Anglo American’s 10-year vision for a “mine of the future” became reality when all of its underground coal mines in Australia’s Bowen Basin began operating simultaneously from Remote Operation Centres (ROCs).
Additionally, the Central Queensland underground operations have notched up 10,000 longwall mining shears from those ROCs, another remarkable feat.
Matthew Wakeford, Anglo American Australia automation superintendent, said the rapid pace of technological innovation – especially in areas like data analytics, automation and digitalisation – had unlocked incredible opportunities for the mining sector to be safer, more productive and more sustainable.
“At Anglo American, we have re-imagined mines where our people can remotely manage operations from a safe distance, using real-time data to make informed decisions,” said Wakeford.
“Since transitioning to remote operations, we have reduced exposure risk to hazardous areas by 22,500 hours across our Bowen Basin mine sites.”
Anglo American’s automation and remote operation technology journey in Australia has also involved industry-leading Personal Proximity Detection systems to keep coal mine workers safe underground as well as a trial of remote-controlled stockpile dozers.
The tele-remote dozers, designed to improve operator safety on site, has been trialled at the Capcoal complex, near Middlemount, to reduce exposure to concealed stockpile voids. The move is expected to reduce in-cab dozer exposure time by 45,000 to 75,000 hours a year once the technology is fully deployed across all sites.
Wakeford said the pilot included the retrofit of a stockpile dozer with the latest Wi-Fi enabled technology to set up connectivity between the machine and operator chair in the control centre.
“Operating our fleet of dozers from a safe distance will reduce the number of hours in the cab and fully remove our operators from the dozer seat in what is another significant advancement in autonomous mining,” he said.
Anglo American has five steelmaking coal mines in the Bowen Basin, along with additional joint venture interests in steelmaking coal and manganese, and base metals exploration projects in Queensland.
Source: Anglo American