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Goldcorp narrows down finalists for #DisruptMining PDAC showdown

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Goldcorp has announced the three finalists selected to pitch to a panel of judges at the #DisruptMining 2019 live finale taking place around the PDAC event in Toronto, next month.

The trio includes companies looking at a new drilling approach that can unlock the value in narrow vein deposits; a unique way of training artificial intelligence (AI) to autonomously operate a mineral processing facility; and an Internet of Things application that increases the intelligence of belt conveyors used to transport material at mine sites, according to Goldcorp.

Todd White, Goldcorp Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Operations, said: “#DisruptMining continues to represent the best of innovation in the mining industry. These finalists demonstrate break-through thinking and help build digital momentum in mining. The industry needs to help accelerate the development of these kinds of technologies.”

After a technical review by a group from the University of British Columbia, shortlisted submissions were reviewed by senior Goldcorp representatives to determine semi-finalists and finalists for #DisruptMining, Goldcorp said. The three finalists pitching their disruptive technology to the panel of judges are:

  • Anaconda Mining, a TSX-listed gold mining company operating in Atlantic Canada, has developed an innovative, two-stage drilling method that enables economic mining of narrow-vein deposits, according to Goldcorp. The technology, known as Sustainable Mining by Drilling (SMD), was developed in collaboration with Memorial University of Newfoundland. Goldcorp said: “SMD has the potential to unlock value in existing deposits that were previously thought to be uneconomic to mine using traditional underground or surface mining methods. The developers also expect this technology could extend the life of current operations by allowing safe excavation to occur beyond the limits of current designs”;
  • ANDRITZ, a leading supplier of machines and automation solutions worldwide, has developed a unique and continuous way of training artificial intelligence to operate a mineral processing facility using ANDRITZ’s digital twin, Goldcorp said. “The AI is trained to respond to a variety of situations, making it capable of adapting to changing inputs and improving upset recovery time,” Goldcorp said. The trained AI’s ability to quickly process information and recommend data-driven solutions will allow for the improvement of the operation, such as start-up and shutdown, and assist operators to achieve plant-wide optimisation, and;
  • Voith Turbo, a division of Voith GmbH & Co KGaA, whose IoT application BeltGenius (pictured) creates a digital twin of belt conveyors which provides real-time insight into the behaviour of the operation. “Resulting from a constant learning system, this information is used to identify potential risks and inefficiencies, allowing for greater uptime, more efficient energy use, predictive maintenance and optimisation of weight and speed,” Goldcorp said. With BeltGenius, mine sites can operate their belt conveyors with greater control and consistency, increasing their savings on repairs and material transportation costs while reducing the environmental impact of traditional haul trucks.

Deciding the fate of the three finalists will be Ian Telfer, Chair of Goldcorp; Katie Valentine, Partner at KPMG Australia and Global Head of Mining Consulting; Sue Paish, CEO of Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster; Jacob Yeung, University of British Columbia student and #DisruptMining UBC Captain; and returning #DisruptMining judge Wal van Lierop, President & CEO, Chrysalix Venture Capital.

Co-hosted by KPMG, the #DisruptMining live finale will take place on Sunday, March 3, 2019 at the Rebel Entertainment Complex in Toronto during the PDAC convention. Each finalist will present a short pitch video followed by a Q&A with the judges, in front of a live audience of nearly 600 people, demonstrating how their concept or technology has the potential to #DisruptMining.

In addition to finalists, six semi-finalists will showcase their technologies at the #DisruptMining Innovation Expo. The Expo will take place on Sunday March 3, 2019, at the Rebel Entertainment Complex in Toronto.

 

Safety, electrification, recycling and gold recovery tech to be shown at #Disrupt Mining

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Goldcorp has announced the six semi-finalists that will display their ideas and technologies at the #DisruptMining Innovation Expo in March.

Commercial Pau, Envisioning Labs, ETF Mining, Gekko Systems, Hydrostor Inc and RubberJet Valley have made the shortlist and will showcase their technologies at the event on March 3 at the Rebel Entertainment Complex in Toronto, Canada.

The list will get even shorter when the three finalists are announced next month. This trio will pitch their ideas to a “shark-tank” style panel including Ian Telfer (Goldcorp Chair), Jacob Yeung (University of British Columbia student/#DisruptMining UBC Captain), Katie Valentine (Partner, KPMG Australia, Global Head of Mining Consulting), Sue Paish (CEO of Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster) and Wal van Lierop (President and CEO, Chrysalix Venture Capital) at a live event held at the same venue on the same day in March.

“#DisruptMining offers innovators and entrepreneurs a platform to bring disruptive and exponential technologies to the mining sector,” Goldcorp said. “The panel of industry leaders will award one of the finalists the opportunity to negotiate a C$1 million ($753,655) investment in its technology, company or idea.”

Todd White, Chief Operating Officer of Goldcorp, said: “Look within Goldcorp and across the mining industry generally, you can see it – #DisruptMining is making an impact, spurring innovation, forging new partnerships and accelerating technological change. We’re looking forward to showcasing the semi-finalists and their technologies at #DisruptMining to continue to move innovation in our industry forward.”

Goldcorp, which has helped run this annual innovation challenge since launch in 2017, has invested over C$10 million in a range of new technologies and companies identified through the #DisruptMining innovation accelerator. “This funding has supported companies through the start-up phase into growth and scale-up,” it said.

The gold miner provided some more details on the six semi-finalists:

Commercial Pau

With the use of a patented biometric technology, Commercial Pau’s Digital Remote Lock Out System is designed to enhance safety and security on-site while reducing the amount of time required to effectively complete the lockout process, Goldcorp says.

Envisioning Labs

Envisioning Labs has developed an innovative concept to reuse mine tailings to produce concentrated solar power reflectors. “These reflectors are then used to generate clean energy and sorbents to reduce pollution,” Goldcorp says.

ETF Mining

ETF Mining’s Modular Mining Vehicles are fully electrified, digital and autonomous; offering improved efficiency and reduced environmental impact, according to the gold miner. “Their modularity allows for the adoption and integration of new technologies as they become available,” it added.

ETF Mining will also be on show at IM’s inaugural Electric Mine conference on April 4-5, 2019, where CEO Koen van Peteghem will present a paper titled: Ridding haulage of diesel: why only modular will deliver

Gekko Systems

Gekko Systems supplies innovative modular equipment and processing technologies focused on the recovery of gold. “It is introducing the development of a product, the OnLine Gold Analyser, which will help determine the actual gold content in mineral processing slurries and solutions in real time,” Goldcorp says.

The OnLine Gold Analyser was originally developed by CSIRO, before the research organisation signed an agreement with Gekko to commercialise the technology.

Hydrostor Inc

Hydrostor Inc’s Advanced Compressed Air Energy Storage technology transforms unused mining infrastructure into energy storage systems that help mines manage their energy use and reduce their environmental footprint, Goldcorp says. The system can serve both the electricity grid and mining operations alike, reducing operational costs and providing legacy mines with new revenue opportunities.

RubberJet Valley

RubberJet Valley uses a proprietary high-pressure water jet that breaks down large truck and mining off-the-road (OTR) tyres in an environmentally-friendly way. The resulting material is then used to produce new tyres or other rubber-based products for commercial use.

Goldcorp hopes AI technology can improve gold exploration

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Goldcorp and IBM Canada have co-authored what they term “an innovative first of a kind technology product” to improve predictability for gold mineralisation.

IBM Exploration with Watson applies artificial intelligence to predict the potential for gold mineralisation and uses powerful search and query capabilities across a range of exploration datasets, according to Goldcorp.

“The potential to radically accelerate exploration target identification combined with significantly improved hit rates on economic mineralisation has the potential to drive a step-change in the pace of value growth in the industry,” said Todd White, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Goldcorp.

Developed using data from Goldcorp’s Red Lake Gold Mines in northern Ontario, IBM Exploration with Watson leverages spatial analytics, machine learning and predictive models, helping explorers locate key information and develop geological extrapolations in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional methods, Goldcorp says.

Mark Fawcett, Partner with IBM Canada, said: “Applying the power of IBM Watson to these unique challenges differentiates us in the natural resources industry. We are using accelerated computing power for complex geospatial queries that can harmonise geological data from an entire site on a single platform. This is the first time this solution has been ever used, which makes this project all the more significant.”

At Goldcorp’s Red Lake operations, IBM Exploration with Watson provided independent support to drill targets planned by geologists via traditional methods and proposed new targets which were subsequently verified. Drilling of some of these new targets is ongoing, with the first target yielding the predicted mineralisation at the expected depth.

Maura Kolb, Goldcorp’s Exploration Manager at Red Lake Gold Mines, said: “Timelines are short in mining and exploration. I am excited to see the improvements we can make with the data platform and gold mineralisation predictions. These tools can help us view data in totally new ways. We have already begun to test the Watson targets from the predictive model through drilling, and results have been impressive so far.”

The IBM Watson initiative recently earned Goldcorp a prestigious Ingenious Award in the large private sector category from the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC). The ITAC award for Goldcorp’s Cognitive Journey recognises excellence in the use of information and communications technology by organisations to solve problems, improve performance, introduce new services, and grow business.

Goldcorp says it will put the new technology to work on additional targets in 2019.

Back in September, fellow Canada-based gold company Falco Resources said Albert Mining, a leader in the use of AI, had used its pattern recognition algorithms, CARDS, to locate some 50 gold anomalies in addition to a number of other copper, zinc and silver signatures.