THE MINING EXECUTIVE MAGAZINE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020 EDITION

The
MINING EXECUTIVE
Magazine FEBRUARY 2020
Due to its capital requirements, the mining
industry could not have been a “first mover”
in terms of adopting these new technologies.
However, because it is so capital intensive,
these new technologies will have a very large
and positive economic effect on the mining
industry.
Additionally, by not “going first,” mining
companies will be able to learn from other
industries as to how best to apply /
incorporate things like IoT, AI, cloud, etc.
This is indeed a giant opportunity for the
mining companies and their suppliers /
vendors. The Seattle based tech company has
in the past raised US$4 Million in new
financing to support its growth.
“A fully connected mine moves towards
automation by advancing orebody knowledge
to understand the impact of the rock as it
exists in situ toward each production stage.
This system correlates comminution energy to
rock hardness and ties back to a location to
know how to better prepare throughout the
process chain, avoiding risky or nonproductive
activities and costs.”
To enable a holistic geology monitoring
system for a mine, Microsoft supports
DataCloud's efforts with high speed data
ingestion backed by world-class security.
MinePortal being built atop Azure quickly and
safely integrates all orebody-related data on
the cloud to drive the “digital geology twin”
that will help teams to predict the rock in near
real-time.
The real question is, can this type of
technology be also availed for underground
mining operations where significant value can
be yielded, especially in narrow vein ore
mining? Yes indeed.
MinePortal has evolved into a standalone
solution to future-proof mine site's
optimization projects during production.
This exciting application is currently being
unleashed with Trevali, one of the most
progressive underground miners in the mining
industry. MinePortal is designed to provide
vast feedback applications across the value
chain empowering their teams to make
geology data-driven decisions.
“MinePortal is able to quickly and efficiently
digitize the orebody, share it across multiple
operations, and track and learn from mine to
mill performance. It is a single-source of
geology truth to break down knowledge silos
and create a digital health monitoring system
from the rock to mill at any mine.”
Rather than blaming D&B teams for not
knowing exactly what is in the ground and
where, equip them with rock knowledge to get
a better fragmentation profile and prevent
issues downstream. When the right data is
integrated, it can help forecast the geologic
profile of material headed to the mill allowing
operations to prepare accordingly and
optimize mill throughput. This rock
knowledge is hidden inside data.
MINING GLOBAL DECISIONS IN YOUR PALMS
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And feedback loops are critical to efficiency
goals. The pressures of competition, cost
cutting, and improving productivity and
throughput are driving a need for better and
faster data analysis of a mine site's geology.
By characterizing the orebody at highresolution
during D&B efforts, it becomes
easier to deliver an optimal particle size
distribution and head grade to downstream
processing facilities.
“Know
the
Rock”
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