Tag Archives: Mogalakwena

Anglo American on the potential of bulk sorting technology

Base metals, Bulk handling, Comminution of minerals, Environmental, Metallurgy, Mine operation news, Mineral processing, Mining equipment, Precious metals, Steel and iron ore, Water management, , , , , , , ,

Anglo American has talked up the use of bulk sorting in its operations as one of several projects it is spending $100-$500 million/y on as part of its technology and innovation investments.

The company, which reported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of $9.2 billion for 2018 (up 4%), said bulk sorters could potentially be applied to all of its copper assets, in addition to mines in its Platinum Group Metals and Iron ore divisions.

An Anglo spokesman told IM late last year that the technology was going into the El Soldado copper mine in Chile and the company had plans to introduce it at the Barro Alto nickel operation in Brazil and the Mogalakwena platinum group metals mine in South Africa (pictured) as “next steps”.

The bulk sorters in question use sensors to determine ore content prior to processing, with gangue removed using the natural heterogeneity of orebodies.

In the company’s 2018 results presentation, Anglo said this technology provides immediate grade assays, unlocks production capacity by rejecting waste early in the process, allows for lower cutoff grades – as a result extending mine lives – and reduces both mining costs and complexity.

In a copper-related context, Anglo said the use of bulk sorters could reduce water and energy intensity by more than 10%.

In British Columbia, Canada, Teck Resources is currently using sensors mounted on shovels – MineSense’s ShovelSense product – to carry out effective bulk sorting at the Highland Valley Copper operations.

Amplats goes down innovation path for further operational gains

Comminution of minerals, IoT, Mine operation news, Mineral processing, Mining equipment, Mining software, Precious metals, Sustainable mining, Water management, , , , , , ,

In Anglo American Platinum’s 2018 results, the company revealed how its latest technology and innovation efforts were coming along.

Amplats, in 2018, recorded earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of ZAR14.5 billion ($1.03 billion), compared with ZAR11.99 billion a year earlier, as total platinum group metal production rose 4% to 5.19 Moz.

In the company’s strategic overview of the business – under a section titled: “Extracting the full potential from our operations through our people and innovation” – the company talked up several processes it was pursuing to “drive improvement in operational performance from current levels”. This was through “greater stabilisation and process optimisation, towards best in class in the industry, known as P100”.

Amplats said: “The next step is to operate our assets and equipment at levels beyond what is currently thought to be possible in the industry, known as P101.”

Examples of areas of P101 improvement include increasing the rope shovel performance at its massive Mogalakwena PGM mine (pictured) in South Africa, from 26 Mt/y to over 45 Mt/y, increasing throughput at the concentrators by over 10%, boosting operating time of concentrators to over 94%, increasing recoveries of concentrators to over 83% and increasing the operating factor at processing facilities (defined as availability multiplied by utilisation).

“Beyond P101, a number of step-change technologies are being developed and deployed, including coarse particle flotation, which can reduce energy intensity by over 30%; advanced fragmentation and shock-break technology at concentrators, which has the potential to also reduce energy intensity by 30%; and fine recovery of chrome and PGMs, in conjunction with bulk sorting, which can lead to a 10% increase in feed grade and recoveries,” Amplats said.

Shock-break technology at concentrators has the potential to eliminate the use of SAG mills, according to Amplats. The company is piloting this technology after successful tests of Mogalakwena pebbles indicated a more than 50% saving in power consumption.

Pilot plant trials, “leveraging Element 6 wear resistant tools”, started in April 2018, according to Amplats.

To “unlock” this additional value through P101 and a number of FutureSmart Mining™ technologies and digitalisation, additional investment in a number of fast payback, value enhancing projects is required, Amplats said. “This is expected to deliver EBITDA margin uplift of 5-8% on a mine-to-market basis, within a three- five-year-time horizon, before the benefit of any expansion projects using 2018 prices and exchange rates”.

Capital guidance, including for these fast-payback and P101 investment projects will be in the region of ZAR1.5–1.8 billion in 2019, and around ZAR2 billion for each of 2020 and 2021.