Automated mines safer and cheaper

This would’ve been the stuff of wild imaginings just a few years ago: a fully automated mine with no one in sight, except in a control room on the surface.

Operating at over a kilometre underground at Mali’s Syama mine, driverless vehicles travel from the surface along decline ramps to rendezvous with driverless loaders to collect ore and return it to the surface where it’s crushed, milled and processed.

“This is a world first,” says John Welborn, chief executive of Australia-based Resolute Mining, which expects to produce 300 000 ounces of gold a year once Syama’s underground production kicks off in June.

Syama, with a projected 14year life span, expects to produce gold for an all-in cost of $746 (about R10 000) an ounce – a fabulous price for an underground mine in today’s market.

Resolute acquired the dormant Syama mine from Randgold Resources in 2004 when the gold price was $350 an ounce. This has turned out to be a sweet deal because Resolute subsequently discovered vast underground resources that became payable as the gold price improved.

Syama will be 20% to 30% more efficient than conventional mines.

One major efficiency is the virtual elimination of “smoke hours” after blasting, where dust is required to settle before miners can return to the newly blasted area.

Driverless trucks are guided by lasers, so dust doesn’t interrupt progress. On the mine surface they’re guided by GPS.

Underground mapping data is relayed in real time to the surface, allowing the operator to adjust mining priorities.

A common argument against automated mining is that it displaces workers.

“We are creating jobs where there were none before,” Welborn says. The miner of the future must be tech savvy and equipped with different skills.

An autonomous mine also virtually eliminates human accidents and fatalities.

Production can be stepped up without the need for additional infrastructure.

It also delivers extra hours of production a day.

The above-ground plant is, likewise, state-of-the-art and optimised for maximum efficiency.

What does this mean for SA’s deep-level gold mines, parts of which are simply too costly and dangerous to mine?

Tal Zarum at Sandvik, which is partnering with Resolute to develop autonomous mining solutions, says the more difficult the conditions, the better-suited they are for automated mining.

Perhaps SA’s declining gold sector could squeeze out a few more decades of production?