Mining

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Thread for anyone interested in the mining, minerals or energy sectors.

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Monday 17 November 2008
Innovative Mining Solutions Finalist: Gemcom

Jessica Darnbrough

Gemcom Solutions is a finalist in the 5th Annual Prospect Awards for its development of the program InSite. Gemcom InSite provides mining companies with the information they need to optimise productivity and profits.

InSite achieves this by delivering analytics, measures and reports to management and operations staff. The technology is said to be unique because it delivers information about mine production that has traditionally been very difficult, time-consuming and costly to capture.

Consequently, this information has often never been used or not used to its fullest potential in decision-making. Now the information can be used to its full advantage.

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Queensland Business Review

October 5, 2009

Mining services company Runge has announced two new patents for mine planning as part of its enterprise solution, Mining Dynamics.

Related to the methodology of the overall framework titled ‘method and system of integrated mine planning’, the process has been pioneered by Runge for over four years.

The methodology couples business process execution with comprehensive access to information, whereby any information from geology through to mine engineering, planning, scheduling, operations and reconciliation can be easily visualised, interrogated and reported to the executive, operations and systems management teams.

Runge Enterprise Mining Solution Vice President, Glen Kuntz, says the overall methodology can be summed up as the three C’s of simplicity; communication, coordination and collaboration.

“This methodology provides the ability to quickly collaborate in order to harmonise new ideas, win support and deliver ground breaking initiatives. These in turn generate short and long-term growth while significantly driving a competitive advantage,” Kuntz says.

He says the use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in business is wide-spread.

While predictable supply inputs have been successful in the use of ERP systems, mining operations are different and have inherently unique characteristics.

The planning components of ERP systems, designed for other industries and deployed within a mining operation, are not suitable without the direct coupling and integration of spatial mining information with transactional financial information.

In order to achieve this level of integration, Runge has formed business and technology partnerships with ERP companies, such as SAP, to help mining companies maximise their value and profitability through a focused approach to their mining operations.

This allows mining operations to quickly disseminate and distribute timely information throughout their organisation using a standard planning methodology and solution across the business intelligence layer.

“Successful mining operations depend on the availability and reliability of information in order to make critical every day decisions. Because of the complexity of mining data and the spatial characteristics associated with it, rapid universal access to trusted and accurate information has traditionally been difficult,” Kuntz explains.

“Basing decisions on data that is misplaced, not universally accessible, out-dated, or incomplete can at best become a bottleneck in the decision making process and at worst be operationally and financially devastating,” he says.

“Mining Dynamics reliably coordinates and manages both the common and unique data types associated with any mining operation and enables the integration, visualisation, and comprehensive management of the wide variety of mining data, regardless of its origin or software platform.”

With an office in Brisbane, Runge also operates out of Mackay, Sydney, Perth, Maitland, Wollongong and various international hubs such as Hong Kong, Santiago, Calgary and Johannesburg.

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Australian Financial Review, MON 11 OCT 2010, Page 53

Where we lead the world

By: Peter Roberts

One high-technology manufacturing and services sector is not under threat from our resources-driven dollar and is sharing in the China boom, writes Peter Roberts.

When Robin Levison took over as chief executive of coalmining equipment and services provider Industrea five years ago he set out to replicate the company's local success in China and other developing countries. Getting his foot in the door with coalmine methane gas drainage systems, he grew sales in China of flameproof underground vehicles, directional drilling equipment and asset and safety management services to 40 per cent of 2010's turnover of $313 million.
In the first two months of the new financial year he delivered $30 million of equipment and services into China, untroubled by the high dollar that is holding back so many areas of Australia's two-speed economy.
"We manufacture intellectual-property-rich, high-price, low-volume pieces of equipment here in Australia and sell to the Chinese as best practice and best safety," says Levison. "The Australian dollar just hasn't been a factor so far, though we are moving into uncharted territory."
The local currency hit a 27-year high above US99(cents) last week, after rising 14 per cent against the US dollar over the past three months.
Mining-technology companies are growing strongly thanks to China's demand and an increasing international recognition of Australian technology and operational leadership.
Rio Tinto has placed its global head of innovation in Brisbane, and the 430 people at its Perth control centre remotely operate minesite drilling, blasting, train loading and unloading. Rio works by teaming with world-leading technologists such as the University of NSW in field robotics and the University of Queensland in minerals processing.
But the immediate market for suppliers is driven by China's desire to boost mine safety and productivity, which is leading to decisions to buy systems proven in Australia's leading-edge mines.
"The dollar is so high it is making conventional manufactured goods extremely difficult to export," says John Russell, chief executive of Russell Mineral Equipment. "But if you are the best, you can be less sensitive to price. And high-performing mining equipment has got great leverage for customers in a mining boom."
Russell developed his complex machines to handle and change metal liners of giant ore-grinding mills for local mines. Now he is building robotic relining machines worth between $1 million and $5 million and packing them for export.
"These systems allow you to control the 'when' of maintenance shutdowns," he says. "They leverage the performance of an entire mining site by 3 per cent a year. There are not many things companies can do to achieve that in their operations."
Mining equipment and services exports rose from $2 billion in 2003 to $4 billion in the latest year. Though customers delayed purchases during the global financial crisis, Australian companies seem to have held their nerve and not slashed local staff, allowing them to quickly rebuild production and sales.
Brisbane-based engineering and project-management services business Ausenco is one that is growing again after sales faltered during the global financial crisis. Chief executive Zimi Meka says the company has been given the go-ahead on a number of delayed orders in recent months.
"We held people [on staff] in anticipation of these projects and there was a cost in doing that," he says. "I am optimistic now but cautious. The resources space has great potential but you still see the odd economic tremor."
The company, which slumped in 2010 with a $6.6 million pre-tax loss on sales of $220 million, says it's in the black this year.
Ausenco, like many of the successful mining services companies, internationalised its business in the past decade and now has 80 per cent of sales offshore. It is typical of a raft of young Australian multinationals in focusing on an unusual group of locations including China, India, Russia, Central Asia, Africa and South America.
"We have a very good footprint of offices in areas where high growth is expected. The challenges are in getting equipment and fabricated steel into these project sites and ensuring our people are safe, " says Meka.
Tasmanian-based Haulmax is one business having little trouble getting its heavy-haul trucks into mining sites worldwide on the basis of their acceptance by major Australian miners. The company has orders for 24 of its 85-tonne trucks, which are designed to haul ores from smaller satellite mines across distances of 10 to 30 kilometres to processing operations - a scenario becoming common in the mining industry. Some companies use the rugged trucks as in-mine support vehicles.
Haulmax is owned by Dale Elphinstone, who made a fortune making underground mining vehicles based on standard Caterpillar components. The new trucks, which sell for about $1.5 million, are built around Caterpillar components and marketed through Cat dealers globally.
"At the moment it is a matter of the market becoming more familiar with our products," says managing director Jon Riley. "With the likes of BHP and Rio as our customers it reaffirms our strengths."

Mine planning and optimising software company Micromine has one of the broadest geographic spreads of the young multis with 12,000 customers in 90 countries. It has offices and staff in some weird and wonderful locations like Mongolia, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine.

Micromine is one of a few software companies with a full suite of mining software from exploration to mine planning, production, equipment monitoring, maintenance and enterprise data management. The company expects to turn over $50 million this year, spends 30 per cent of turnover on research and development and is planning a range of asset management products.

"Australian mining technology is probably the nation's only world-best-practice industry," says Micromine managing director Graeme Tuder.

The innovation and global focus of the mining technology and services sector grows almost entirely from business skills. While the sector occasionally gets the attention of government, Canberra appears more focused on traditional manufacturing such as cars.

Industry export group Austmine has been central to the sector's success (see story to the left) as has the presence of leading-edge miners.

"Australia has had to mine at the lowest possible cost to success," Austmine CEO Alan Broome says. "You have to have the best technology to do that, and that is what is being recognised overseas."

Broome says that for over 20 years he has educated and re-educated a succession of new government ministers, staffers and department bureaucrats.

"I have done a lot of re-educating and it is about time somebody got how important this sector could be," says Broome, who chairs numerous technology and energy businesses. "But we are not worrying so much about government, we only want to work with people who are excited to work with us."

Austrade has been active working with Austmine and celebrated the fact that 60 per cent of software used in the global mining industry is Australian. Today, South American countries are partnering with Australia to develop their own technology capabilities, while Canadian companies are active in takeovers of software developers.

The opportunity is enormous but the industry would like to see more focus on achieving national goals.

"We believe the Indian and Russian markets are where China was 10 to 12 years ago," says Industrea's Levison. "They have relatively old mining techniques and relatively small mines that would benefit from Australian products and services."

BROOME SWEEPS UP FOR MUTUAL BENEFIT
Alan Broome has a new office in a CBD high-rise in a move that mimics the way he has driven growth over two decades as chairman of the Austmine technology and services export group.
The 65-year-old chairs energy companies Buccaneer Energy, Carbonxt Group, Nimrodel Resources and Endocoal, and technology and services businesses Micromine, Inbye Mining Services, MI Power & Electronics and WorkPac.

He is bringing together the CEOs and small head offices of half a dozen of the companies in Sydney's Bligh Street to encourage networking and identify synergies in their operations.

"The office works a bit like a barrister's chambers," Broome says. "These are small and medium-sized companies that had been operating by themselves and had limited opportunities for cross-pollination of ideas.

"Together in one place, it is working like a five-day-a-week think tank."

Broome, a former metallurgist, has used his skills at Austmine in bringing together people from disparate businesses to help fuel a boom in technology exports.

"This has always been the way I choose to do what I do," he says. "At the end of the day I would rather be benefiting a lot of organisations as well as making a living."