SA mining and the tech revolution: How can we mine smarter, faster, and better?
The South African mining industry is a fascinating thing. Not only does it have its unique set of challenges with respect to labour unions and government regulations, but the geology of South Africa's ore deposits also provide a major challenge to those who would get our minerals out of the ground. SA's ore bodies are typically very narrow, and they typically go very deep. This, combined with mining regulations, has usually meant digging deep shafts straight down, narrow side shafts, and then blasting the ore, waiting for the gases to dissipate, and toting the ore up top for processing. It's a labour intensive process, and one greatly in need of a tech makeover. According to the CSIR's Dr. Jeanette McGill, there are a lot of exciting possibilities for transforming SA's mines using technology. Machines can withstand noxious gases, can work round the clock, and do not require the same kind of safety rules as people do. All that stands in the way is a mindset shift, and buy-in from mine owners and workers. – FD
ALEC HOGG: Mechanised mining is a predominantly South African initiative in the mining industry worldwide. However, most overseas mining companies have moved towards mechanised mining methods, where as here, we still seem to be using the old pick and shovel. Joining us for more is Dr Jeanette McGill, Head of Novel Mining Methods at the CSIR. Jeanette, we had a fascinating conversation a few months ago, so it's great to get you back into the studio. I've been telling Gugu a lot about you and hopefully, how this amazing mineral wealth that we have in South Africa is going to be properly utilised in years to come, by technology. It's almost as if the rest of the world has gone ahead with technology and we, in South Africa, are a little bit stodgy on the subject. It must frustrate you.
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: Technology is an important topic about how we're going to take the mining sector forward. The challenge that we have from a South African perspective is, whilst many of the international deposits are conducive to bulk mining – and bulk mining can be a lot easier for some mechanised mining methods – we have a very unique deposit type here in South Africa. We have these very narrow thin deposits, which can sometimes yield up to 40cm in [pyte? 1:14], but because of the legislation requirement to put people underground, we have to mine about 1.2 metres. The technology challenge is therefore, how do we use technology to (a) keep people safe, but (b) optimise that mining? Can we possibly mine narrower?
ALEC HOGG: Isn't the answer then to relook at our legislation, if we're putting ourselves at a disadvantage to other parts of the word, not allowing the technology, which would have enabled us to do those 40cms?
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: I don't think it's that much a question of legislation at this stage. I think it's more about the technology advancement. Are we actually getting things out there that can mine narrow reefs? That is the work that the CSIR and other organisations are currently working at. What technologies can we bring in to marry these narrow specific reef types of South Africa?
GUGULETHU MFUPHI: How far are we in that discussion?
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: Well, technology is very well advanced and we sit at a very interesting space from the CSIR perspective. We get to see how all the different majors are tackling this technology advance. Some companies are looking at it from a mega-machinery environment, whereas others are looking at – very much – small mining machines.
GUGULETHU MFUPHI: But from an African perspective – given the fact that we have mining in such vast resources – what would work well in our local mines?
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: What would work well in our local mines is an opportunity to minimise dilution. Studies have shown that we have significant gold and platinum reserves and resources that extend to depth, but because of the challenges to work in depth and also to keep miners safe; it is the pre-emptive need to bring in mechanisation. It's to start keeping people from going into the mining slope face, and to keep them safe.
ALEC HOGG: So the deeper we go the more we have, but it's very difficult to get people down there – hence, machines.
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: Correct.
ALEC HOGG: To pick up on what Gugu was saying, how are we progressing towards that goal?
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: Research funding has been provided through government channels as well as industry consortiums, whereby this current problem is being tackled.
ALEC HOGG: Give us some examples. Do you have any fancy machines that you can maybe send down a mineshaft now?
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: We have fancy machines and what we really see as the end goal is a fleet of automated mining equipment, but a very much intermediate goal is an opportunity to put out a safety platform. In other words, we have developed a mechanised platform, which can walk underground, and the opportunity exists to be able to trade in and trade out different peripherals on this platform.
ALEC HOGG: You're losing me there. Start again. Just take us through. What does it mean in layman's terms? What does it look like?
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: We have a device that looks like a robotic crawler, that can work and manoeuvre over the underground rock, and that we have the ability to put different sensors on board that platform and to actually see what is happening underground. It's very exciting.
GUGULETHU MFUPHI: Is labour excited about this? Clearly, it means that you need to upscale your workforce, then.
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: Labour is excited, because the key drawback and advantage of this system is that we don't have to put people into the slope-face. What we're also achieving is that goal of a continuous mining cycle. At the moment, in hard rock mining, what we're really looking at is a batch process. You drill, you blast, you clean, and it has to be a very 'batched' process. Coal mining is successful because it's continuous mining. Mining can carry on all the time, so the holy grail of deep hard rock mining currently, is that opportunity to derive a continuous process, and we see the use of technology in the ability to derive a continuous process.
ALEC HOGG: Are we the leaders in this field or are there others elsewhere in the world, who do deep level mining successfully, through mechanisation?
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: South Africa is definitely pushing the boundaries in terms of depth of mining. The operations we have here are certainly the deepest in the world. In terms of 'are we the best with technology', we are in certain aspects but in others it's important to see where it's being used and how it's being applied, so we have some very unique applications which are coming to the fore – yes.
ALEC HOGG: Jeanette, just from a broader perspective, there's an entrepreneurial desire to get involved in the mining sector. We had Nku here from ArcelorMittal on Friday, and she was explaining how she now wants to get into mining, and any number of people wants to do that, too. Is there new technology that would enable them to leapfrog the old ways – maybe with smaller deposit, maybe with lesser rich ore bodies?
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: It's definitely an advantage and there is an important need. There've been many talks, which happened at the Mining Indaba last week: the importance of getting these incremental steps of technology and having something, which transitions the entire universe of mining. That is exceptionally important. As a side anecdote, we can see how phones have developed so quickly, but if you look at your standard dragline: the pictures from hundreds of years ago are identical to now. So yes, I agree with you that what's important is to be able leapfrog and take a technology that will ultimately achieve production. That's one way of saying it, but at the end of the day, mining is mining and it's about being able to get that deposit to work for you. Get the extraction rates. Get the continuous productivity. That's where, as I said earlier, the Holy Grail is definitely continuous production.
ALEC HOGG: What's stopping us from taking that leapfrog?
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: I often think our mining sector doesn't do us any favours, and I do think it's time for a big paradigm shift.
ALEC HOGG: What would that be?
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: The vision of getting continuous mining…
ALEC HOGG: From every area…?
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: Yes, the notion that we need to have our phase availability enhanced, and the notion of being able to work effectively around the clock, using… For instance, at our robotic platform again, we'll have the ability to go into mines during re-entry. After you've blasted, you actually have to wait before all the noxious gases have passed through the system. With a robotic platform, we can actually send this platform into the no-go zone when people can't go into it.
ALEC HOGG: Are those conversations happening?
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: Yes.
ALEC HOGG: And if you were to put a time-scale on them…
DR JEANETTE MCGILL: It's obviously a very interesting one, but we would like the take-up of these robotic platforms to happen within the next two years or so, in terms of an intermediary. In other words, we'd have a platform that can go and monitor a variety of things in an underground environment. How long we're going to get to the full-scale mining method… That would obviously take a little bit longer.