Tag Archives: Iluka Resources

The Electric Mine Consortium and EPCA to run Cat 777 electric truck trial

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The Electric Mine Consortium is looking to bridge the gap between the testing of electrified ultra-class haul trucks and continued rollout across industry of battery-electric underground trucks with a project to develop and trial a retrofitted 100-ton (91 t) haul truck as part of its consortium work in Australia.

It has teamed up with Electric Power Conversions Australia (EPCA), an Indigenous electric battery conversion company in Australia, to run a Caterpillar 777 haul truck electric vehicle demonstrator project.

The consortium explained: “The Electric Mine Consortium are focused across all fleet sizes when it comes to electrification. In our recent work, we have uncovered that in the area of larger surface in-pit trucks, there are some trials underway, however there is a lack of focus on the smaller trucks. Making sure we understand and trial electric technologies in smaller fleets is important to our members, and we were recently presented with an opportunity to do so by Electric Power Conversions Australia, an Indigenous electric battery conversion company in Australia.”

The conversion of the vehicle – one of the most commonly used surface trucks across the Tier 2 and Tier 3 mining company market, according to the consortium – will see the 750 kW diesel motor switched out with a 1,000 kW electric motor and 2 MWh of batteries, according to Clayton Franklin, founder and CEO of EPCA.

Franklin said he was expecting this configuration to allow for an eight-hour average run time, providing 30% more power than the diesel equivalent and the ability to move material quicker. He also predicted a 50% reduction in total cost of ownership on the battery-converted truck when compared with the diesel truck.

EPCA was founded in 2021 with the vision of providing a practical solution to the growing environmental impact of the Australian mining industry. Franklin himself was the lead engineer on a 220-t hydrogen-battery hybrid mining truck and also for an Epiroc D65 drill rig that was electrified.

The Electric Mine Consortium is a growing group of leading mining and service companies. These companies are driven by the imperative to accelerate progress towards the fully electrified zero CO2 and zero particulates mine. Mining companies Gold Fields, South32, OZ Minerals, IGO Ltd, Evolution Mining, Iluka Resources, MMG and Sandfire Resources are among the participants.

In the short time since the establishment, the consortium’s membership has grown almost two-fold, with over 40 ongoing equipment trials in 15 different locations having been mobilised.

Electric Mine Consortium partners with AWS on world-first mine decarbonisation platform

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Australia’s Electric Mine Consortium (EMC), made up of some of the world’s leading mining and service companies, has announced it is working with Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company, to accelerate the electrification of mine sites globally.

Announced at AWS Summit 2022, EMC is using AWS’s depth and breadth of services, including machine learning, business intelligence and storage, to build the world’s first mining data platform, to capture real-time information on mine decarbonisation from sites globally.

To drive decarbonisation, mining companies can use the platform to measure energy storage levels and electrical infrastructure use from global mine sites to accelerate the creation of a cleaner, more electrified future in mining, EMC said.

Co-founder of the EMC, Graeme Stanway, says the platform can help enable EMC members to share sustainability insights and analyse the outcomes of adopting electrified mining infrastructure and sustainable operations.

“The way we generate, store and harness energy around the globe is changing drastically,” Stanway said. “EMC’s collaboration with AWS will help see us at the forefront of this change, driving the mining industry’s electrification at scale.”

Stanway said the industry is crying out for tools to decarbonise due to tightening government emission reduction targets, increasing environmental, social and governance pressure, and the industry being responsible for 7% of the greenhouse gas emissions globally.

“Like the electric vehicle industry, electric mines are the future” Stanway said. “Not only can they be safer through the eradication of diesel particulates, pollution, noise and vibrations, they can also be more targeted, precise and effective when it comes to mining, and yield stronger results than traditional mines with minimal ground disturbance.”

As part of the initiative, EMC created a “data lake” using Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), a cloud object storage service, that can securely store thousands of datasets from the consortium’s mines, including data on energy consumption and renewable energy infrastructure output.

EMC can then clean the data and run data pipelines using AWS Step Functions, a low-code, visual workflow service; AWS Glue, a serverless data integration service; and AWS Lambda, a serverless, event-driven compute service. AWS Glue can provide EMC with data catalogue functionality, and AWS Lake Formation, a service that makes it easy to set up a secure data lake in days, can deliver security and access control.

Amazon QuickSight, a business intelligence service (screenshot pictured), can allow everyone in the consortium to explore and understand mining data through user-friendly interactive dashboards that identify efficiency practices that may reduce emissions, according to EMC.

Also, using Amazon SageMaker, a fully managed service to build, train, and deploy machine learning models, EMC can train machine-learning models to predict energy usage spikes at mines and track the carbon efficiency of deploying sustainable energy infrastructure.

Sarah Bassett, Head of Mining and Energy, Australia at AWS, said: “Data capture and analysis is essential to mining operations, and AWS is helping consortium members to share their critical datasets and collective insights to drive the digitisation and evolution of the industry. I am excited to be collaborating with the EMC and its consortium members to improve the design of mines globally and accelerate the industry’s journey to decarbonisation on the global scale.”

The EMC is a growing group of over 20 mining and service companies. These companies are driven by the imperative to produce zero-emission products for their customers and meet mounting investor expectations. Thus, the objective of the EMC is to accelerate progress toward the zero-carbon and zero-particulate mine through:

  • Resolving key technology choices;
  • Shaping the supplier ecosystem;
  • Influencing policy; and
  • Communicating the business case

The EMC is emerging as a key vehicle for the decarbonisation of the mining industry, particularly for underground operations, and will remain responsive to the rapidly changing external environment.

Members include OZ Minerals, Newcrest Mining, Gold Fields, IGO, South32, Blackstone Minerals, Evolution Mining, Barminco and Iluka Resources.

Iluka Cataby contract pushes Pentium Hydro drilling capacity over the line

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Vysarn Limited subsidiary, Pentium Hydro, is to carry out drilling of dewatering wells at Iluka’s Cataby mine site in Western Australia following the award of a contract with Iluka Resources.

The Goods and Services contract is a variation to the original award of drilling services by Iluka back in January 2020.

The contract has an estimated value of A$1.74 million ($1.31 million) and, based on the current scope, is expected to be completed by the end of 2021. Pentium plans to mobilise to site next month.

Vysarn Managing Director, James Clement, said: “Of note, this work now provides a contract pipeline exceeding the capacity of Pentium’s current fleet of 12 rigs in the first half of the 2022 financial year. Management intend to lease or enter into hire purchase arrangements to execute the work in hand with additional drill rigs.”

KPS to leverage ETC tech in hybrid power conversion at Iluka’s Jacinth Ambrosia mine

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Pacific Energy Ltd’s wholly owned KPS subsidiary has signed a contract to convert its 10 MW diesel power station at Iluka Resources’ Jacinth Ambrosia mineral sands mine in South Australia to a hybrid facility.

The facility will incorporate electric turbo compounding (ETC) technology, which, the company says, allows generators to maintain the same power output using less fuel and producing lower CO2 emissions.

The conversion and upgrade will have a meaningful impact on lowering emissions and fuel costs for Iluka, Pacific Energy claims.

KPS has operated the 10 MW diesel power station at the Jacinth Ambrosia site since 2009. Under the new contract, which runs for an initial term of seven years, KPS will:

  • Install 3.5 MW of solar power generation;
  • Integrate the solar array with the diesel power station; and
  • Introduce ETC technology to each of the 10 1 MW generators.

ETC technology makes generators work more cleanly and effectively by recovering waste energy from the exhaust to improve power density and fuel efficiency, the company explained.

Juwi Renewable Energy Pty Ltd, the Brisbane-based subsidiary of juwi AG, is to construct the medium penetration solar/diesel hybrid power solution for Jacinth Ambrosia, with KPS owning and operating the hybrid project. After completion, it is expected to deliver almost 21% of the mine site’s annual electricity needs.

Pacific Energy Chief Executive, Jamie Cullen, said: “This is an exciting development for both Pacific Energy and Iluka Resources in what we believe is a world first – integrating solar and ETC technology with an existing fossil fuel facility. The reduction in diesel consumption and improvement in fuel efficiency is expected to save over 2 million litres of diesel and over 5,500 tonnes of CO2 per year, every year, for at least the next seven years.”

Pentium Hydro to help with dewatering at Iluka’s Cataby mineral sands op

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Pentium Hydro has continued to book more work from the mining sector with Iluka Resources becoming the latest company to engage it for specialised dewatering drilling.

The Vysarn subsidiary’s Goods and Services contract with Iluka at the Cataby mineral sands mine, in Western Australia, has an estimated value of A$1.875 million ($1.3 million) and, based on the current scope, is expected to be complete before the end of June 2020.

Pentium plans to mobilise to site in early February, with the company carrying out the drilling of dewatering and injection wells at the Southern Area Development project at Cataby.

Managing Director of Pentium, Sheldon Burt, said: “The mobilisation of this rig will be the seventh rig of the fleet committed to a drilling program since acquiring the assets and the company’s relisting on ASX in September 2019.”

Pentium’s list of recent project awards includes Fortescue Metals Group at Cloudbreak, Roy Hill at its Western Australia iron ore mine and the AngloGold Ashanti- and Independence Group-owned Tropicana gold mine.

Burt added: “The award of this work further strengthens the company’s strategy to become the premium dewatering service provider in Western Australia, specifically to Tier One mining clients.”

SciDev and Iluka Resources take chemistry to the Max at Jacinth-Ambrosia

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ASX-listed SciDev Ltd says it has been awarded a three-year contract with Iluka Resources for delivery of MaxiFlox® chemistry to the Jacinth–Ambrosia zircon mine, in South Australia.

The contract, expected to be worth some A$8-12 million ($5-8 million) over the three-year term, follows the delivery of a chemical products trial for the miner in the December quarter of 2018. This itself occurred following the announcement of a commercial OptiFlox® System test SciDev carried out.

MaxiFlox is specifically designed for use in solid liquid separation processes, SciDev says. Products in the MaxiFlox range are supplied in both liquid and powder form across an extensive range of molecular weights and charge densities to solve industrial challenges. Products include:

  • MaxiFlox organic liquid coagulants (based on synthetic organic monomers and naturally occurring polysaccharides);
  • MaxiFlox inorganic liquid coagulant blends;
  • MaxiFlox cationic and anionic flocculant emulsions;
  • MaxiFlox cationic and anionic flocculant powders;
  • MaxiFlox mud solidification polymers, and;
  • MaxiFlox antifoam products.

The technology can be used across a range of industries including mining and minerals processing, water and wastewater, oil and gas, food and beverage and paper manufacturing.

Iluka’s Jacinth-Ambrosia operation is the world’s largest zircon mine, according to the miner. Comprising two contiguous deposits, Jacinth and Ambrosia, the mine is around 800 km from Adelaide and 270 km from the Port of Thevenard.

The operation encompasses mining and wet concentration activities with heavy mineral concentrate transported to Iluka’s Narngulu mineral separation plant in Western Australia for final processing. Jacinth-Ambrosia can produce up to some 1,000 t/h of heavy mineral concentrate, which can produce up to ~300,000 t/y of zircon.

SIMPEC wins more work from MSP Engineering, Iluka Resources

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SIMPEC says it has been awarded more than A$5 million ($3.46 million) in scope extensions to its current contracts in Western Australia.

WestStar Industrial’s engineering contractor business said the bulk of this work is either underway or will commence imminently and was built on the original awards from MSP Engineering (for the Tianqi Lithium Kwinana processing plant, pictured) and Iluka Resources (for the Cataby mineral sands project).

This news comes hot on the heels of SIMPEC announcing major contract awards, the most recent being the A$10 million win from ATCO to supply and install the electrical, communications and dry fire systems for an 800-room mine camp at Fortescue Metals Group’s Eliwana iron ore mine site in the Pilbara, Western Australia.

SIMPEC said its team has grown substantially over the past six months with nearly 150 personnel and contractors now working across all of its current contracts.

SIMPEC Managing Director, Mark Dimasi, said: “These scope extensions are a direct result of our strong performance on site. With safety at the forefront of everything we do, SIMPEC is performing very well across all projects and working very closely with our clients.”

SIMPEC ready for camp construction and deconstruction at West Angelas

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WestStar Industrial’s engineering contractor business, SIMPEC, has been awarded a key contract by ATCO Structures and Logistics in the construction and deconstruction of a 600-room camp at Rio Tinto’s West Angelas iron ore mine in the Pilbara of Western Australia.

The A$4 million ($2.96 million) contract award work is due to commence early in 2019.

SIMPEC’s electrical and communications scope of work is to design, supply, construct, test, commission and deconstruct the electrical and communications systems of the construction camp. The camp will be delivered over a three-to-four-month period and is to be used in the major development project at West Angelas to build deposits C and D.

Following completion of mine development, SIMPEC will return to site and deconstruct the camp’s electrical and communications systems.

SIMPEC said the contract award at West Angelas builds on the portfolio of camp work packages successfully undertaken by SIMPEC, specifically the camp works completed at Iluka Resources’ Cataby iron sands project, 150 km north of Perth, Western Australia.

SIMPEC Managing Director Mark Dimasi said: “This is a tribute to our team resulting from our efforts at the Cataby project. What a commendable achievement to secure a project with ATCO Structures and Logistics for the Rio Tinto West Angelas mine site, further enhancing our exposure to camp construction works.”

The investment at West Angelas’ C and D deposits is part of a $1.55 billion plan to sustain production capacity at part of the Robe River joint venture (owned 53% by Rio, 33% by Mitsui and 14% by Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp).

The joint venture partners will invest $579 million in developing deposits C and D, with first ore expected in 2021.

SIMPEC books business at Iluka’s Cataby mineral sands project in Western Australia

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SIMPEC is continuing to win business in the Western Australia mining sector, this time being awarded a contract to install a flocculant treatment plant for Iluka Resources’ new mineral sands project in Cataby.

The A$1.7 million ($1.2 million) contract award will see SIMPEC, a subsidiary of WestStar Industrial, start work on the plant immediately. It is the company’s second award at Cataby, having successfully completed a key mechanical, electrical and communications contract in the construction of two separate accommodation facilities for use by Iluka and Tronox, respectively.

The plant package is a fabrication and construction project consisting of four tanks including structural, mechanical and piping works. The project will be delivered over a three-month period and forms part of a “complex mineral and chemical processing facility”, according to SIMPEC.

At Cataby, the heavy mineral concentrate produced at the site will be processed into final products at Iluka’s Narngulu mineral separation plant.

The A$250-275 million Cataby project was approved in December 2017 with first production expected in the June quarter of 2019. It is expected to produce an average of 200,000 t/y of synthetic rutile, 50,000 t/y of zircon and 30,000 t/y of rutile over an 8.5-year mine life.

SIMPEC said the Cataby award builds on its portfolio of tank work packages carried out at the Talison lithium mine in Greenbushes, Western Australia.

With this award, SIMPEC has built an order book of A$9.5 million, with more than A$150 million of work tendered over the past year, it said.

Iluka Resources bolts on second SciDev OptiFlox trial in Australia

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ASX-listed SciDev Ltd is to add a chemical products trial to the commercial OptiFlox® System test it is due to carry out in the December quarter at one of Iluka Resources’ Australia mineral sands operations.

The two-week trial of the chemical products will run concurrently with the OptiFlox System testing, the latter of which was announced earlier this month and aims to optimise water recovery, consumable usage and improve tailings deposition in the tailings thickener section of the operation over a matter of months.

“Pending success of both the chemical trial and the associated OptiFlox system trial, SciDev will seek to progress discussions with Iluka in respect of an ongoing chemical sales contract,” the company said.

OptiFlox comprises an extensive range of chemicals and the company’s patent-pending technology. Its range of polymers is specifically tailored for the treatment of process water and wastewater in mining and minerals, “recovering valuable mineral resources more efficiently, while minimising losses in productivity and revenue caused by inadequate wastewater clarification in tailings thickeners”, SciDev says.

In addition to this mineral sands trial win, SciDev has been given six months to trial its technology at Peabody Energy’s North Goonyella coking coal mine in Queensland, Australia, and the company was recently contracted by the coal miner to supply its coagulant product to one of its US operations.