New Gold’s New Afton mine is located in south-central British Columbia. This is the only mine in Canada that has been mined by natural caving, with 18,500 tons of ore mined every day. Recently, the mine has been able to reduce the risk of mud and sand influx and increase productivity with a new automated mining solution. In less than two months, the mine recovered the investment.
As the scale of the mine continues to expand, more and more pits have become loose and humid. The 2016 assessment revealed that one-fifth of the mine's blasting sites are classified as high-risk. In order to ensure the safety of the operator, New Afton stopped manual mining at these ore-drawing sites and started to enable remote mining within the line of sight.
However, when the ore that needs to be cleaned by remote control reaches 20%, the mining volume may not be enough to meet the processing capacity of the subsequent mill. At this time, New Afton needs a new way of working.
NEW AFTON carried out an engineering study at the end of 2016 to evaluate the potential value of implementing automated production loading: whether it can overcome the production bottleneck caused by the line-of-sight remote control system and further improve safety.
The mine conducted a one-month trial of the Sandvik LH514 scraper equipped with AutoMine in early 2017. This is a scraper with a load of 14 tons. Although its length may not be suitable for certain narrow corners, New Afton estimates that Sandvik LH514 has a smaller size based on the performance of Sandvik LH514 during the trial period. Vic LH410 can achieve excellent ore cycle time and the amount of shoveling ore transport per shift.
Bob Garner is a technical expert with decades of natural caving mining experience. He is the person in charge of equipment operation and is responsible for training the operators of the AutoMine system.
Electrical instrument technician TJ Williams has extensive technical expertise and is responsible for the installation of all electrical systems, complementing Garner in technology.
Garners said: "We need to plan the infrastructure, set up the wireless network, determine the placement of the antenna and the distance between the antenna, and then teach the path of the scraper to walk, improve all other parts to ensure that it operates efficiently."
Sandvik provided initial engineering assistance, starting with the systematic implementation of the mine on the west side, and then Williams replicated it in the mine on the east side.
During the one-week commissioning period at the end of 2017, the first of two automated Sandvik LH410s ordered by the mine confirmed that its efficiency is much higher than the line-of-sight remote control solution.
NEW AFTON has used Sandvik LH410 in mining operations at the mining level. The mining level is one of the five main underground levels of the natural caving mining method. The average transportation distance between the pit and the chute is only 75 meters, which limits the advantages of automation.
Although the short transport distance at this level poses a limitation, the Sandvik LH410 automatic equipment has a cycle speed that is almost twice that of the former compared to the line-of-sight remote-controlled scraper.
In addition to recovering the investment cost of the automatic shovel in less than two operating hours, New Afton personally realizes the benefits of the health of the equipment on the profitability of the mine. AutoMine controls the scraper with extremely high accuracy, and its anti-collision function helps eliminate the risk of damage while maintaining high speed, speeding up the overall cycle speed.
Compared with other types of 10-ton scrapers in the mine, the tire life of Sandvik LH410 automatic scrapers is also extended by 30%.
New Afton successfully upgraded from the line-of-sight remote control equipment to an automatic mining solution, which improved the cleaning efficiency and eased the risk of mud and sand flow. Now, New Afton is considering expanding the application of automation.
"We calculated the payback period for the conversion from the line-of-sight solution to the automated solution and the result was 54 days. If we continue to use the line-of-sight remote control, the production loss is expected to exceed 54 days, which is basically equivalent to The value of a brand new LH410. We soon decided to use automated solutions."
"In the past, each of our scrapers caused a collision loss of around CAD 10,000. The direct cause of the loss was the need to remotely control the scraper in a small environment. But AutoMine reduced this cost to zero."
——Peter Prochotsky, Mine Manager
"Most remote control operators in this mine can easily learn to operate AutoMine in five days."
"Compared with a shovel that only has line-of-sight remote control, Sandvik's automatic shovel is more technologically advanced, and it is easy for the operator to master the operation method, and everyone can learn it easily."
——TJ Williams, Electrical Instrument Technician
"We will maintain the productivity of natural caving mining by using automatic scrapers to produce smoke during tunneling, blasting and blasting. If you can save 90 minutes per shift, this is a huge efficiency increase and will also reduce the risk of the project ."
"In the field of natural avalanche mining, it is rare to have the opportunity to put what we have learned into practical action, because every time this mine develops a new layer, it usually takes 5-10 years. We are very lucky and can Introduce the AutoMine system at a good time, learn how to use it to achieve maximum benefits, and make full use of its advantages in future mine design."
——Peter Prochotsky, Mine Manager
New Afton Mine Introduction
It is located about 350 kilometers northeast of Vancouver and 10 kilometers from Kamloops, the regional core of central and southern British Columbia. New Afton’s underground mine site was originally a historic open-pit mine in Afton, which was mined by Teck Resources from 1977 to 1997.
In 1999, an exploration company acquired this mining area to investigate the possibility of natural caving mining under the open pit site. Later, the exploration company established New Gold through mergers and acquisitions. In 2007, New Afton began the development of the mine by descending the slope, and began commercial mining in 2012.
The mine has about 450 employees, and the annual production of gold and copper in 2018 reached 77,329 ounces and 85.1 million pounds, respectively.
New Gold is a medium-sized mining company in Canada that operates the New Afton mine in British Columbia and the Rainy River mine in Ontario. New Gold is also a wholly-owned owner of the Blackwater project in British Columbia and also operates the Cerro San Pedro mine in Mexico, which has transitioned to landfill in 2018. New Gold achieved continuous operations in 2018, mining 315,483 ounces (9 tons) of gold and 85.1 million pounds (38,000 tons) of copper.
About Sandvik
Sandvik Group is the world's leading manufacturer of advanced 名媛直播. Its advantageous businesses include metal cutting tools, construction and mining industry equipment, stainless steel materials, special alloys, metal and ceramic resistance materials, and drive systems. In 2012, the Group's business spanned more than 130 countries, with 50,000 employees and annual sales of nearly 98.5 billion SEK. Sandvik invests approximately 3 billion SEK per year in research and development, and more than 2,700 R&D personnel are distributed in more than 60 R&D centers around the world.
