Tag Archives: Kirkland Lake Gold

Kirkland Lake Gold cements approvals at Fosterville gold mine

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Kirkland Lake Gold has received regulatory and planning approval for an on-site cement plant at its rapidly-expanding Fosterville gold mine in Victoria, Australia.

Victoria’s Minister for Resources, Jaclyn Symes, confirmed the approvals on site at Fosterville last week.

The new cement infrastructure plant will enable by-product rock to be re-inserted underground, reducing tailings and extending the life of the mine, according to the government. It will also lead to production increasing at the underground mine, it added.

Estimated gold reserves at Fosterville were recently upgraded 60% to 2.7 Moz, with production in 2019 set to come in at 550,000-610,000 oz, up from 350,000 oz in 2018.

In August, Kirkland Lake Gold secured GR Engineering’s EPC services for a paste backfill plant at Fosterville which, when in production, could produce 65 m³/h of paste to fill the stopes in the gold mine.

Wood Mackenzie poses mine electrification and automation question

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Electrification and automation will be key priorities for mining companies in 2019, new research from Wood Mackenzie has claimed.

In reviewing the research firm’s ‘Global trends: what to look for in 2019’ report, Wood Mackenzie Research Director, Prakash Sharma, said: “Building a world-class low-cost mining business seems to be the mantra.

“Major players, such as BHP, Rio Tinto and Vale, are increasing the share of electricity and automation in mining operations. The objective is to not only reduce scope 1 emissions (from their own activities) and air pollution, but also to lower human involvement and operating expenditure.

“By employing data analytics, companies are chasing productivity and efficiency and lowering costs as a result. The aim is to stay at the lower end of the cost curve should demand for traditional mining commodities fall.”

In 2017, BHP set a long-term goal of achieving net-zero scope 1 and 2 emissions in the second half of this century, while, in 2018, Rio Tinto announced successful deployment of AutoHaulTM (pictured), “establishing the world’s largest robot and first automated heavy-haul long-distance rail network in the Pilbara region of Western Australia”, Sharma said.

“The key question will be whether other mining majors follow this trend in 2019.”

In terms of adopting automated technologies, BHP and Rio are far from being alone.

Vale’s Brucutu iron ore mine in Minas Gerais, Brazil, is set to go fully-autonomous this year – as a fleet of seven new Caterpillar 240 ton (218 t) 793F CMD fully autonomous trucks is expanded to 13 – Fortescue Metals is continuing its manual-to-automation fleet conversion at Christmas Creek, in Australia, and Norilsk Nickel recently told IM it was looking to introduce a “fully-automated mine”.

This is only the start.

NGEx Resources and Filo Mining, which are looking to develop open-pit copper operations in South America, confirmed in the past few months they were looking to incorporate autonomous haul truck technology from the off. These admissions came in their prefeasibility studies, which are likely to pre-date mining operations by three to five years.

And, underground, Resolute Mining and Sandvik plan to fully-automate the Syama block cave mine in Mali this year. The mine started commissioning at the back end of last year, hit the first production stopes in December and is expected to ramp up to steady-state output of over 300,000 oz/y by June.

This is but a handful of trials and projects going on in the automated mining space, with the process plant end also seeing a number of innovative trials or installations to move away from manual mode.

On the electrification question, specifically, Sharma told IM that grid-connected mines were acting faster when it came to adoption compared with those operating remotely. “Shovels and drilling machines at surface mines are already using electricity. Up to 100 t dump trucks are using electric-motors (battery-operated) at some mines in China,” he said.

“At underground mines, electric machines are increasingly used but batteries are yet to take off.”

The latter isn’t the case in Ontario, Canada, where Goldcorp (Borden) and Kirkland Lake Gold (Macassa) are using battery-powered equipment underground in their load and haul and utility fleets. In Sudbury, Canada, too there have been a number of deliveries of such machinery to some of its world-renowned base metal mines. (You can hear more about this at the inaugural Electric Mine conference in April).

As with the majority of technology projects, finance is the biggest hurdle for widespread adoption, according to Sharma.

“Another issue is around the financial health of the mining companies. Some are not willing to re-invest due to uncertainty around the commodities they mine. Some are focused on diversification of portfolios. There are others who want to act quickly, consolidate and take first mover advantage to decarbonise,” he said.

“We believe the electrification and automation in mining will continue to expand and tightening environmental policies will drive the shift. But a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach will not work,” he concluded.

Swick Mining boosts profits as it looks to drill deeper at Kirkland Lake Gold’s Fosterville mine

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Swick Mining’s strategies of shifting drill rigs on to better performing contracts or new projects and reducing costs has continued to pay off with the underground and surface mineral drilling business posting a more than 100% year-on-year increase in EBITDA in the December quarter.

The company delivered “strong unaudited results” for the three-month period, it said, with the drilling business’ earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) up 109% to A$9.5 million ($6.8 million). This coincided with the company completing 263,690 m of drilling and the average fleet use coming in at 75% across the quarter.

Drilling business revenue of A$37.7 million was up 8% compared with the same quarter of 2017. Overall group revenue and EBITDA was marginally up on the drilling business numbers as the company’s mineral technology business, Orexplore, registered several commercial scans during the period.

In addition to shifting drill rigs and cutting costs, Swick benefitted from improved short-term rates at two existing underground drilling services contracts in the quarter – for Newmont and its Tanami and Mt Charlotte assets, where 11 rigs are deployed. Swick said: “These rates will run through to March 2019, to allow for a competitive tender process for the long-term contracts to be completed (in which Swick is participating).”

Swick Managing Director, Kent Swick (pictured), said: “The earnings rebound of our drilling business has continued and shows how we can unlock Swick’s potential when we target the right projects for the right clients and ensure we deliver value for money for our clients.

“The improved margins are a mixture of adjusted rates where needed and also from a 6% year-on-year reduction in our operating costs per shift in the underground division by focusing on manning levels, consumables usage, procurement processes and inventory management.”

The Swick MD added that its recently established deep exploration division, DeepEx, continued to move forward during the quarter with preparations underway to deploy two high-torque mobile drills this month at Kirkland Lake Gold’s Fosterville mine. This will further assist the deep underground exploration drilling it is already carrying out at the mine.

This came on top of an update on Orexplore, which in the eight months since launch has secured seven customers and numerous trial programmes with a range of miners, explorers and consultants, Kent Swick said.

He also said the gold spectrometer was undergoing testing at Orexplore’s R&D headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, and that the company expects to have initial feedback on the in-machine prototypes performance during this quarter.

Kirkland Lake Gold’s Macassa mine on the charge with battery-electric machines

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The use of battery-electric equipment at Kirkland Lake Gold’s Macassa operation in Ontario, Canada, is on the rise, according to the latest investor presentation from the gold mining company.

Macassa now has two of Artisan Vehicles’ battery powered Z40 trucks (pictured) working at the gold mine, in addition to 22 battery-powered LHDs provided by companies including Epiroc and Artisan, the company said this week.

This is part of a mining fleet that also includes six 20 ton (18 t) haul trucks and two production drills.

In addition to this, the gold mining company has been using at least one Artisan A4 LHD at its Taylor operation, also in Ontario.

Macassa, one of the company’s gold-production engines, is expected to have produced 220,000-225,000 oz of gold in 2018, but a future mine expansion could lead to annual output rising to 400,000 oz in 2022.

The company uses a combination of underhand cut and fill (~65%), sub-level long hole stoping (~25%) and overhand cut and fill (~10%) to mine the orebody at Macassa.

You can learn more about the battery-electric fleet being used at the Macassa operation at The Electric Mine event in Toronto, taking place on April 4-5. Andrew Schinkel, Senior Electrical Engineer at the Macassa Mine Complex, will present ‘Powering up Macassa: operating a major battery-electric fleet at a deep underground mine’ at the event. For more information, please click here.

The Electric Mine logo

The Electric Mine conference shifts gear

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With just under four months to go, The Electric Mine conference is charging up to full capacity.

IM has been able to assemble a world-class speaker line-up covering the entire mine electrification process – from R&D and power infrastructure, to battery charging and electrified equipment.

The conference, to take place on April 4-5, 2019, in Toronto, Canada, will host the great and the good in this fast-evolving sector and hear case studies from real mine trials or applications.

This includes a presentation from Kirkland Lake Gold, which is currently running one of the largest in-production underground battery-electric fleets in the industry at its Macassa gold mine in Canada.

Just last month, IM heard that some 33 units were active underground at the deep and high-grade mine in Ontario and Andrew Schinkel, Senior Electrical Engineer of the Macassa Mine Complex, will most likely be able to add to that number, as well as comment on the fleet’s productivity, come conference time.

The soon-to-be-in-production Borden gold project, also in Ontario, will be under the spotlight at the event, with the involved OEMs and mining company collaborating on stage as they have during mine development.

Maarten van Koppen (pictured, left), Senior Project Engineer at Goldcorp Porcupine Mines, Jeff Anderson, Senior Mechanical Designer, MacLean Engineering, and a Sandvik Mining co-speaker (to be confirmed), will present: ‘The Borden Gold Project – lessons learned from the ‘mine of the future’ and the crucial role of partnerships in building an all-electric underground mine’.

The major mining representation does not end there.

Samantha Espley, Director of the Technology & Innovation Centre for Mining and Mineral Processing, Vale Base Metals Operations, will chart the mining company’s roadmap to underground electrification in Sudbury during her talk; expect the OEMs in the room to ask questions about the future fleet for the Creighton deep zone!

Caterpillar’s Product Manager for Underground Technology Solutions, Jay Armburger, is also set to take to the stage at the Radisson Admiral. The focus of his talk will be on heat generation, comparing battery and diesel LHDs underground. A few passing references to the proof of concept R1300G LHD trials it ran not all that long ago at an underground mine in Sudbury, Canada (pictured, right), are likely.

We’ll also hear about developments above ground.

A joint presentation from Karl Trudeau (Nouveau Monde Graphite), Michel Serres (ABB Canada) and David Lyon (MEDATECH) will shed some light on what it will take to create an all-electric open-pit mine able to produce 100,000 t of graphite concentrate at NMG’s Matawinie project in Quebec, Canada.

Those three speakers could be in the front row for Per-Erik Lindström’s talk on The Electric Site project in Sweden.

Lindström, Vice President Global Key Account Management for Volvo Construction Equipment, has seen first hand how battery-electric equipment can move the needle in terms of cost and emissions at the Skanska Vikan Cross quarry, just outside of Gothenburg, and there are more than a few miners interested in the prototype machines (pictured, left) the OEM has manufactured for this purpose.

These presentations will be complemented by a talk from Heather Ednie, Managing Director, Global Mining Guidelines Group, on the second edition of the group’s Battery Electric Vehicle guideline; an opening keynote from Ali G. Madiseh, Canada Research Chair in Advanced Mine Energy Systems, Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering, University of British Columbia, titled: ‘The Electric Mine: a new norm in mine energy systems’; Erik Isokangas, Program Director, Mining3, discussing the value proposition for autonomous electric haulage; and Doug Morrison, President and CEO, Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI), looking at electrification to maximise productive capacity.

Meanwhile, Justin Bain, Chief Executive Officer, Energetique (Energy/Mobility), will fly in from Australia to pronounce the death of diesel Down Under – his firm has recently been involved in the conversion of diesel utility vehicles to battery-electric drive.

Along similar lines, Paul Miller, of Miller Technology, will talk about what goes into developing an innovative fully-electric light utility automobile, designed for continuous underground operation.

IM then has two behemoths in the mine power sector, Siemens and Schneider Electric, looking at the all-important infrastructure that goes into electrification.

Dr Bappa Banerjee, General Manager, Mining Equipment, GE Transportation, will look at the electric future for load and haul in his keynote, Mathieu Bouffard, Project Manager, Adria Manufacture, will cover battery charging and power management of battery-electric vehicles, and Don Duval, CEO of NORCAT, will showcase some of the new technologies that have come out of the organisation’s Underground Centre in Sudbury.

This speaker line-up is only set to improve as we move into the New Year, with IM in advanced discussions with more OEMs and miners looking to present.

The first global event on mine electrification continues to charge ahead…

If you’d like to hear more about The Electric Mine conference – including presenting and sponsorship opportunities – please feel free to get in contact with Editorial Director Paul Moore ([email protected]) or Editor Dan Gleeson ([email protected]).

To view the full speaker line-up, venue details and to take advantage of the soon-to-expire Early Bird attendance rate, please visit the event homepage here.

Epiroc and Kirkland Lake Gold leading the mine electrification race, Riach says

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Canada and Australia-focused Kirkland Lake Gold has helped Epiroc become one of the leaders in the underground battery-electric mining equipment market, Richard Riach, Global Senior Project Manager for the OEM, said at the company’s Power Change Days event in Örebro, Sweden, on Wednesday.

The miner currently has some 33 battery-electric vehicles running around underground at its Macassa mine in Ontario, Canada, 14 of which are Epiroc machines. Overall, some 75-80% of the company’s haul and load operations are carried out by battery-electric equipment, he said.

Based on those numbers, the miner is one of the leaders in the field of battery-electric adoption underground, as well as a key partner for Epiroc.

“They’ve been the people that have helped us develop the products we have today,” Riach said.

The benefits haven’t all been one way.

Riach said Kirkland Lake had witnessed just a 2°C increase in the underground environment during the battery-electric mucking cycle with LHDs and trucks at Macassa, compared with an 8°C increase using the diesel equivalent.

Vibration and noise emissions have fallen, while operators are less tired at the end of a shift – a tell-tale sign of operating with heavy polluting diesel equipment. The amount of dust circulating around the workings has also dropped.

Riach, who formerly worked for Vale in Sudbury, said Epiroc’s development timeline for battery-electric machinery started all the way back in 2012. The first Scooptram ST7 Battery was produced in 2013 before a 2014 machine trial with Goldcorp’s Red Lake mines department. The Minetruck MT2010 then came along in 2015.

With around 65,000 hours of operating data from battery-electric equipment, Epiroc has now launched its second generation of battery-electric machines – two new LHDs (Scooptram ST14 and Scooptram ST18), a 42 t truck (Minetruck MT42, pictured) and a range of mid-sized drilling equipment including face drilling, production drilling and rock reinforcement rigs.

While the company will start to roll out these products from next year – IM understands at least one piece of the second-generation machinery will go to Agnico Eagle Mines’ Kittila gold operation in Finland as part of the SIMS (Sustainable Intelligent Mining Systems) project – it already has its sights on more products.

Stevan Topalovic, Vice President Marketing Underground Rock Excavation division at Epiroc, said the technology was readily scalable and Epiroc was already working on an 18 t LHD.

There is also a target to roll out battery-electric equipment across its entire underground fleet within the next five years.

And about the potential for retrofitting, Erik Svedlund, Global Marketing Manager – Electrification, Epiroc, said the company was carrying out studies to do exactly this. This could lead to the retrofitting of battery-electric technology on Epiroc diesel equipment and, even more interesting, other OEM’s machines.

The company would not have been able to get to this point in its product evolution without the help of battery maker Northvolt and ABB. Both companies have been instrumental in providing the technology to make this transition from diesel to electric operation.

As part of this new range, Epiroc is committed to its Battery as a Service offering. This will see the mining OEM provide a warranty for the battery and provide both software and hardware updates on an annual basis.

“Our battery system will improve every year with improvements in the battery cells,” Svedlund said, explaining the modular design of the machines and batteries allowed this. He said the company was even prepared for a future switch to solid-state batteries.

By shifting the battery element of these machines from a capex to opex item, providing the widest range of battery-electric mining equipment across the market and remaining open to changes in both the battery chemistry and system, the company is hoping to differentiate its machines from its competitors.

Artisan Vehicles reveals new battery electric LHD, the A10

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US-based Artisan Vehicles has announced its newest underground battery electric vehicle, the 10 t A10 LHD.

The company made the announcement at the Mining & Exploration International Conference and Expo in Las Vegas, US, last night.

This is the company’s third battery-electric underground vehicle for mining, adding to its A4 (4 t) battery-electric LHD and Z40 (40 t) haul truck. The Z40 is to be used at Kirkland Lake Gold’s Macassa underground gold mine in Ontario, Canada, while the A4 is being used at the mining company’s Taylor operation, also in Ontario.

Artisan sees the implementation of battery-electric vehicles as having a significant reduction in ventilation, heat and overall operating cost resulting in a positive impact of the mine’s bottom line.

“Powered by lithium batteries and an extremely power dense electric motor system, the A10 is the same size as its 7 t competitors and is the only battery-electric LHD of its size capable of carrying 10 t,” Artisan said.

The A10’s two electric motors generate 540 kW of power and 4,100 Nm of torque, while the pattented battery system uses lithium-iron-phosphate chemistry.

“Our power is not constrained by ventilation limitations and therefore we use the most powerful electric motors available, which directly improves productivity,” the company said.

The machine also benefits from a spring applied hydraulic release (SAHR) brake system with electric regeneration. This allows for the battery to recharge during the braking process by converting mechanical energy into electrical energy.

“In the right environment, a battery electric vehicle could potentially operate for an entire shift on a single charge,” Artisan said, explaining that this directly translates to added production and increased revenue for the mine.

The A10 also has a self-loading battery swapping system without the need for a hoist or crane, which, again, boosts productivity.

“Operators prefer the A10 for its powerful and productive mucking capability as well as its cool, quiet performance with zero poisonous diesel fumes,” Artisan said.

Kirkland Lake Gold signs up GR Engineering for Fosterville paste backfill plant

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GR Engineering has won a contract to build a paste backfill plant for Kirkland Lake Gold’s Fosterville mine in Victoria, Australia.

The EPC contract will see the company carry out all process engineering design, supply, construction and commissioning of a plant capable of producing 65 m³/h of paste to fill the stopes in the gold mine. The scope of the work also includes the design of the underground reticulation piping.

GR Engineering is booking A$23.9 million ($17.3 million) for the work, which will start immediately. Completion of the facility is expected in 2019.

This is the second EPC paste backfill contract the ASX-listed company has won in the past few weeks. Earlier this month, Saracen Gold Mines awarded GR Engineering a contract to build and commission a plant able to produce 110-120 m³/h of paste to fill stopes at its Karari underground mine, part of its Carosue Dam operations, in Western Australia.

Kirkland Lake’s Fosterville operation is a high-grade underground mine expected to produce 275,000-300,000 oz of gold this year. It extracts gold via open stoping with cemented rockfill used where applicable and practical.