HIGH PROFILE
“We have been making some changes to the
programming, to the safety circuit, the laser
circuit, etc, but they’ve been performing well,” he
said. “We’ve even drilled a few hundred metre
shifts with one of the robot rigs.”
He provided some colour to this performance:
“The rod pulling process is at least as quick as it
is with the Boart Longyear rod handler and is a
lot more consistent as you are taking the human
element out of it.
“The existing rigs across the underground
industry, whether they have total manual
handling or are using the Boart Longyear rod
handler, still need a drill assistant or driller in
there plucking the rod out of the rod handler and
putting it away. That can get tiring.”
Accidents can happen when this tiredness
occurs.
“The robot will, in the end, always be that bit
quicker, as it is consistent over a longer period of
time and never gets tired,” D’Astoli added.
Shift change opportunities
The automation elements on these drill rigs are
not only removing personnel from the danger
zones, they are also providing a productivity
boost.
D’Astoli feels the value driver comes with
being able to drill throughout shift changes and
other times where manual drilling would
normally have stopped.
“One of the biggest impediments to
production in the underground environment is
how many hours you can drill in a 12-hour day,”
he said. “Quite often it is a lot less than you
think. That can be due to ventilation issues,
water issues, dewatering issues, heat, etc.
“The biggest improvement from a productivity
point of view available to us is being able to drill
and pull rods between shift changes, crib breaks
and those types of things. Or, if the ventilation
system goes down, personnel will move away
from the area, and allow the drill to drill
autonomously. That is where the productivity
gains are going to come from.
“All of this leads to being able to drill more
hours over a shift.”
The company is not finished automating,
though, with D’Astoli saying it intends to further
leverage this robotised drilling and rod pulling
ability.
“With Wi-Fi in the mines, it is at the point
where you could be able to take that to the next
level and have someone sitting on the surface
controlling the rig,” D’Astoli said.
“Or, you might have a similar application to
the way semi-autonomous underground boggers
(LHDs) work in a block cave mine, where the
operators are in a controlled environment and
one operator might be operating three boggers
at a time.”
That is some way ahead.
For the time being, the company is focused on
switching out all of the manual rigs it has
delivered to Rosebery and Tanami with the semiautonomous
ones.
Each new rig is a large undertaking for the
company, with the learnings from Rosebery to
Tanami – and vice versa – reflected in every build.
This is where being aligned with major
companies such as Newmont and MMG comes in
handy.
“MMG have been very understanding of the
process we are going through,” D’Astoli said.
“They came and visited us in Ballarat, pre-
COVID-19, to see how we were getting along.
Newmont have been exactly the same; very
supportive giving us the time and space to
deliver.”
Major attraction
While the PDAC debut excited lots of attention,
D’Astoli is keen to foster the relationship with
these two companies further, in addition to
aligning with other major companies – and major
mines – in the future.
“They’re the ones that probably own the
bigger, lower-cost mines, which is where we want
to be,” he said. “It is those orebodies that
demand the amount of drilling where it makes
sense to automate as much of the process as
possible,” D'Astoli said.
“When you set up these long-term contracts to
deploy such technology, you want to make sure
the mine has a long life ahead of it and the
owner is not going to be chopping and changing
the budget from year to year.”
Asked whether the wider industry is willing to
pay for such innovation, D’Astoli was resolute in
his answer.
“For a company really focused on safety, they
Titeline’s was the only tender back in 2017 that
presented a viable solution to hands-free drill
rod loading and unloading at Rosebery, MMG
says
are not going to be knocked out by the price of
this solution,” he said.
Surface safety
This is not all Titeline is interested in at the
moment.
Titeline has to this point in its underground
automation journey been helped along the way
by Chile-based Exploration Drill Masters (EDM).
EDM, which Titeline owns 50% of, has been
fabricating the frames and other components for
these new rigs before they head to Australia for
final assembly.
But the Santiago-based company is working
on a new development of its own.
Its patent-pending EDM rod-feeder system for
handling drill pipe has been used across the
globe as an add-on to existing fleets, many of
them being used on Titeline rigs.
D’Astoli says operators can park this solution
up behind any top drive drill rig in Australia and
remove 90% of the manual handling risks that
come with the handling of diamond drill pipe to
and from the drill string.
The EDM Mark I has already achieved this, but
Mark II will further improve this solution,
providing a bridge between manual handling and
full hands-free solutions, he says.
“The national fleet in Australia mainly consists
of top drive drill rigs and there is no real handsfree
solution on the market that does not
currently affect the productivity of these rigs in
the majority of applications,” he said.
“The EDM Mark II rod feeder fills the gap
while a new, hands-free solution is being
developed.” IM
48 International Mining | SEPTEMBER 2020