IM 2018 January 18 | Page 5

THE LEADER VO LU M E 1 3 • N U M B E R 1 To buy or retrofit? Founder and Publisher John Chadwick B.Sc. Min Eng Email: [email protected] Editor Paul Moore B.Sc (Hons), M.Sc. Email: [email protected] Editorial Board Professor Malcolm Scoble Robert E. Hallbauer Chair in Mining Engineering., University of BC, Vancouver Peter Knights Professor and Head of Division of Mining Stephen Stone West One Management Perth, Western Australia Dr. Andrew M. Robertson President, Robertson GeoConsultants Vancouver, Canada. Ed McCord Project Consultant Caterpillar Global Mining, USA Jason Nitz Fleet Management & Dispatch Superintendent Newmont Mining Corporation, USA Dr Terry Mudder Managing Director, TIMES Ltd, USA Simon Tarbutt Consultant, Santiago, Chile Dr. Mike Daniel Comminution Process Consultant CMD Consulting Pty Ltd Editorial Enquiries: Tel: [phone] Fax [phone] Advertising Sales: Phil Playle Email: [email protected] [phone] Advertising Production Lynne Lane Email: [email protected] Design & Production Trevor Sheldon Email: [email protected] Circulation Enquiries [email protected] Website: www.im-mining.com Annual Subscription Enquiries: Emma Smith Email: [email protected] Annual Subscription UK and Europe £160, €230 Rest of the world US$270 International Mining (ISSN No: 1747-146X) is published monthly by Team Publishing Ltd, GBR and is distributed in the USA by Asendia USA, 17B South Middlesex Avenue, Monroe NJ 08831 and additional mailing offices. Periodicals postage paid at New Brunswick NJ. POSTMASTER: send address changes to International Mining, 17B South Middlesex Avenue, Monroe NJ 08831 Printed by The Manson Group, St Albans © Team Publishing Ltd 2018 ISSN 1747 -146X IM uses, as preference, SI units throughout, so, for exam ple, all tonnes are metric unless otherwise stated. All dollars are US unless otherwise stated etrofitting autonomy to conventional mining trucks rather than buying “all in” new autonomous trucks is now the name of the game, for several reasons – obviously lower cost, but also the ability to utilise existing fleets for the benefits of autonomous operation, and to get those benefits faster. The trend towards retrofitting was dramatically illustrated on December 18 as IM went to press, when Rio Tinto announced that it will expand its fleet of autonomous haul trucks at its world-class iron ore operations in the Pilbara by more than 50% by 2019 after signing agreements with leading manufacturers Caterpillar and Komatsu to convert traditional trucks to autonomous vehicles. A total of 29 Komatsu haul trucks will be retrofitted with Autonomous Haulage System (AHS) technology starting in 2018. The project at the Brockman 4 operation is scheduled for completion by mid-2019, allowing the mine to run entirely in AHS mode once fully deployed. A further 19 Caterpillar haul trucks at the Marandoo mine will also be retrofitted starting mid-2018 for completion by the end of 2019. The retrofit is significant for Rio Tinto as it marks the first time AHS technology has been deployed by the company on Caterpillar haul trucks. Also significant is the fact that Marandoo will also install Cat Command for hauling software for operation of the autonomous fleets and in addition use a mine-wide implementation of Fleet, the Caterpillar scheduling-and-assignment and material tracking system, which will mark the first use of that system by Rio Tinto. Rio Tinto Iron Ore Chief Executive Chris Salisbury said: “We are excited to be starting a new chapter in our automation journey with a valued long-term partner in Caterpillar and we are proud to be extending our successful partnership with Komatsu on this world-first retrofitting initiative.” He added: “Rapid advances in technology are continuing to revolutionise the way large-scale mining is undertaken across the globe. The expansion of our autonomous fleet via retrofitting helps to improve safety, unlocks significant productivity gains, and continues to cement Rio Tinto as an industry leader in automation and innovation. We are studying future additions to our autonomous fleet in the Pilbara, based on value, to help deliver our share of $5 billion of additional free cash flow for the company by 2021.” In a Rio December 4 Investor Seminar in Sydney, he had earlier stated: “In terms of the retrofit we are very clear: first of all, we want to make sure we are extracting value out of the capital we have already installed and I’ve talked a lot about some of the work we’ve done on payload and improving utilisation and so on, and we want to make sure we do extract that first. The second point I would make is we are going to proceed in an appropriate manner. We have done the first maxi retrofit, we wanted to make sure we understood that process, and we will move forward with a retrofit strategy, but again being really clear, it is not just about retrofitting to every truck we have it’s actually got to be on a value basis. The fleets are at R different ages, they are used in different applications, we want to make sure it is focused on value, not just about fitting new toys.” In 2016, on average, each of Rio Tinto’s autonomous haul trucks operated an additional 1,000 hours and at 15% lower load and haul unit cost than conventional haul trucks. About 20% of the existing fleet of almost 400 haul trucks in the Pilbara is AHS-enabled. Following the completion of the projects with Komatsu and Caterpillar, Rio Tinto will have more than 130 autonomous trucks, representing about 30% of the fleet. From a safety perspective, automation has been shown to reduce the number of people exposed to potential hazards as well as reduce the number of critical risk scenarios. Of course, retrofitting is not new in the industry. Autonomous Solutions Inc (ASI) has been applying its OEM agnostic autonomous truck retrofit solution to Anglo American’s truck fleets in South Africa and elsewhere as part of that company’s FutureSmart™ initiative. Caterpillar has developed autonomous mining truck technology for an expanded range of models, including its own range, but also other brands. In early 2017 at a Cat ® MineStar™ Command for hauling demonstration at the company’s facility in Arizona, Caterpillar announced a project to adapt hardware and software for retrofitting the Komatsu 930E mining truck with Cat autonomous technology, stating: “This interoperability initiative is driven by mining companies’ goal of reducing mining costs using their existing fleets.” It seems Caterpillar knew this wave of retrofitting was on its way, though it has been successful in selling its new Cat 793F CMD autonomous trucks in the Canadian oil sands and in South America now, on top of FMG Solomon and BHP Jimblebar in Australia, bringing its AHS total to over 100 new machines. BHP having Caterpillar as a global strategic partner, is no doubt looking at the retrofit option at multiple sites. So, it seems that the big show in town now for the autonomous solution providers is retrofitting; whether the system is provided by Caterpillar, Komatsu, ASI or someone else, and whatever brand of truck the autonomy retrofit is being applied to. Arguably, it is a far larger immediate market for the technology than selling new autonomous machines. And things are moving fast in this market. Hitachi has just announced very successful tests of its AHS technology at Meandu, Liebherr is working with ASI on its autonomous truck solution, and BELAZ is rolling out autonomy through partner VIST Group at OCP in Morocco and soon with SUEK at a Russian coal mine. Paul Moore Editor [email protected] JANUARY 2018 | International Mining 3