Page 26 - Forbes - Asia (June 2018)

FORBES ASIA
DIGITAL DIGS

also keeps an eye on artillerymen and military engi- mine and require a workforce with more tech skills and less
neers, with the use of explosives being the common link. in manually operating equipment, neither BHP nor Rio Tinto
In Australia, women were banned from working under- will put numbers on overall cost savings or expected ei-
ground until 40 years ago when Britain’s Queen Eliza- ciency gains.
beth visited the deep workings of the Mount Charlotte But, for example, driverless trucks require less main-
gold mine. tenance than those with heavy-footed drivers, computer-
Today, Australia’s three biggest publicly traded iron ore controlled trains operate more eiciently and loading a train
mining companies have women at (or close to) the top, led by is better done by computer than by a human. “One of the
the chief executive of Fortescue Mining, Elizabeth Gaines, 54. challenges around the safety aspect is how much ore you put
Like BHP and Rio Tinto, Fortescue is automating its opera- on the rail, which means we tend to underload cars,” Jurgens
tions, but largely through retroitting autonomous haulage says. “We’ve introduced lasers and weightometers and ore
equipment to existing mines. (Of course, there’s also Austra- analyzers so we know the density of the ore, we know the
lia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, the executive chairman of maximum weight we can put in the car, and we can extremely
closely held Hancock Prospecting.) accurately load our ore cars, which has given us [an extra] 2.4
Koodaiderie and South Flank will be the next generation tons per ore car.”
of mines, and while both require inal board approval before With trains routinely made up of 268 cars, that means
construction can start, perhaps early next year, that seems each trip to Port Hedland can now carry an extra 643 tons
to be a formality because of the need to develop new mines of ore, which at the current price of around $65 a ton means
to satisfy contractual sales obligations and the productivity $41,795 in extra revenue. Over an average day, when 20 trains
beneits from utilizing the latest technology. make the 260-mile journey, a small technology-driven change
Because what’s happening is not a single event but a series in loading becomes an extra $836,160—or roughly $300 mil-
of changes that will signiicantly reduce the manning in a lion a year. F

QILAI SHEN/BLOOMBERG

CEO Elizabeth Gaines of Fortescue is automating operations, largely by retrofitting haulage equipment to existing mines.

24 | FORBES ASIA JUNE 2018