Tag Archives: Sandvik Mining & Rock Solutions

Byrnecut progressing to ore production targets at B2Gold’s Wolfshag Underground mine

Mine operation news, Mineral project development, Mining services, Precious metals, , , , , , , , , , , ,

The on-boarding of Byrnecut Offshore at B2Gold’s Otjikoto Mine has resulted in development rates in the Wolfshag Underground mine recovering, the Canada-based company said in its recently-released June quarter results.

Otjikoto produced 31,417 oz of gold in this quarter of 2022, 2,027 oz below budget, with the lower-than-budgeted gold production due to a slower than planned ramp-up in development of Wolfshag.

The company recently appointed Byrnecut as its new underground mining contractor as part of a $112 million contract. The agreement consists of both development and production, including a total of 10 km of development and a total material movement of 3.2 Mt.

The underground fleet at Wolfshag is mainly from Sandvik Mining & Rock Solutions and currently consists of one DD422i DC jumbo, one DD422i jumbo, two LH517i loaders, three TH551 trucks and a DL432i production drill rig.

B2Gold said development rates in the Wolfshag Underground mine recovered in the recent three-month period, with development ore now expected in the September quarter and stope ore production commencing in the December quarter.

“As a result of this change in ore production timing, the 2022 annual production guidance range for Otjikoto has been revised to between 165,000 and 175,000 oz of gold (original guidance range was between 175,000 and 185,000 oz of gold),” the company said.

As expected, compared with the June quarter of 2021, gold production was 17% higher due to significant waste stripping operations at both the Wolfshag and Otjikoto pits in the first half of 2021.

The initial underground mineral reserve estimate for the down-plunge extension of the Wolfshag deposit includes 210,000 oz of gold in 1.2 Mt of ore at 5.57 g/t Au.

Sandvik’s 65-t payload battery-electric TH665B heading to Electra Mining Africa

Automation, Comminution of minerals, IoT, Mining equipment, Mining events, Power supply for mines, Sustainable mining, , , , , , , , ,

Sandvik Mining & Rock Solutions is to have a major presence at this year’s Electra Mining Africa exhibition, with its 385 sq.m indoor stand introducing the African mining market to the OEM’s 65-t payload battery-electric vehicle.

In addition to the appearance of the TH665B, virtual reality (VR) and simulator technology will be employed at the stand to give visitors a highly interactive experience, Sandvik says. Live demonstration of Sandvik’s Eclipse fire suppression system, which can be fitted to the company’s drill rigs, trucks and loaders, will also take place.

Natalie Santiero, Marketing Manager for southern Africa at Sandvik Mining & Rock Solutions, says: “The theme of our stand this year will be the ‘Future of Mining’ and will highlight the many ways in which Sandvik can assist customers to move into the world of the fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). We will also demonstrate how our products can contribute to a sustainable, net-zero future. The mining industry is moving very rapidly along this path and we’re very much a part of the evolution.”

The BEV to be introduced, which will be the biggest piece of equipment on the stand, will be the 65-t payload TH665B. As the largest capacity battery-electric underground truck, this is the flagship of Sandvik’s fast-expanding fleet of BEVs. The machine is at an advanced stage of development with factory testing completed and full-scale trials on a gold mine in Australia (AngloGold Ashanti Australia’s Sunrise Dam mine).

“The truck we’ll be displaying and launching at Electra Mining Africa is, in fact, the machine that will be trialled in Australia,” Santiero says. “Its appearance at the show will represent its African debut. We see the TH665B as being a critical development, given the determination of many mines to move towards emission-free equipment. It is perfectly paired with our 18-t capacity battery-electric LH581B underground loader, which was officially launched last year. A South African gold mine (Gold Fields’ South Deep) has already ordered the LH518B, with delivery expected shortly.”

Sandvik Rock Processing will be showcasing the 800i series of connected cone crushers through a live demonstration of remotely connected units via the digital service SAM. The 800i series comes with Sandvik’s new generation Automation and Connectivity System, which continuously monitors and optimises crusher performance and controls the complete lubrication system, increasing uptime and reliability, the company says.

The My Sandvik portal customer portal, which will also feature on the stand, provides customers with access to information about their fleet, access bulletins and electronic manuals and allows them to request quotations and place orders anytime they need directly online, according to Santiero.

Training, of course, is a major challenge for many mines and Sandvik will have its Digital Driller™, a compact and flexible solution to safely train operators on the company’s drills, at the show. It allows operators to learn their trade with a realistic simulator which optimises the transition to the real machine, according to the company.

Also in the digital space, Sandvik’s AutoMine® VR training simulator will be demonstrated. “This delivers a realistic AutoMine experience for training,” Santiero says. “Visitors to the stand will be able to put on goggles and manipulate hand-held controls to experience and interact with a 3D virtual reality environment to master the complete process of the AutoMine system start-up procedure without the need for machine or production area allocations.”

Apps are an ever-present aspect of modern life and Sandvik’s Rotary Blasthole Drill Selector app will feature at the event. It provides users with a list of recommended drill rigs based upon basic site conditions and production requirement information.

“Newtrax, which has been part of the Sandvik family since 2019, will also have a presence on our stand,” Santiero says. “They will be showcasing the Collision Avoidance System and Operations Management under the OptiMine® banner.”

Santiero concluded: “There’s no question that the 4IR is with us, not just in mining but many other industries. Sandvik is at the forefront of this revolution and its ability to innovate will be demonstrated very strongly at the show. We’ve spent months planning our stand and we believe that it will prove very popular with visitors to the show.”

Electra Mining Africa is due to take place on September 5-9 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Sandvik looks to an open, interoperable and automation-ready future

Automation, Communications in mining, Equipment maintenance, Explosives and blasting, Mining equipment, Mining services, Mining software, , , , , , ,

To fully step into Industry 4.0 and realise the transformative power of solutions such as automation, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics requires a change in the way that mining data is handled and utilised from one system to the next, according to the Sandvik Rotary Drilling Division (part of Sandvik Mining & Rock Solutions).

Programs that are designed to fully integrate with those from other vendors will not only deliver efficiency and cost benefits today, but also help mining houses transition into powerhouses of the future, it says.

As mining organisations have adopted digital solutions over the past 30 years, each company, down to the individual mine, has selected solutions that fit their mining style, commodity, workforce and processes. Due to the shift of professionals from one organisation to another, the different processes used for each commodity, and the introduction of new technologies, commonalities between digital products differ from operation to operation.

While some OEMs see this variability as an opportunity to close off third-party access to data and push their own digital agenda, Sandvik Rotary Drilling Division sees the sharing of data, connectivity and technology access as the next logical step to moving the industry, as a whole, forward.

Demetre Harris, Product Manager for Automation & Technology, said: “While there is much talk about systems interoperability and the benefits it could deliver in mining, it’s still in the early stages. Most vendors are still reluctant to allow others direct access to their technologies and generated data.”

Many vendors claim to offer application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow their solutions to share data with third-party systems, however there are often links missing which prevent true integration or mean that assistance from the vendor is required, according to the company.

“There are no standard APIs,” Harris explained. “For a third party to integrate its solution with an OEM platform or vice versa, it must develop custom code. The only way that happens today is if a customer can persuade the vendor to do the work.”

Understandably, miners are wary of locking themselves out of future purchasing decisions because their equipment may not be able to communicate properly with other systems.

Challenges and opportunities

When systems are unable to share data automatically, operators must resort to manual data handling and reporting. This is slow and tedious for staff and open to inaccuracies. Systems may also report data in different ways.

For example, key performance indicators (KPIs) can be computed differently between drilling solutions. One system may refer to utilisation as the time that the drill is operational, whether drilling, tramming or leveling, while another may calculate utilisation as the time during which an operator is onboard the drill. The challenge lies in integrating that information and drawing timely insights from it.

If machines and systems cannot ‘talk’ to one another, then safety conflicts could also arise making it difficult to operate the machines in the same environment, the company said. From an automation perspective, the ability for OEM systems to communicate with third-party solutions allows teams to mine safer and reduces the need for change management.

“Without interoperability and data sharing, the case for efficiency drops severely,” Harris added. “Not all operations are at a point where they’re ready to connect their systems together. Some mines may not have the infrastructure yet, but it’s going to be increasingly important going forward.”

Interoperability can provide huge efficiency and productivity gains across the value chain. For example, data generated during drilling can be used to improve blast profiles and optimise burden and hole spacing, which lowers explosive costs. Better blasting also improves fragmentation which lowers energy consumption downstream in crushing and grinding.

The blast arc can be positively affected when leveraging data, according to Sandvik

 

“Each department has its own performance targets and goals,” Harris explained. “If we can better integrate the programs that each team uses, then those processes can be optimised, and efficiencies realised across the entire operation.

“The more freely data can flow from one process to the next, the better prepared each department can be to handle changes originating from the orebody.”

Open data, open mind

True interoperability requires more than just data sharing. If systems are to be fully integrated, then the companies developing them must make interoperability a pillar of their designs and processes, according to the Sandvik Rotary Drilling Division.

Sandvik firmly believes that interoperability and data sharing are key to future efficiencies in mining, and the company is open to working with any third party to provide access to its data-rich technologies.

“We offer several levels of integration,” Harris explained. “From the sharing of data from our iSeries drill rigs into third-party solutions installed onboard our rotary drills, to API integrations with office and cloud solutions. There are multiple ways to connect and access our data so that it can be fed to other mining processes, including planning, blasting and mineral extraction.

“Ultimately, we’re open to discussing all forms of integration and interoperability,” he added. “If we work together, it provides better value for the customer, for Sandvik and for the industry as a whole.”

Designed for today and tomorrow

An example of this value can be seen in Sandvik’s latest integrations: one mining organisation asked the company to allow its blast solutions provider access to Sandvik’s iSeries Rotary Drills measurement-while-drilling (MWD) data. Using that data, the provider was able to calculate the hardness of the ground and determine the correct quantity of explosives and the best blasting sequence to fragment the ground, minimising both waste and blast costs.

The visualisation of MWD data

“The solutions that we’re developing now are designed for future data sharing and interoperability,” Harris explained. “That’s the case with the newest version of OptiMine® for Surface which will be released later this year.

“Some of the data that’s provided through our APIs today may not be needed but, as new integrations and capabilities arise, systems may require it. We’re building our solutions in a way that makes them futureproof.”

Sandvik highlights parts supply and management options as it continues predictive maintenance focus

Communications in mining, Equipment maintenance, IoT, Mining equipment, , , , ,

Sandvik Mining & Rock Solutions is offering various parts supply and management options to suit customers’ needs and help facilitate its own corporate focus on predictive maintenance through the flow of real-time data on its equipment.

Among the options, according to Amith Ganasram, Business Line Manager – Parts, Commercial, at Sandvik Mining & Rock Solutions, is Vendor Managed Inventory.

“To streamline the availability of spare parts, our people can be on site with an inventory of stock that we manage,” Ganasram says. “The main advantage here is that this makes parts available to the customer at reduced lead times.”

He notes that his team works with the customer’s operational staff on site, as well as with the service teams from Sandvik Mining & Rock Solutions. This means that uptime can be optimised, as the right parts are readily available when they are required.

Alternatively, customers may prefer to opt for a stock model that is based on consignment. Under this arrangement, the customer manages a parts holding on their own site, but they only pay for what they consume.

“We can conduct a regular audit every couple of weeks, for example, to check that the stock level is well balanced with the parts that are actually used,”Ganasram says.

Every effort is made to allow customers to leverage the value of OEM components, as their inherent quality safeguards the lifecycle of machines, minimising any unplanned downtime which could lead to lost production and revenue.

“We make it easy for customers to standardise on OEM parts, by creating bundled offerings when they purchase equipment,” he says. “This allows the customer access to high quality parts at a discount, when they take advantage of a total offering with new equipment.”

Through its advances in fleet data monitoring solutions, Sandvik Mining & Rock Solutions offers customers digital tools to track the performance and condition of their equipment. This includes prediction of key indicators like Mean-Time-Between-Failure, so that servicing and parts supply can be better planned. All these factors contribute to safer and smoother operations, with the lowest total cost of ownership for operating equipment, it says.