions.

Back in October 2022, Epiroc confirmed an order from Gold Fields for a fleet of 65-t payload Epiroc Minetruck MT65 underground haul trucks with automation features to be used at Granny Smith.

RCT’s Remote Operations Centre advances Gold Fields’ Granny Smith mining ops

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Gold Fields’ Granny Smith operators are now benefitting from the availability of RCT’s Remote Operations Centre (ROC) to manage some of its mobile equipment fleet from its Perth head office, some 740 km away from site.

This major advancement will revolutionise the way they do mining by allowing operators to control or supervise semi-autonomous fleet activities in real time from the comfort and convenience of a central office location, according to RCT.

The digital ROC’s deployment represents the next major development in Gold Field’s autonomous mining operations and enables personnel to work effectively from a major city, which makes the job more accessible to a wide range of workers and reduces the company’s carbon footprint.

The project is made possible by RCT’s ControlMaster® digital automation solution, which is already used by Gold Fields to manage its underground loader fleet from the mine’s surface.

However, the digital ROC technology means Gold Fields can offer significantly more flexible working arrangements and accommodate work/life balance requirements among their workforce.

Initial testing proved the ROC can instantaneously manage multiple underground loaders at one time operating in different locations within the underground mining complex, according to RCT.

The digital ROC technology means Gold Fields’ operators will be able to access ControlMaster’s latest features as they are released, helping enhance semi-autonomous fleet operations on-site.

RCT and Gold Fields’ engineers worked together to implement the ROC and link it with the mine site through Gold Fields’ secure, dedicated network.

Granny Smith’s Mine Manager, Michael Place, said: “The Perth ROC started as a proof-of-concept trial following the digital upgrades project in December 2021. The ROC was aimed at showcasing Gold Fields Australia’s network capability and RCT’s digital operating technology but has now opened the doors to exploring future avenues in how we work at our underground operations.”

RCT Account Manager, Scott Phillips, said the ControlMaster ROC incorporates RCT’s latest digital technology which will fully empower Gold Fields to fulfil its mining fleet needs going forward.

“We are pleased to help Gold Fields take this next major step in their autonomous mining journey and implement technology that brings about major operational efficiencies,” he said.

“This project is only the beginning, and we look forward to working closely with Gold Fields to advance their mining operations in the future.”

RCT turns Gold Fields’ Granny Smith mine into ‘digitally connected powerhouse’

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RCT’s latest partnership with Gold Fields in Australia has seen, it says, the transformation of the Granny Smith mine and machine fleet into a state-of-the-art, digitally connected powerhouse.

The project, which RCT says embodies the mining company’s key value of innovation, is designed to increase productivity.

Gold Fields’ Granny Smith mine is no stranger to RCT, having been one of its technology partners for more than 20 years.

This latest project has seen the Eastern Goldfields underground gold operation become one of the most innovative, digitally-connected mines in the world, according to RCT. The project saw its Kalgoorlie-based team of innovative technicians upgrade the site’s six existing Caterpillar loaders from analogue to digital.

This required the Kalgoorlie branch team to design and build specialised mounts and overhaul the site’s existing cabins. In addition, a total of 11 Area Access Controls (AAC) were also converted from analogue to digital to facilitate the upgrade.

“We recognise that they made a significant investment into the original technology, and we wanted to find the most cost-effective and sustainable solution available,” RCT’s Kalgoorlie Branch Manager, Rick Radcliffe, said.

The team converted three of the site’s existing analogue TeleCabins and transformed them into digital ControlMaster® Automation Centres for underground use and two surface Automation Centres to digital, bringing them into the future.

The site chose to use RCT’s own full-scale digital communications solution – RCT Connect – to meet the demands of autonomous machines across the mine site. The technology will cater to Granny Smith’s current and future machines, according to RCT.

The Kalgoorlie branch finished the upgrades in December last year, and although the technology has only been in place for a few months, the site has experienced amazing results from day one, according to the company.

Granny Smith Mine Manager, Michael Place, said: “The ability for the operators to mine from the surface with a pristine picture/video thanks to the digital network has meant they have been able to increase the number of buckets per shift, while adding to the comfort of the operators.

“Implementing the new digital infrastructure RCT Connect has significantly improved both the availability and reliability of Granny Smith’s semi-autonomous remote production loaders and stoping fronts to date.”

The upgrade saw the popular analogue technology that uses the Yagi antenna replaced with RCT Connect.

Radcliffe added: “While the Yagi’s have been a tried and tested technology for many years, our digital RCT Connect Access Points has taken the Control Master underground communications system to another level. The system is now more reliable and provides a clearer picture and improved operator visibility.

“The feedback we have received from site is that the operators love the new technology and they wished they implemented it ages ago.”

As well as experiencing the significant benefits of digital technology today, Granny Smith is futureproofing its operations, allowing it to make small, incremental changes as and when they are ready, RCT said.

RCT Connect, RCT says, is a plug-and-play system, making it easy to install and maintain. The technology has produced a clearer picture, which has greatly assisted Granny Smith personnel to continue operating their machines safely in high-risk locations.

Radcliffe concluded: “Another added benefit to moving to digital is that RCT can now remotely support our clients to a higher level and are able to monitor and complete repairs in a short timeframe, as it eliminates the need for a technician to travel to site to troubleshoot in many cases.”

Alliance extends air charter service contract with Gold Fields’ Agnew mine

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Alliance says it has executed a contract for air charter services with Agnew Gold Mining Company Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Gold Fields, for an additional three-year term.

Alliance has provided services to the Agnew gold mine in Western Australia since 2019 and, since that time, has increased its service from eight flights per week to 12 flights per week between Perth and Leinster.

The company also provides services to the Granny Smith mine, owned by Gold Fields, near Laverton in Western Australia.

Alliance’s Managing Director, Scott McMillan, said: “Alliance is pleased to be able to support Gold Fields’ operations across the two sites and the extension of the Agnew contract is further proof of Alliance’s ability to retain clients as a result of safe, reliable and on-time air charter services.”

In May, Qantas said it had reached an agreement to fully acquire Alliance Aviation Services Ltd, enabling the national carrier to better serve the growing resources sector with fly-in fly-out options.

Gold Fields keeps modernising Granny Smith with Mobilaris solutions

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Gold Fields has implemented both Mobilaris Onboard and Mobilaris Situational Awareness at its Granny Smith underground mine in Western Australia as part of an ongoing modernisation program.

In 2018, Gold Fields launched a five-year modernisation program for the site. The first phase’s ambition is to ensure cost efficiency, productivity and a safe work environment by integrating data-driven solutions into the mine.

Michael Place, Mine Manager at Granny Smith, said Gold Field has three dedicated full-time personnel to work on the modernisation program. It has also employed external consultants and contractors to assist with the integration.

“Together, we integrate an underground LTE system to have full connectivity in the mine,” he said.

Gold Fields’ investment will also have environmental effects over time as its digitalisation allows the company to work more sustainably.

“Moving into a more digital world is going to make sure that we are sustainable long-term,” Place said. “For instance, we can maintain our cost profile during expansion and follow up on our environmental footprint.”

Historically, underground blasting has been one of the biggest time thieves in the Granny Smith Mine, with the operation currently losing four hours of production in a 24-hour period due to the firing. With the ongoing modernisation program, Place looks for the mine to become more efficient than before.

“Integrating technology into the mine allows us to look at options to reduce the inactive time,” he said. “We can increase efficiency through autonomous equipment, remote operations, and digital solutions. The expected outcome is a 5-15% increase in productivity.”

The Granny Smith Mine has close to 4,000 different locations, with over 100 employees underground at the same time. It already runs 1.2 km deep and, like many mines, is under constant development.

Michael Place, Mine Manager at Granny Smith

In 2019, a group from Gold Fields Granny Smith, including General Manager, Andrew Bywater, visited Boliden in Sweden to study the use of the Mobilaris product suite, with focus on Mobilaris Onboard and Mobilaris Situational Awareness in the Kristineberg mine.

Mobilaris Onboard, working as a machine navigator underground, creates traffic awareness and a safe and effective traffic flow, according to the company. Based on real-time data, Mobilaris Situational Awareness enables transparency and awareness. The information makes it possible to control the operations and resources, and people can quickly act upon what is happening and make smart decisions faster, Mobilaris says.

Because Mobilaris data and positions were shared in real time, the operation had seen an increase in safety and efficiency, according to Mobilaris.

This visit has since led to Gold Fields implementing both Mobilaris Onboard and Mobilaris Situational Awareness at its underground operations at Granny Smith.

Place said: “Mobilaris Onboard allows us to navigate to all locations underground quickly and efficiently. It will improve our productivity and decrease inactive time by reducing traffic congestion and finding equipment and machines faster.

“We are a haulage-constrained mine and, by reducing the cycle time of our haulage fleet, we can raise our productivity. It is a significant benefit.”

Strong customer relations allows Mobilaris to develop and test all products in real environments, as well as the possibility to bring companies to customer’s sites to experience the products in use, Mobilaris said.

“Our close relationship with the customer is a crucial success factor for Mobilaris,” Pascal Hansson, Sales Director, Mobilaris Mining & Civil Engineering, said. “All our solutions are tested in Boliden’s and other companies’ underground mines. This gives us the confidence to deliver what we promise to our customers.”

Gold Fields has plans to use Mobilaris Situational Awareness as its number one source of information and integrate it with fleet management, inventory systems, and the daily shift scheduler, according to Mobilaris. The mine’s digital investment is expected to pay off within a year, it added.

Place explained: “The location data will synchronise with daily schedules to ensure real-time data is captured from the time jobs are planned and executed. We are looking at efficiency improvements, but we are currently introducing this technology to maintain our production profile with the increasing depth and costs.”

The Gold Fields modernisation program has full support from top to bottom and is expected to be finished over the next two years, Mobilaris said.

During the research process, Gold Fields discovered that Mobilaris Onboard addresses specific safety issues. By sharing positional data and navigation in 3D, drivers can avoid traffic congestion and find shelter during emergencies.

Place said: “We have installed tablets in all our heavy vehicles. With Onboard’s traffic awareness feature, we can minimise the vehicle-vehicle interaction and the vehicle-personnel interaction. The application also tells us where to find the three nearest refuge chambers to our location. So, if there is an emergency, we can get the quickest path to safety.”

ABB tackles ‘open automation’ with UWA, ETP, AMIRA Global and Gold Fields

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ABB says it has linked with the University of Western Australia’s (UWA) new Energy & Resources Digital Interoperability Industry 4.0 (ERDi i4.0) TestLab, run by Enterprise Transformation Partners (ETP), to advance Industry 4.0 open process automation standards.

This includes collaboration on AMIRA Global’s P1208 Interoperability Enablement for Natural Resources project, which is designed to realise the future digital mine. It aims to develop and implement interoperability standards for mine planning, mine scheduling and execution so equipment and applications for mine operations become ‘plug and play’. Building on the University of Western Australia I4.0 ERDi Test Lab (pictured), this initiative will enable an off-site test laboratory to evaluate efficacy of interoperability of technology without disrupting ongoing mining activities, according to ABB.

Separate to the AMIRA project, ABB is also working closely with ETP on an integrated systems project at Gold Fields’ Granny Smith mine, 740 km northeast of Perth, Western Australia, one of the largest and highest producing gold operations in the country.

The project will enhance ABB Ability™ Operations Management System (OMS) Platform – Fleet Management Software Module to support the latest in reliable messaging and Industry 4.0 interoperability standards; ISA-95 (IEC 62264) via B2MML V7.0, ABB said. This advancement will enable the mine to connect and coordinate mine operators, workforce, equipment and all mining activities in real-time, from face preparation to crusher, according to the company.

“In 2019, we launched the Integrated Systems project to increase production throughput of the Granny Smith gold mine,” Michael Place, Technical Service Manager, Gold Fields Australia, said. “To achieve the objective of a fully-connected mine, we are working with ABB and ETP to build an integrated business process and system architecture that will enable visibility of operational activities in near real-time via automated information exchange between various mining systems.

“The system architecture has been designed to allow deployment across various operations, both open pit and underground. This deployment will be the major phase of the technology strategy for the Granny Smith mine and will be a pilot for integrated platforms across Gold Fields Australia, which aims to create one of the most innovative, digitally connected mines in the world. This project and agreement will be key to achieving this.”

ETP Managing Director, John Kirkman, said: “ABB’s investment, both in financial terms as well as time, together with their expertise, is critical for this project to support the re-engineering of products that are often required to deliver a reliable, performant and standards compliant software package.

“The performance requirements of a software package that exchanges and processes granular events with rich information in real-time, when compared to a software package designed for periodical manual entry, are like comparing chalk and cheese, and that’s where ABB plays a big role.”

Stuart Cowie, Head of Industrial Automation Process Industries, ABB Australia, added: “Industry 4.0 and digital transformation are huge opportunities for the Australian mining industry with automation, analytics, and artificial intelligence generating insights and accelerating greater productivity and efficiency.

“This underlines ABB’s commitment to ensuring Industry 4.0 concepts influence its product roadmaps into the future, and demonstrates the significant value that can be delivered to customers through interoperability and automation across both processes and systems. It will give ABB valuable insights into digital transformation and Industry 4.0 concepts for mining. Through our work with the ERDi TestLab, the OMS platform has become an even more powerful tool with reliable real-time access to operational data through ISA95 standardised messages.”

As part of POC 1, ABB will showcase ABB Ability Operations Management System and Fleet Management System software to AMIRA P1208 project sponsors, automatically exchanging information with scheduling and materials tracking software packages via i4.0 standard interfaces.

Santos and Gold Fields agree on new gas deal to supply WA mines

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Santos says it has entered into a new gas supply agreement with Gold Fields for its three gold mines in the state.

The company, Western Australia’s biggest domestic gas supplier, will supply nearly 5.5 PJ of natural gas from its Varanus Island gas plant (pictured) over three years, starting on July 1, 2020, as part of the agreement.

In Western Australia, Gold Fields owns and operates the St Ives open-pit/underground mine, the Agnew underground mine and the Granny Smith underground mine. These have throughput capacities of 4.7 Mt/y, 1.3 Mt/y and 3.5 Mt/y, respectively.

The 56 MW Agnew Hybrid Renewable project recently got up and running at Gold Fields’ Agnew mine. This includes five 110 m wind turbines, each with a rotor diameter of 140 m, delivering 18 MW; a 10,710-panel solar farm generating 4 MW; a 13 MW/4 MWh battery system; and an off-grid 21 MW gas/diesel engine power plant.

Santos Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Gallagher, said: “We are delighted Gold Fields has come back to Santos after a short hiatus, reinforcing our position as Western Australia’s biggest supplier of gas to the local market.

“Santos supplies around 40% of the state’s total domestic demand, and we are committed to ongoing investment in developing new gas supplies in Western Australia.

“In these challenging economic times, we are focused on ensuring local gas prices remain competitive for Western Australian businesses over the long term.”