Tag Archives: salt

Redpath Deilmann, Thyssen Schachtbau to backfill Gorleben mine as part of closure plans

BGE, Germany’s federal agency for waste disposal, has taken what it says is the first important step towards the closure of the Gorleben mine in Lower Saxony with the award of contracts to backfill the mine using the salt originally excavated as part of plans for a nuclear storage project.

A consortium consisting of Redpath Deilmann GmbH and Thyssen Schachtbau GmbH Germany have been awarded with the work, with the pair expected to commence operations once mining permits have been obtained – currently estimated for mid-2024. The backfilling work is expected to take three years.

Redpath Deilmann sunk two exploration shafts at Gorleben to investigate its potential as a final disposal for nuclear waste using the ground freezing technique. These two shafts, sunk from 1986-1999, were 7.5 m in diameter and went down to depths of 933 m (Shaft 1) and 843 m (Shaft 2).

In September 2020, the Gorleben salt dome was withdrawn from the list of potential sites for a nuclear repository due to geological reasons based on an interim report by BGE. Following this, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection commissioned BGE to close the mine.

The original shaft sinking saw salt transported to the surface, which has since been stored in the immediate vicinity of the mine. Around 400,000 t of rock salt is currently stored there on a salt heap, which is now to be used to backfill the mine.

Dr Thomas Lautsch, Technical Managing Director of BGE, said: “By signing the contract, we are taking the first big step towards closing the mine in Gorleben. The striking salt heap will now gradually disappear and the exploration mine will be filled step by step.”

The Gorleben mine will be closed in phases. After the mine has been backfilled, the two shafts will be backfilled via another construction contract (phase 2) yet to be tendered. In a final order, the site will be made usable again (phase 3).

Duratec banks Rio Tinto Western Australia work at Robe River and Dampier Salt

Australian engineering, construction, and remediation contractor, Duratec Limited, has recently been awarded A$30 million ($20.4 million) in mining and industrial (M&I) segment work with Rio Tinto across the major miner’s iron ore and salt operations.

Key project awards within this total consist of the structural integrity remediation and Bins 3-5 life expansion works at Robe River’s West Angelas mine (A$19 million), which will commence
immediately and is due for completion by the end of the June quarter of 2025, and Dampier Salt’s Lake Macleod jetty structural integrity works bays 10 to 11 (A$6.8 million), which will commence immediately and is due for completion by the end of the calendar year.

Structural integrity projects consist of blast, protective coating and the structural remediation (including welding and steel strengthening) of a client’s assets. This, Duratec says, strongly aligns with the company’s remediation expertise and proven track record in delivery of similar packages through the company’s M&I segment. The A$30 million in M&I segment work since mid-May 2023, including these two key project awards, demonstrates Duratec’s ability to strengthen its annuity style contract awards with key strategic clients, which remains a key focus and growth area of the company.

Duratec’s Managing Director, Phil Harcourt, said: “I am elated with the company’s efforts in converting tangible opportunities to our orderbook and with the ability of our company to present itself as the contractor of choice with our key clients. The M&I segment currently represents 25% of our overall orderbook, and the outlook for this segment remains very strong, which Duratec is well positioned to capitalise on – in line with the business strategy.”

Exyn’s drone-based mining autonomy ambitions taking flight

Having already achieved the highest documented level of aerial autonomy – level 4A – with its drone-based solutions, Exyn Technologies is striving for further industry firsts, Raffi Jabrayan, VP of Business Development and Commercial Sales, says.

One of its more recent breakthroughs came in Germany at the K+S’ Werra mine site, where a team demonstrated the use of the ExynAero™ and ExynPak™ at an underground salt mine.

Over the course of three days underground, Exyn’s field engineers successfully flew multiple autonomous missions in hard-to-reach areas while capturing rich, high-fidelity point clouds in a fraction of the time it would take traditional cavity monitoring systems, according to the company.

Jabrayan explained: “Several drone companies had previously attempted an autonomous mission to scan the immense cavities this specific site has, but the dust interference meant most of these missions ended within seconds.

“We were able to fly in some cavities completely beyond visual line of sight, mapping areas in a fraction of the time the teams would normally take for such manual inspections. In all, we were able to carry out a six-minute autonomous flight at the site.”

While the company did not carry out any specific modifications to its ExynAero platform to conduct such a flight, Jabrayan acknowledged that ongoing design and software improvements over the last year had enabled the company to accurately detect both dust and thin wires underground.

In addition to this, the company also displayed the capabilities of its handheld ExynPak solutions while on site in Germany.

The ExynPak, according to Exyn, can provide the world’s first real-time colourised point cloud visualisation on a handheld LIDAR scanner, capturing precise, colourised 3D models 20-30 times faster than a traditional stationery tripod or terrestrial scanner.

Powered by ExynAI™, the ExynPak ‘drapes’ real-time RGB information captured through two hemispherical fixed cameras onto point clouds created by a gimballed Velodyne LIDAR Puck LITE, providing operators a complete colourised 360° view of their environment, Exyn says.

At the Werra mine site, the Exyn team was able to capture a colourised cloud where the stratification of the rock could be clearly seen in the scan, enabling the K+S team to obtain data it would likely never be able to replicate in any other way, according to the company.

Jabrayan says such information could see operators plan their mining processes around the colourised captures, following mineralisation identified by the scans to ensure no economic ore had been missed after mucking out.

At the Werra mine site, Exyn’s field engineers successfully flew multiple autonomous missions in hard-to-reach areas while capturing rich, high-fidelity point clouds in a fraction of the time it would take traditional cavity monitoring systems

 

The ExynPak is likely to become a core part of Exyn’s next aerial autonomy offering for open-pit mining, powered by ExynAI, which enables safe flight in the most dangerous industrial environments.

“We have done some work in terms of moving our flights to the surface,” Jabrayan said. “It could cover various aspects – tailings monitoring, highwall scans…there are lots of requirements for it. We are actively working on integrating GPS into our ExynAI stack for outdoor autonomous flights, however, it’s not ready to be pushed to customers just yet.”

The company is currently working on surveys of ground-based resources, such as stockpiles, using a handheld ExynPak, plus carrying out aerial flights in manual mode.

Reaching the level of autonomy it has underground will most likely involve the help of its collaboration partner, EY, and a third company providing “software and visualisation input”, Jabrayan says, adding that he expects to see this autonomous solution come to light in 2023.

Earlier this year, Exyn, in partnership with Maestro Digital Mine, presented an aerial drone fitted with a Maestro gas monitoring Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) device.

This new gas monitoring drone, which integrates critical gas sensors onto the ExynAero and ExynPak platforms, is effectively the “quickest and safest mobile gas monitor on the planet”, Michael Gribbons, CEO and Co-founder for Maestro, said.

Powered by ExynAI’s multi-sensor fusion capabilities, gas sensor readings are captured while the robot is in flight and displayed in real time via a ruggedised tablet, Exyn explained. These sensor readings are saved with precise coordinates in a high-fidelity point cloud that can be exported and examined in a variety of mining software.

Jabrayan says a lot of mines have reached out to the companies since first presenting the solution at the SME MineXchange Annual Conference & Expo in Salt Lake City, earlier this year.

“They are interested in the benefits such a solution could provide in terms of safety and productivity,” he said. “By flying the gas sensing drone underground soon after a blast, it could take the necessary readings and issue a notice to another system that it is safe to re-enter the area.”

This could see more mines shift away from re-entry processes based on out-of-date manual gas readings, to a system that is much more accurate and shaves – potentially – hours off operational downtime.

Exyn is closing in on a long-term trial agreement with at least one miner in Australia looking to test out this gas-sensing drone solution, according to Jabrayan.

“The long-term plan is to develop a drone-in-a-box solution that can reside underground and be flown immediately after a blast to offer the quickest possible readings,” he said. “Remote autonomous mapping of this type could see Exyn provide data to shift operators as they are heading underground, allowing them to get a picture of the environment ahead of reaching the location.”

The incorporation of such data into mine site operational processes could see drone-based solutions become vital to the running of mines in the future, and Exyn, through its post-processing pipeline, ExSLAM, is looking to enable this.

ExSLAM extracts the raw cloud from robot logs and refines it for third-party software, using a factor graph optimisation algorithm to create low-drift point cloud maps.

Jabrayan says the company continually receives plaudits from customers about the ease of use of this solution, explaining that Exyn is one of the few companies that georeferences its maps inside an existing coordinate frame.

“From there, we are able to detect all the survey points, download them, georeference them and push the data to any end-user software,” he said.

Exyn, Jabrayan says, is software agnostic when it comes to this process, but he did admit the company was in advanced talks with some leading mining software companies that could see its mapping data integrated directly into their platforms.

“We are also working with certain companies to use robotic process automation to make it a one-button process to scan, go directly into the end-user software, and create a mesh that can be used,” he said.

“We remain focused on using our technology and R&D to provide the best solution to customers in order for them to be as productive as possible and, of course, work in a more efficient and safe manner.”

BCI Minerals signs up WHBO Infrastructure, Engenium for Mardie work

BCI Minerals Limited has confirmed around A$90 million ($68 million) of contract awards for its Mardie Salt & Potash project, in Western Australia, ahead of a final investment decision (FID).

The initial earthworks contract has been awarded to WBHO Infrastructure, a contractor with a long history of project delivery excellence in large civil construction projects and a strong presence in Western Australia.

The contract includes initial construction of the large-scale trial pond scheduled to commence in April, as well as construction of evaporation ponds 1 and 2, on terms aligned with definitive feasibility study (DFS) budget assumptions once the FID is achieved and required tenure and approvals are in place. The total earthworks volume in this scope is approximately 800,000 cu.m over an area of 24 sq.km.

Engenium, the successful tenderer for the Project Management Contractor role, is a Western Australian company with offices in Perth and Karratha. Engenium, which recently signed a letter of intent that could see it acquired by Stantec, was selected for its local and experienced team, proven track record in project delivery and construction management, excellent health and safety record and pricing within the DFS budget, BCI said.

“The PMC is an important contract in the overall execution of the Mardie project which will see Engenium manage the construction program through the provision of people and systems as an extension of the BCI owners’ team,” it said. “Engagement of Engenium on a staged basis will also support BCI to achieve construction-ready status ahead of main construction commencing in the second half of 2021.”

Various smaller contracts covering accommodation village expansion, minor earthworks, site surveys, communications, water supply, fuel storage and supply as well as the Karratha office fit-out have also been awarded this year. These works are all underway with Pilbara-based contractors expanding Mardie village and fitting-out the Karratha office and local indigenous companies carrying out aboriginal heritage surveys and minor earthworks.

BCI’s Managing Director, Alwyn Vorster, said: “The award of the initial earthworks contract, in particular, represents a key milestone in BCI’s progress toward main construction and demonstrates board confidence in Mardie’s development pathway. These contracts will be initially funded from BCI’s healthy cash balance and strong Iron Valley royalty income.”

The Mardie DFS outcomes indicated that the production of 4.4 Mt/y of high purity salt and 120,000 t/y of premium sulphate of potash (SOP) fertiliser was technically and financially viable. The total capital cost came in at A$779 million and the pre-tax net present value (7% discount) was A$1.197 billion.

A FID by the BCI Board is targeted in the June quarter, which will be followed by completion of the funding task. Construction could commence in mid-2021, which will allow for first salt sales in 2024 and first SOP sales in 2025, the company says.

K+S shifts digital analytics gears after trials provide InSiTE

A more than three-month trial of GHH’s inSiTE digital analytics solution on a 14-t-payload LF-14 LHD has convinced potash and salt miner, K+S, to complete a rollout of the platform across multiple mine sites.

GHH inSiTE, powered by talpasolutions, can distil complicated and seemingly random information into powerful tools for analysis, according to GHH, with the manufacturer promising the integration into daily operations leads to continuously improved productivity.

In one of the first applications of GHH inSiTE in an operation in the CIS region, the customer achieved decreased downtime, increased utilisation, a 7% reduction in fuel consumption, the identification of inefficiencies in cycle time, and a 12% boost in overall equipment efficiency, according to the company.

K+S was looking to put the promises of GHH to the test and initially agreed on a technical pilot.

This technical pilot and the promising opportunities regarding data analysis and visualisation must have been convincing because, in July, K+S signed up for a commercial deployment of GHH inSiTE. This will see GHH inSiTE used on 150 machines across its mine sites.

Andreas Walczyk, Program Manager, Digital Transformation, at K+S, told attendees of The 2nd International Conference on High-Performance Mining that the trial was a chance for the company to not only gather machine data, but also leverage it to make improvements to its maintenance, production and training processes.

“The main reason for this pilot was to figure out if we were on the right path regarding data logging, network, WLAN and more,” he said. “The answer is yes; the pilot was and is very successful because all of our expectations were met.”

The company came away with around 3,500 operating hours and 27 GB of data to play with and analyse.

It acquired this by connecting to the on-board CAN BUS and engine control systems on the LF-14, logging the machine data over that three-month period, creating a “data buffer” at each site, displaying said data on customisable dashboards, and connecting it all through a cloud-based WLAN system.

K+S has already started the rollout of GHH inSiTE across its operations, with Walczyk keen to see how the machine-to-machine connection can allow loaders to, for example, pick up data from scalers to further improve the operations’ data analytics.

Dr Jan Petzold, GHH Group CEO, says the GHH inSiTE system does not discriminate between mobile or fixed machinery, with operators and supervisors able to customise their dashboards to monitor the data and key performance indicators most important to them.

“Owning data is not good enough, you need to know what to do with the data,” he said. “There is now a tool available to help you improve your maintenance intervals, your mean times between failures, and you have the chance to store this data for review afterwards. We also enable our customers to integrate the data in existing workflows to take better actions based on actionable insights.”

Following the rollout of GHH inSiTE across the 150 machines at multiple operating sites, Walczyk says K+S will then look to integrate the solution into its SAP system.

Also included on the K+S roadmap is a plan to leverage GHH inSiTE for a move into the predictive maintenance arena at its sites, using the platform for spare parts and resource inventory management, performance benchmarking and innovations for targeted product development.

TOMRA delves below ground with K+S sensor-based sorter delivery

TOMRA Sorting Mining has delivered its first underground sensor-based ore sorting solution to K+S Minerals and Agriculture at its rock salt mine in Grasleben, Germany.

The major salt producer looked to TOMRA, which it has a long-standing research and development relationship with, to replace an existing sorting system at the mine.

At the Grasleben mine, rock salt is extracted from an underground deposit that stretches across two states. It is processed into a wide range of products, from de-icing salt for winter road services, to food-grade table salts and lick stones for livestock and domestic animals.

“For K+S, consistently achieving certified and guaranteed high purity, compliant with the strict standards of the food industry, is a priority,” TOMRA said.

Sven Raabe, Technische Büro Mechanik, K+S Minerals and Agriculture, said: “The sorting of rock salt is complex and demanding due to its crystalline properties. This leads to strong fluctuations in the appearance of the material.”

TOMRA recommended using colour sorting technology for this installation, with Mathilde Robben, Key Account Manager at TOMRA Mining, saying the customised setup of light sources allows the system to “detect the difference in transparency of the different particles, ensuring the high quality of the rock salt”.

The team also advised installing the sorter in the underground mine, so, after the initial underground sorting stage, only the coarsely crushed rock salt undergoes further grinding and sieving above ground.

Mathilde Robben, Key Account Manager at TOMRA Mining

“Only the valuable product needs to be transported in the shaft, and the final result is high-quality, pure rock salt products in various grain sizes, which are ideal for this application,” TOMRA said. “Furthermore, waste rejects can be backfilled underground, avoiding storage and emissions on the surface.”

TOMRA conducted a demonstration of the proposed solution at its Demonstration and Test Center in Wedel, Germany. Raabe attended the test with colleagues from K+S’s technical team, Florian Lieske, Stephan Meiberg and Sven Lindner.

“The tests were very well prepared,” Raabe said. “The on-site team quickly developed a feel for our product. The uncomplicated adaptation of the program to the different material qualities also convinced us.”

He added: “An important factor in our purchasing decision was the positive test result achieved with the system, using transmitted light to obtain more efficient separation. This has the added benefit of resource conservation. It is possible to react quickly and individually to changing situations during dismantling. We expect this to be more effective, and the ease of use of the system was also convincing.”

Following this experience and the results of the test, K+S placed the order for TOMRA’s solution, with installation planned for September 2020. The negotiations were conducted via video conference due to COVID-19-related travel restrictions and lockdowns.

The order was entered in TOMRA’s production plan and the Factory Acceptance Test was conducted on September 23, with the sorter transported to the Grasleben mine. It was put in position underground at the mine on September 30.

Robben concluded: “This is the first solution we provide for underground sorting, which raises specific challenges due to the dimensions and weight limitations of the mine shaft. In this project we also had to contend with the difficulties created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I am very pleased that we have been able to meet K+S’s requirements and deliver on schedule.”

GHH to create new service base in German potash and salt mining hub

GHH says it is to establish a new service base for its customers in the heart of the German potash and salt mining industry.

The Gelsenkirchen-based mining and tunneling equipment manufacturer took over the business activities of BAT Bohr- und Anlagentechnik GmbH in the village of Krayenberggemeinde on October 1. Through its subsidiary, GSE Europe GmbH, GHH took over the fixed assets of BAT, which will soon be renamed and continued at the site as BAT Bergbau Service GmbH. The company currently has 25 employees.

With this step, GHH wants to provide its German customers with comprehensive services quickly and reliably, it said. This mainly involves repair work, the construction of spare parts and parts logistics. GHH is also considering making the site the centre for its special-purpose machinery manufacturing operations.

“This will not only expand our range of services, but also continue a traditional location in this mining region, which is so important for Germany,” Dr Jan Petzold, CEO of the GHH Group, said.

Komatsu ups the cutting power on Joy 12HM46 continuous miner

Komatsu is getting ready to launch a new upgrade to its Joy 12HM46 continuous miner for industrial minerals that will boost its cutting power.

The addition of a new optional gearcase on the machine will see cutting power increase by 50%, according to the company, with a spokesperson confirming the newest addition to the continuous miner will be transported to a customer later this month for a trial period.

The 12HM46 continuous miner is ideal for industrial mineral mining applications, including trona, gypsum, potash, and salt, according to Komatsu. It has a 1,600 mm cutter head diameter, making it the largest and most powerful drum-style continuous miner in the company’s product line-up.

The 12HM46 comes with a Ripperveyor cutting head system, with a variety of cutter bit lacing configurations available to suit different applications.