Page 69 - pd297-Sept21-mag-web

Optimising against sloppy stoping

uch is the speed of innovation in the Analysis of drill-and-blast activities at
Scurrent age of METS development Cracow showed that in the previous pro-
that a new product can have an immediate cess only 20% of holes surveyed recorded
impact on almost an entire industry, seem- toe points within the 300mm tolerance at
ingly overnight. the toe. In contrast, the Production Opti-
Minnovare is achieving exactly that with miser was proven to limit rig set-up error,
its Production Optimiser™ drilling technol- reducing average blast-hole deviation
ogy with underground miners across Aus- and increasing the number of holes drilled
tralia quickly adopting the new system. within tolerance to 50%.
The system combines hardware, soft- Similar results have since been achieved
ware, and data analytics to address defi- at multiple operations owned by Gold
ciencies in current underground produc- Fields and Northern Star Resources Ltd.
tion drilling processes. By reducing the The technology can be retrofitted to any
impact of these variables, the Production underground production drill rig, regard-
Optimiser delivers increased drilling ac- less of age or style. Crucially, it removes
curacy and consistency. This, in turn, ma- operator error, reliance on survey mark-up
terially improves mine economics for Min- and existing onboard systems from the
novare’’s underground hard rock clients. set-up process.
It has been warmly welcomed across “Blast hole deviation is one of the pri-
the underground mining industry and is mary causes of poor stoping outcomes.
revolutionising operations. When we started our analysis of blast
holes, we saw a clear Minnovare’s Production Optimiser is
trend of error hap- already being deployed in around 30% of
pening before the drill long-hole stoping operations in Australia
bit hit the rock face,
which was the result Star after implementation of the Produc-
of poor set-up. We tion Optimiser across its Goldfields op-
identified that this er- erations,” Beilby said. “Over 12 months
ror was contributing at South Kalgoorlie operations, Northern
to around 60% of the Star noticed a 30% increase in drill metres.
resulting error at the “Most stopes were drilled using a ‘dice
toe,” Beilby said. “If we five’ drill pattern, which resulted in a lot of
could improve the ac- moves per stope, impacting drilling pro-
curacy of the set-up, ductivity and stope turnover rates signifi-
we could improve the cantly. The Production Optimiser simpli-
overall stope perfor- fied the proves with the net result being
mance.” faster completion of the stope.”
Mick Beilby The Production Op- As well as speed at set-up, the improved
timiser does exactly accuracy was also shown to reduce the re-
“The last year has been remarkable with that. It is not reliant on survey, operators or quirements for secondary blasts.
increased market penetration. The Produc- existing onboard systems and is proven to “It reduced the stope cycle by 7%, which
tion Optimiser is now in use on about 30% reduce errors at set-up by 50-70%. equated to 8,000oz gold over the analyse
of long-hole stoping drills in Australia,” Min- “This leads to a 40-50% reduction in period,’ Beilby said.
novare director Mick Beilby told Paydirt. blast hole deviation which equals better The analysis also showed that speed
The development of the system is the re- stoping outcomes and therefore better and accuracy were complemented by con-
sult of Minnovare’s client-centric approach tonnes and grade performance,” Beilby sistency.
to product development. said. “It is not just drill accuracy but also
“We were underground a lot and we had Minnovare’s Client Online Reporting consistency was seen as a benefit, as it
engineers and tech services saying they Engine (Minnovare CORE) is a propri- allowed the implementation of different
had a big problem with blast hole deviation etary software platform that integrates the drill patterns, resulting in much narrower
affecting stope performance. We hadn’t company’s technology systems with third- stoping designs,” Beilby said. “The net re-
realised this previously, so we focused on party software providers (as an example sult was stopes narrowing by 0.5m which
understanding the problem to develop a drill and blast design software) serving as equated to 80,000t less waste for the
solution.” a data hub for clients’ entire drilling opera- same volume of ounces.”
The result was partnerships with Evolu- tions. The system includes reporting and Beilby is confident clients will unlock
tion Mining Ltd at the Cracow gold mine analytics functionality, allowing driller and more of the Production Optimiser’s poten-
in Queensland and Gold Fields Ltd at the rig performance to be analysed. The sys- tial as they become more accustomed to
Granny Smith gold mine in Western Aus- tem has been well received by Production the technology’s capabilities.
tralia to implement and validate the earliest Optimiser clients with around 125,000m “It creates consistency, meaning the
versions of the Production Optimiser. per month logged via Minnovare CORE outcomes are more predictable which al-
A white paper written in conjunction with and 4 million total metres logged by Pro- lows companies to look at more ambitious
Evolution showed how effective the system duction Optimiser clients to date. stope design.“
was. “We completed a study with Northern

aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT SePTeMBeR 2021 Page 69