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Sandvik setting the battery system safety standard in underground mining

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In the three-and-a-half years since Sandvik acquired Artisan Vehicle Systems, the mining industry’s appetite and demand for battery-electric vehicle (BEV) solutions has grown exponentially.

From conversations that were concentrated to mainly North America and involved the trial of BEVs, the sector has moved on to discuss commercial, fleet-sized applications to be deployed across the globe.

Sandvik, itself, highlighted this in July with the award of its biggest BEV contract to date – a 20-strong equipment order from Foran Mining in Canada.

With this increased industry focus on underground electrification with the help of battery-electric equipment, the discussions around battery system safety have also stepped up in terms of both the number and complexity of conversations.

These are conversations Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions’ Battery and Hybrid Electric Vehicles (BHEV) Business Unit is more than prepared to have, according to the unit’s VP Strategy and Commercial, Jakob Rutqvist.

“It’s on us as an early adopter to spread the learnings and help educate the industry in terms of battery safety and engaging with the stakeholders involved in the supply chain,” he told IM.

Sandvik, with the help of Artisan, has clocked up hundreds of thousands of operating hours in terms of BEVs in mining over the last decade or so.

This has been underwritten by the Artisan battery system architecture, which has been designed to move with both mining market demands and battery technology.

Brian Huff, Vice President of Technology for the BHEV business unit, expands on this: “We produce in-house battery systems, which gives us a lot of capability in terms of controlling the design. We can be much more reactive to the field in terms of making changes to the design, versus an OEM that is using batteries designed for automotive or industrial applications where those higher volumes tend to drive design decisions.

“We don’t have that diversion of focus; we do what is right for mining.”

Doing what is ‘right for mining’ has led to Sandvik investing in a state-of-the-art battery system facility in Camarillo, California, boasting 100 MWh of annual battery production capacity. This same facility acts as a training and customer visitor centre with a test ramp that has a 20% grade and a whole area for mucking on the property.

Sandvik’s state-of-the-art battery system facility in Camarillo, California, boasts 100 MWh of annual battery production capacity, as well as acting as a training and customer visitor centre with a test ramp that has a 20% grade and a whole area for mucking on the property

Huff said on the latter: “We will test every product that leaves the shop and do a lot of development work – our development cycle has, as a result, sped up.”

Beyond this, Sandvik’s mining sector commitment has seen the company invest in a battery system platform that – when it comes to safety – recognises the realities of operating machinery at underground mines.

Quality cells with the right chemistry

The inherent safety of Sandvik’s battery system starts at the cell level.

Artisan partnered with China-based CALB all the way back in 2015 as it looked to shore up a reliable and high-quality battery cell supply that could seamlessly fit into its battery system architecture.

Seven years on – half of that under the guise of Sandvik – Huff sees no reason to change.

“What matters from a battery system safety standpoint is consistency and high-quality cells,” he said. “That is achieved through high-volume manufacturing tied with automation and production controls that ensure the quality of production.

“CALB, which makes a lot of batteries for stationary and bus applications in China and globally, has all the compliance and testing completed on their cells and meet all the requirements from a safety standpoint.”

The battery cell manufacturer was also one of the early movers in the lithium iron phosphate (LFP)-based battery space, and Huff is keen to point out the safety benefits that come with using such battery chemistry.

“Our approach to battery safety, which is part of the standardised Sandvik approach for safety with ISO and other standardisation bodies, is to look, first, at reducing the severity of a potential incident or eliminating the hazard,” Huff said. “For us that means reducing the severity of a thermal runaway, which is primarily a chemistry choice.”

Thermal runaway is categorised as a chain reaction within a battery cell that occurs when the temperature inside a battery reaches the point that causes a chemical reaction to take place inside the battery. This chemical reaction produces heat, which drives the temperature higher, causing further chemical reactions to take place and further heat generation. Excessive heat generation at an accelerated rate can cause batteries to melt or be damaged beyond repair, or, in extreme circumstances, ignite and start fires.

With the potential to cause such an incident, thermal runaway preventions are often the first thing battery companies mention in safety briefings.

When plotting the main commercial battery chemistries against the heat-release-rate (HRR) on a graph, it is easy to see Huff’s point (see graph below). The rate of temperature rise (left) indicates the severity of a thermal event, with the higher the HRR, the harder it is to contain an incident, Sandvik says.

Taking all this into account, the LFP rate of temperature rise is over 100 times lower than other batteries with chemistries such as nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC), lithium-cobalt oxide (LCO) and lithium-nickel-cobalt-aluminium (NCA), making containment more achievable, according to the company.

In thermal runaway tests, LFP-based cells have emitted a flammable gaseous electrolyte but do not self-ignite during standardised safety tests, Sandvik clarified.

Tests on batteries looking at the release of harmful emissions have also highlighted the safety benefits of using LFP-based batteries. A US CDC nail penetration test showed minimal emissions of the likes of carbon monoxide, nitrous oxides and hydrogen fluoride, compared with much higher levels emitted from NMC- and lithium-ion-manganese-oxide (LMO)-based batteries.

Passive and intrinsic safety

The battery chemistry choice fits into the ‘severity reduction’ basket in terms of safety controls, but it is not where Sandvik’s battery system safety approach ends.

“We then move to reducing the likelihood of the hazard occurring through design controls,” Huff said. “This is where the engineering comes in, with the best design controls often deemed to be passive and intrinsic – where you don’t have to do anything in the case an event arises.”

Sandvik has more than a handful of such controls in its locker, starting at the cell.

The cells in Sandvik’s battery systems are equipped with high-reliability vents that prevent pressure build-up in case of thermal runaway. This eliminates the risk of a case rupture/burst, according to the company. They also come equipped with a laser-welded aluminium housing that offers thermal conduction and mechanical safety with mylar and polycarbonate insulation.

A shutdown separator coating, meanwhile, is designed to melt if the temperature inside the cell reaches 110-130°C, blocking the ion flow, interrupting the current and preventing further temperature increases. An additional porous ceramic separator coating melts at 160-175°C, bonding with a polypropylene electrode separator to help block dendrites and provide structural support to prevent shrinkage and maintain the separation of electrodes.

Huff expands on this: “Dendrite growth is an effect of overcurrent, overcharging, charging at cold temperatures and a side effect of ageing. Excessive growth can result in an electrical short as well, which can then lead to thermal runaway.”

In Sandvik’s battery system design, a battery cell (far left) is placed into a battery module (second from left), which is then incorporated into a battery pack (second from right). This pack is then enclosed in a cage (far right)

These cells are placed into a battery module, which operates at low voltage for safe servicing, comes with isolating foam potting to block moisture and prevent isolation faults, offers thermal conduction to draw heat away from a hot cell and distribute it across the entire module to moderate temperature rises, and offers environmental and mechanical damage protection, according to Sandvik.

These modules are then incorporated into a battery pack, which comes with mechanical protections such as a 6-mm plate steel enclosure; a non-conductive coolant to manage temperature during charging; and gore vents and drains to prevent pressure build-up, allowing vented gases to expel air in the enclosure and fluids to drain rather than collect, all while limiting ingress of dust and contaminants.

The redundant configuration of the battery pack contactors allows the circuit to be broken in the case of over/under voltage, isolation fault, over temperature or overcurrent, the company says. This may also be triggered by a high-voltage interlock loop (HVIL) system. Lastly, the inclusion of 600 A fuses provides protection against overcurrent and damage from external shorts.

Finally, this battery pack is enclosed in a cage that offers, Sandvik says, robust mechanical protection, mobility and swap-ability, plus quick access to the pack modules without cage disassembly.

Beyond design controls

“We start with the assumption that, however good, design controls should never be believed to be 100% effective,” Huff said. “You cannot just approach the issue by never considering the likelihood of thermal runaway, for instance. It is unrealistic, especially in a mining environment where accidents happen, damage occurs and mistakes in servicing can arise.”

This leads the company on to the active controls it includes in its battery systems.

“All this starts with monitoring,” Huff said. “It could be looking at temperatures – the case temperature, terminal temperature, as well as the temperature of the conductors – and voltage.”

The Battery System Controller (BSC) is responsible for protecting the battery – calculating the limits and thresholds, monitoring the HVIL, isolation, temperature and currents and connecting the battery and communicating the status – but it is not the system that implements the controls and limitations.

“The battery system controller communicates what the limits are – only 400 A in discharge due to heat, for example – but the master controller unit (MCU) is the one responsible for accomplishing those limits,” Huff explained. “If the MCU fails to do that – drawing too much current, for instance – then the battery system controller opens its connectors and disconnects power as a last resort.”

The battery monitoring system (BMS) monitors the cell voltage and temperature (case temperature, terminal temperature and conductor temperature, for instance), manages the cell balancing and communicates data to the BSC.

This monitoring will be further enhanced with the incorporation of Akkurate (a battery analytics company acquired by Sandvik earlier in the year) and its remote battery diagnostic and prognostic platforms into the BHEV business unit, with Rutqvist saying that “embedded” monitoring software on the battery and “remote health monitoring” applications are the first development priorities, post-integration.

Jakob Rutqvist says “embedded” monitoring software on the battery and “remote health monitoring” applications are the first development priorities for Akkurate, post-integration into Sandvik

Such monitoring can go a long way in ensuring safety from within the system, but you cannot always limit external threats, Huff said.

“In terms of electrical failure modes, you can prevent overcharging and over-discharging through monitoring-based functions, but you can’t prevent deformation, mechanical damage or penetration from foreign objects,” he said.

This is where the ‘suppression’ element comes into play.

Sandvik uses a potassium-based, electrically non-conductive chemical emulsion for its fire suppression system. It acts by filling the battery pack interior with an aerosol agent that chemically interrupts combustion and stops a potential fire in its tracks.

“We’ve had a couple of incidents in the past, which were minor, and these suppression systems came in and did the job we prescribed for them,” Huff said. “They are not designed to put out a widespread battery fire, where, instead, the chemistry selection and the other passive controls we have designed in are the safety barriers.”

No expense spared

This three-step safety approach is indicative of the company’s focus on risk reduction for its customers, with Huff saying the company often looks beyond industry standards and regulations when designing features in.

“The volume and value proposition of our products change the battery system design requirements,” he said. “We’re not trying to save a dollar here by reducing the thickness of, say, the enclosure, or amending some design feature for cost effectiveness.

“Safety and reliability are way more important than the cost of manufacturing the system.”

There are plenty of examples of this safety-design-over-cost philosophy on board its battery systems.

For instance, the company has minimised the use of cables, designing as much as possible with busbars to avoid potential electrical shorting. All these busbars are powder coated and protected from an electrical perspective, meaning any “casual” contact from operators or service technicians will not result in the live conductors being engaged.

When it comes to isolation monitoring, the company has also designed in safety precautions.

“Isolation monitoring was originally mandated for battery systems to notify technicians about the potential for an electrical shock if there was an isolation fault,” Huff said.

“Beyond that, it can be used as an early warning for a higher current short circuit where an isolation fault occurs that is lower than a certain resistance.”

Huff and his team have carried out some research and chosen 5,000 ohms as the relevant threshold for this particular risk.

“If you have a 5,000-ohm isolation fault in a location and have a direct connection from another point to the chassis, you can create a short circuit with enough power to melt some of the protective materials in the battery system and potentially accelerate this to a much higher current short circuit,” he said.

This second isolation monitoring consideration requires a differentiated response.

“Shock hazards are a warning situation – you need to notify people there is a hazard and behave differently,” he said.

“You need to handle a short circuit risk – a low impedance isolation fault – differently. For us, it means shutting the machine down and isolating the fault through removing the modules or locating the fault and transferring the modules.”

With Artisan’s battery systems designed to be broken down into individual batteries and transported individually as needed, the company can do exactly this.

“There have been a few battery fires reported in mines over the last five or so years, involving different types of equipment,” Huff said. “The two I know about had nothing to do with a BMS response and everything to do with isolation faults. How you handle a battery with this issue is, therefore, a key consideration.”

Backward-compatible benefits

Huff, a co-founder of Artisan, can contextualise the mining proposition better than most considering his experience in both electrifying the automotive sector and heavy-duty commercial vehicles – two sectors Artisan served prior to shifting focus to underground mining.

“A key difference is the level of serviceability required,” he said. “Mining is a very different world; you are separated so much from a nice clean shop with all the facilities and space to do work. With cars, there is such easy infrastructure in place; mining is not like that.

“At mine sites, there is huge pressure to do the work in-situ with the tools you have in your backpack and, if you don’t have the specific tool, you are typically going to make the tool or do without it. You have to have a product designed for that environment, and that is exactly what we have done.”

Rutqvist said the standardisation and commodification of Sandvik’s battery systems comes at the cell level, which leaves the company open to adapt and customise according to mining industry demands.

“If you take the market at a battery system level, mining customers don’t count in thousands, they count in hundreds,” he said. “Our average customer is big, and they expect to be very close to us when it comes to the product and the product development; our largest customers are very big and expect to have a say in the development and the requirements on the battery system.

“We’re happy to be middlemen for the battery cell, but we don’t want to be middlemen for the battery system design.”

Over the past decade or so – and going forward – this has enabled the company to take advantage of battery technology developments as they happen.

Sandvik says it is able to incorporate new technology and advances into its battery system platform

Haley-Anna Blinn – currently a BEV Applications Specialist at the Sandvik BHEV business unit and previously an Electrical Engineer at the Macassa gold mine in Ontario, Canada, which has one of the biggest battery-electric fleets in the world – has been on the receiving end of this.

“So much is changing in the battery space all the time,” she said. “I have only been involved for five years, and I have seen a lot of change.

“We recognise that, so it is important we design our systems to accommodate future design changes or even battery chemistry improvements when it comes to energy density.

“With the older vintage of equipment, there was a change of cell supplier at one point that resulted in cells with a different form factor.

“While this changed the number of cells in a module based on their characteristics, it was a change that was carried out seamlessly when the cells were due to be refreshed. The module had a similar form factor, so was backward-compatible from a battery system design perspective.”

The new cells also ended up improving performance by about 20% or so, according to Blinn.

With the average battery cell life being 3-5 years, battery performance continuing to improve exponentially over a similar timeframe and the internal funding capabilities of the Sandvik Group, Sandvik BEV customers could be in line for similar step-change improvements in the future.

There are more subtle changes the company can make to its battery systems tailored to the operation at hand, too.

Leveraging sophisticated modelling software and a databank that goes back to the start of Artisan’s BEV journey, technicians can tweak the system at the factory to the conditions they will likely experience underground.

This goes beyond implementing a simple speed restriction to protect the battery system and the operators.

“Some mines might be more conducive to a slower charge than others based on the duty cycle, so we can configure these parameters at the factory,” Blinn explained. “Other mines may impose a temperature limit based on the operating conditions underground that goes beyond the standard limits we program. We can make those changes to ensure the system engages differently during operation.”

Having solved the obvious teething problems that came with introducing BEVs at underground mines over the last decade-or-so, Sandvik is moving into a consolidation phase where refinements to its system design will take place as opposed to major overhauls.

At a time when mining companies require improved performance and uptime from these machines to achieve their own electrification and productivity goals, the company’s mining-focused, safety-conscious battery system design philosophy continues to set it apart.

Redpath to carry out raisebore, boxhole services at Kirkland Lake Gold’s Fosterville mine

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Redpath Australia says it has commenced a new raisebore contract with Kirkland Lake Gold at the Fosterville gold mine in Bendigo, Victoria.

Under the new contract, Redpath will provide raisebore and boxhole services at the mine through to late 2023.

The contract extends Redpath’s continuous presence at Fosterville to over 10 years.

Fosterville is a high-grade, low-cost underground gold mine, which commenced operation in 2005 and, during its initial years, produced gold from near-surface, low-grade mineralisation. It is now an underground mine with decline access that, last year, produced 509,601 oz of gold.

Redpath’s raiseboring division also has a relationship with the Kirkland Lake team at Macassa. The team completed a 1,010-m-long hole at the mine in Ontario, Canada, in 2021, making it the longest raisebore hole ever accomplished in the Northern Hemisphere and all the Americas when it was carried out.

Kirkland Lake Gold boosts Macassa battery-powered fleet with Artisan Z50s

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With production at the Macassa gold mine in Ontario, Canada, set to ramp up over the next three years, Kirkland Lake Gold is, once again, bulking up its fleet of battery-electric equipment.

In its just released December quarter results, the company confirmed it recently purchased five 50-t battery-powered underground haul trucks for the operation, with the first already delivered in the current quarter.

The loaders in question are Artisan Z50s, which have a 50-t payload and are equipped with AutoSwap, a patented self-swapping system for the Artisan battery pack.

Macassa is a first adopter of battery-electric equipment, testing out early protoype versions of machines and now having a large fleet of trucks and LHDs from the likes of Artisan and Epiroc.

Kirkland Lake has big plans for Macassa, with the #4 Shaft project underpinning much of the planned growth.

In the quarterly results, the company said the shaft advanced 875 ft (277 m) in the three months ending December 31, having now reached a depth of 4,240 ft. Kirkland Lake said the project, which will see the shaft sunk to a depth of 6,400 ft in one phase, was around one month ahead of schedule at the end of 2020. Project completion was targeted for late 2022.

Macassa produced 183,037 oz of gold in 2020, down from 241,297 oz in 2019, following COVID-19-related changes. The company expects the mine to ramp up over the next three years, reaching 400,000-420,000 oz in 2023 following completion of the #4 Shaft.

Artisan battery-powered Z50 truck on its way to Kirkland Lake’s Macassa gold mine

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Kirkland Lake Gold says it is expecting to receive a 50 t battery-powered Z50 underground haul truck at its Macassa gold mine, in Ontario, Canada, this quarter, following a purchase agreement signed last year.

The gold miner’s Macassa operation has been a leading adopter of new electric equipment and already has four 40 t battery-powered machines at the underground mine. These are matched by many battery-powered LHDs made by likes of Artisan Vehicle Systems and Epiroc.

The latest 50 t vehicle will come from Artisan, a Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions business unit.

The Z50 haul truck is a ground-up design that seamlessly integrates the most capable and proven battery-electric powertrain available in the mining industry with the latest and most coveted features of any haul truck on the market today, according to Sandvik. The 50 t machine is based off the existing design for the Z40 truck, which Artisan released back in 2018, but features a stretched rear frame (close to 19 in).

It is equipped with AutoSwap, a patented self-swapping system for the Artisan battery pack. This makes battery swapping faster and easier with a minimum amount of manual handling: changing the battery only takes about six minutes, and it can be done in a passing bay or old re-muck bay with no overhead cranes or external infrastructure needed, Sandvik says.

The news of the pending arrival of this electric vehicle came at the same time as Kirkland Lake released its 2020 production results. The company produced 369,434 oz of gold in the December quarter to make a total of 1.37 Moz of gold in 2020, 41% higher than the total in 2019, which was in line with its full-year 2020 guidance of 1.35-1.4 Moz.

Kirkland Lake Gold to trial battery-powered Sandvik LH518B at Fosterville

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Kirkland Lake Gold, one of the leaders in battery-electric vehicle adoption in mining, is to trial a Sandvik LH518B LHD next year at its Fosterville underground mine, in Victoria, Australia, Rob McLean, the operation’s Chief Mining Engineer, has confirmed.

Speaking during a session titled: ‘What are Fosterville’s Current and Future Technology and Innovation Requirements, and Why?’ at the IMARC Online event, McLean said the trial is part of the company’s vision to “have a fully electric mine”, with the immediate goals being to remove diesel emissions and reduce heat at the operation.

Longer-term, electrifying the company’s fleet could result in the need for less ventilation, lower power costs and the elimination of infrastructure upgrades at the high-grade gold operation, he said.

Sandvik launched the 18 t battery-electric LH518B during its Innovation in Mining event in late September.

The loader, a Sandvik and Artisan Vehicle Systems joint development effort, has been designed from the ground up, entirely around the loader’s Artisan™ battery system and electric driveline to best leverage the possibilities the battery technology brings, Sandvik says. It can fit in a 4.5 x 4.5 m tunnel and is equipped with three 2,000 Nm permanent magnet motors and 450 kN of tractive effort. It can operate at speeds of up to 30 km/h and has 560 kW of continuous power output (peak power output of 660 kW).

McLean said the trial of the LH518B would inform the mine’s future electrification direction, but he said the company was also considering the use of battery-electric or trolley assist trucks at the operation, in addition to battery-electric charging/spraying rigs.

Kirkland Lake says its Macassa mine, in Ontario, Canada, is a “world leader in the use of battery-powered equipment” with more than 80% of its fleet made up of battery-powered vehicles from the likes of Artisan, Epiroc and RDH Scharf.

Sandvik and Northern College to help train BEV service technicians of the future

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Sandvik and Ontario’s Northern College have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to, they say, work collaboratively to enhance existing battery technician training modules, and develop a new program to educate service technicians and support the growing requirement for specialised battery-electric vehicle (BEV) technicians in the mining industry.

The Northern College Battery Electric Vehicle Technician training program for service technicians should prepare them for employment in this field.

BEVs are increasing in popularity in the Canadian mining industry due to the improvements they offer in operating environments, maintenance costs, efficiency and productivity, yet specialised BEV technicians are required to support the growing fleet of BEVs in Canada.

“It’s important to be aware of the fact that the technology powering battery-electric vehicles is considerably different than that of diesel machines,” Dr Audrey J Penner, President and CEO of Northern College, said of the new technology.

“Servicing and maintaining these fleets requires a different skillset than what is required for a diesel-powered fleet because BEVs have fewer mechanical components and more electrical components. For that reason, the Canadian mining industry requires a new generation of service technicians who are trained in servicing electrically-powered machinery and Northern College is responding to that call for talent and training.”

Northern College and the Haileybury School of Mines will develop a program with Sandvik and their partners to educate participants in BEV technology. Sandvik will serve as a subject matter expert on the topic of BEVs in a mining application to ensure program graduates are educated in areas relevant for the mining industry.

Peter Corcoran, Vice President Canada, Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology, said: “This program is really a win-win for a cleaner industry while also supporting resource development in the communities close to the mines using BEV technology.

“We are investing in educating this next generation of service specialists because we forecast an increase in demand for technicians in the BEV field as more operations transition to zero-emissions equipment. We also want to invest in the local talent pool as the benefits of hiring locally and developing sustainable capacity in the community cannot be understated. This partnership addresses both of those areas.”

One industry proponent of BEVs in mining is Kirkland Lake Gold, which has deployed many battery-powered units at its Macassa gold mine in Ontario.

“Using BEVs at our Macassa Mine benefits us in a number of ways, including significantly lowering greenhouse gas emissions, improving working conditions and reducing capital requirements for ventilation,” Evan Pelletier, Kirkland Lake Gold’s Vice President of Mining, said.

Pelletier explains that Kirkland Lake Gold was among the first to bring electrification to the mining industry and the company has seen significant improvements in BEV technology in a relatively short timeframe.

Based on Kirkland Lake’s experience, Pelletier believes the participation of both original equipment manufacturer and mining companies in the development of a technician training program will be an important contributor to the program’s success.

“Working with colleges will help Kirkland Lake Gold further develop our technicians in this field,” Pelletier explains. “The program will not only develop new technicians, it will help to establish BEV standards in the industry that will lead the way for future advancements.”

Detour Lake acquisition to make Kirkland Lake Gold plus-1.5 Moz/y producer

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Kirkland Lake Gold and Detour Gold Corp have entered into a definitive agreement will see the ASX- and TSX-listed miner become a plus-1.5 Moz/y gold producer through the all-share acquisition of Detour and its Detour Lake gold mine, in Ontario, Canada.

Under the terms of the transaction, which values Detour at C$4.9 billion ($3.3 billion), all the issued and outstanding common shares of Detour Gold will be exchanged at a ratio of 0.4343 of a Kirkland Lake Gold common share for each Detour Gold common share. Upon completion of the transaction, existing Kirkland Lake Gold and Detour Gold shareholders will own around 73% and 27% of the pro forma company, respectively.

Kirkland Lake says Detour Lake is a uniquely large-scale, long-life Canadian mine, with current production of around 600,000 oz/y and substantial growth potential.

The deal also solidifies Kirkland Lake’s position as a senior gold producer with pro-forma 2019 output targeted at more than 1.5 Moz and analyst consensus 2019 free cash flow of almost $700 million, Kirkland said.

The deal also increases Kirkland Lake’s mineral reserve base, adding 15.41 Moz to Kirkland Lake Gold’s mineral reserve base and extending its reserve life index by eight years.

The financial strength and technical expertise of the combined company is expected to support the continued optimisation and potential expansion of Detour Lake, Kirkland Lake said, explaining that opportunities exist to significantly increase production at improved unit costs and to expand current mineral reserves and mineral resources.

It also provides exploration upside, with Detour Gold’s land position covering 1,040 km2 along the northernmost sections of the prolific Abitibi Greenstone Belt (including 646 km² on existing Detour Lake property).

Tony Makuch, President and Chief Executive Officer of Kirkland Lake Gold, said: “The acquisition of Detour Gold is an excellent fit for Kirkland Lake Gold. We have already taken two mining operations, Macassa and Fosterville, and transformed them into high-quality assets that generate industry-leading earnings and free cash flow. The addition of Detour Lake provides an opportunity to add a third cornerstone asset that is located in our back yard in northern Ontario.

“Detour Lake will provide the pro forma company with a 20-plus year mine life which provides unparalleled optionality and excellent growth potential for the benefit of all shareholders. The management team at Detour Gold has done an exceptional job in making improvements and building momentum at the mine.

“Once the transaction is completed, we will continue efforts to optimise current operations and commence engineering work to evaluate expansion opportunities at Detour Lake, which we anticipate could lead to significant production growth, improved unit costs and higher levels of mineral reserves and mineral resources.”

Andrew Schinkel on Kirkland Lake Gold’s battery-electric journey at Macassa

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Kirkland Lake Gold is now carrying out more than 80% of its ore production from the Macassa gold mine in Ontario, Canada, with battery-electric machines, Andrew Schinkel, Senior Electrical Engineer, Macassa Mine Complex, told attendees at The Electric Mine conference in Toronto on Thursday.

The company placed its first battery-electric machine order in 2011, but now has 24 battery-powered LHDs and nine haul trucks (including four 40 t Artisan Vehicles Z40 machines, and Epiroc and RDH Scharf LHDs, among other machines), Schinkel said in a presentation titled, Powering up Macassa: operating a major battery-electric fleet at a deep underground mine.

The company’s learnings over the past eight years have been vast, but the main points Schinkel highlighted were trucks had slightly more availability than loaders, batteries can run down power quickly, the capital cost can be slightly higher than the diesel equivalent – but “it’s not about minimising costs, it’s about maximising value”, he said – and there is not as much equipment to choose from when compared with diesel machines.

Still, the company has made significant progress with these machines, he said. This includes increased reliability of machines, an increasing amount of purchasing options and improvements in the battery change-out process.

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.

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.