Robot trucks, trains and drills, plus a sea of data – WA’s mining industry at the cutting edge.

In Western Australia’s remote Pilbara region, 1500km from the nearest major city, fully laden robot trucks weighing more than a fuelled-up Boeing 747 and as tall as two-storey buildings are hauling iron ore for global miner Rio Tinto. The ore the trucks carry has been blasted by explosives laid by automated drill rigs and, and once some final hurdles are overcome, the ore will be loaded onto the world’s biggest autonomous machines – 2.4km long trains, that will take the iron ore to the coast.

Managing the day to day performance of these machines occurs in a centralised, remote operations centre in Perth. A brainchild of Rio Tinto’s Mine of the Future programme, this centre is responsible for coordinating operations across 15 mines, 1700km of railways and four ports, and is an evolutionary leap in the way mining at this scale is conducted. Terabytes of data collected from a plethora of sensors, spanning the company’s operations, is harvested and stored for analysis.

Rio Tinto already has three mines operating truck fleets in fully autonomous mode. Its overall unmanned truck fleet of 75 Haulpaks – 350 tonnes each – is travelling more than 12,000 kilometres each and every day.

This is the cutting edge of bulk mining technology, driven by the China boom and playing out in the red dust of north-western Australia. In the boom’s wake, it is helping set a platform that provides the opportunity to leverage further world-leading technologies and advances for Western Australia.

 

LEADING THE WAY

The remote operations centre pioneered by Rio, the world’s largest iron ore exporter, has been duplicated in West Australia by BHP Billiton, Fortescue Metals Group, and Roy Hill.

Rio Tinto is seeing considerable productivity improvements as a result. Firstly, there are the benefits of automation when compared to the manned equivalent – for example, safety, efficiency, and hours in use. Secondly, the operations centres allow a network of mines and associated infrastructure to be treated as one integrated system, rather than what was previously a series of mines, rail and ports operated in a silo-like manner.

Fortescue chief executive Nev Power says Western Australia’s innovative streak is a product of being tapped into a competitive global market for commodities, long investment time scales, and the requirement that miners always be ready for changes in markets conditions or regulations.

“We have this very long investment horizon and very large investment, but at the same time we need to be very adaptable, which is what Western Australia has been very good at,” Mr Power said.

“That necessity, being the mother of invention, has driven companies in our sector, and right throughout Western Australia, almost by default, to be very innovative, very adaptable, very flexible and very entrepreneurial.”

While Fortescue has not been developing its own technology, it quickly built its own mine, rail and port system. Then, instead of blasting and loading, it used unconventional surface mining machines for its early operations. When the boom ended, the company used innovative processing and mine plans to bring down costs.

Rio has been the unquestionable leader in taking on and developing new mining technology. It set up its Mine of the Future programme in 2008 with the lofty ambition of imagining, articulating, engineering and bringing to life every aspect of mining operations as they might exist 10, 20 or even 50 years in the future.

 

BIG DATA

While the robot trucks and trains managed from Perth capture the headlines, Rio Tinto is hoping more substantial value will lie in the constant stream of data that is now captured across its operations. So far, Rio Tinto has worked out how to use only about 10% of this data to make better business decisions. Unlocking the value of the remainder will be key to future efficiency gains. As the finishing touches are put on the automation programs, harnessing big data is the next trend Rio Tinto, and no doubt others, will look at.

The scale of the data collection is difficult to comprehend. As an example of the sea of data now at Rio Tinto’s disposal, each of their haul trucks is fitted with 200 sensors and generates gigabytes of data per day. Across the length and breadth of the mines, rail and ports supply chain, some five terabytes of data is collected daily.

The changes to mining at Rio Tinto mean there are fewer people on the ground at mine sites looking at the operations and making experience-based decisions. Now, there are more people based remotely making decisions based on data. This requires a different skillset, and Rio Tinto now looks for more graduates focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or with data analytics experience.

 

MIXING IT TOGETHER

Rio’s zeal for innovation has not only focused on technology. The “Pilbara Blend” is one of Rio Tinto’s more significant innovations. It is made by blending a ‘cake mix’ of Marra Mamba ores with Brockman ore. The blend creates a consistent product, meaning its processing is straightforward and customers are prepared to pay a premium. The Pilbara Blend will enable Rio Tinto to continue to deliver high quality, low variability iron ore products to customers and ensure reliable long-term supply. It also gives Rio Tinto further efficiency gains, as it needs fewer discrete Port stockpiles, which equals greater capacity for the integrated system.

Rio Tinto’s efforts in technology have not been lost on one of its joint venture partners in the Pilbara, billionaire Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting.

For its own Roy Hill project, which began production this year, Hancock has employed advanced trains that use remote diagnostic technology to gather data which is then instantly analysed in the US. This allows maintenance issues to be identified before they become serious problems, boosting productivity.

Roy Hill has also established its own Remote Operations Centre and has set up its operations to easily upgrade to autonomous operations.

 

MAINTAINING THE EDGE

In a June interview for Newport Consulting’s annual Mining Business Outlook, Mrs Rinehart said technology and innovation was providing the opportunity for Australian mining to remain competitive.

“Technology, along with the capability of our people to drive innovation, is playing a very important role to build and strengthen the foundation for Roy Hill’s future,” she said.

An indicator of Western Australia’s potential ability to harness the technology the boom has helped put at its disposal is that Perth ranks fourth in the world, equal with energy leader Houston, for the amount of its population that are engineers, according to the University of Western Australia (UWA). First is Silicon Valley.

Already, 60% of the world’s mining software is produced in Perth, according to UWA’s State of Mind report, released in April 2016.

“One indicator of a modern economy’s potential to thrive is its proportion of engineers,” Mark Stickell, director of the UWA’s Energy and Minerals Institute, said in the report.

“Add to this the (government funded) Pawsey Supercomputing Centre’s capacity to store and process huge amounts of data, plus achievements in advanced mining-related technology – robotics, automation, geoscience, and three-dimensional and four-dimensional mapping – and Perth and Western Australia become a major global force in technology and engineering,”