UNDERGROUND LOAD & HAUL
A Cat R1700 LHD loading a truck underground
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Paul Moore spoke to the leading players in underground load
and haul fleets for their take on trends, and of course currently
the move to battery electric is a major industry driver
peaking at The Electric Mine conference
this year in Toronto, Samantha Espley,
Director, Mining Technology & Innovation
at Vale outlined the breadth of its investment in
new underground equipment and is a good
example of how some miners are willing to trial
innovations, though Vale of course and Inco
before it have a long track record of using new
technologies. Vale still operates eight 55 t
Kiruna trolley diesel electric trucks at its
Coleman and Creighton mines, with the first
machines commissioned in 1996. These are
hybrid trucks that have a small diesel engine
S
Kirkland Lake Gold’s Macassa mine has the
largest BEV fleet in the world in terms of unit
numbers and range of OEMs represented with
24 LHDs and 9 trucks currently running and
over 80% of production now done with battery
machines. Availability of the trucks is typically
over 90% and the LHDs 80 to 90%
8 International Mining | JUNE 2019
utilised only to move the truck when not trolley
connected. Vale estimates it saves about 1
million litres of diesel per year and at Coleman
there are an estimated 32,000 trips made with
the Kiruna trucks every year.
Moving forward to 2017, the first battery
electric LHD for Vale was commissioned at
Coleman, an Artisan Vehicles 153 (now part of
Sandvik). This machine is just part of a wider
trial of battery machines to address heat and
ventilation constraints at Coleman, Creighton
and CC mines. As an example the Artisan LHD is
deployed in the 170 OB at Coleman during high
heat days and at Creighton,
the use of EVs in the deep
levels will allow work to
continue in ventilation
constrained areas. Finally at CC
mine, BEVs will allow the
development of the Phase 1
project while not impacting
production. In addition to the
Artisan machine, Vale has also
been trialling an Epiroc ST7
battery LHD at Coleman, where
it has also commissioned an
Artisan Vehicles Z40
underground battery truck. For
both machines, the miner says
learnings include positive
operator feedback, improved
air quality, improved noise
levels, and comparable
power/torque, even going as
far as to say "there is no reason to go back to
diesel." The major focus now is at the Creighton
Deep project, with the pilot fleet including two 8
yd 3 battery LHDs, one 42 t battery truck as well
as eight support and utility battery vehicles
from MacLean and others. This project Vale says
is an ideal use case with high heat, limited and
declining cooling ability, ventilation issues and a
long life of mine plan.
Going long term, Vale estimates it will need
over 50 electric mining machines by 2021 within
the North Atlantic underground mining region
alone. These include the CC mine Phase 2,
Victor/Nickel Rim Deep project and the Garson-
McConnell orebody.
To give another example of the scale of
battery mining machine deployment that has
already taken place in the industry, at the
Macassa operation of Kirkland Lake Gold, as
outlined in the company’s updated Technical
Report from April 2019 the battery electric fleet
includes 10 EB 300 LHDs from RDH Scharf, five
Epiroc ST2G LHDs, five Epiroc ST7 LHDs, two
Artisan 153 LHDs, two Artisan A4 LHDs, five
Epiroc MT2010 trucks, and three Artisan Z40
trucks. The fact that this is a profitable
operation surely shows the potential of battery
electric in the near future. There is also a small
diesel fleet but it is dwarfed by the BEV line-up.
Kirkland Lake Gold in the report also states:
“Macassa Mine has been on the forefront in the
use of Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) and was
the first mine in Ontario to implement BEVs as
the standard for the LHD and truck fleet.
Kirkland Lake Gold has partnerships with
battery equipment manufacturers to develop
and design BEVs, as opposed to retrofitting
diesel powered equipment. Macassa Mine will
continue to replace its fleet of underground
diesel equipment with BEVs as required…the
company will be proposing a Second Life
Battery Program that may provide the benefits
of reducing the dependency of energy on the
grid and find a use for the spent batteries from
the current operations and avoid disposal.
Reduction of energy demand from the grid has
benefits in lowering the peak on the grid and
reduce environmental impact by re-using
batteries that can be served in a secondary
application when no longer serviceable in the
primary applications in the equipment on site.”
Codelco trialling Komatsu hybrid
Codelco says it will trial a Komatsu Mining
hybrid LHD at its El Teniente underground
copper mine, in Chile, as the company looks to
reduce the amount of greenhouse gas it emits
from its operations. The diesel-electric hybrid is
likely to increase productivity by 10-20% and cut
diesel consumption by at least 25%, Codelco
said.
The LHD is just one of a number of pieces of
new equipment the company is bringing into the
El Teniente operation to reduce its carbon