MECHANISED COAL
Eickhoff’s NSW Life Cycle and Service Centre
throat”, which, along with other improvements
scheduled over the same 2020-2021 time frame
and “2022+”, resulted in long-term potential of
2,550 t/h.
When it came to boosting longwall operating
hours, the SL 900s also got a mention.
Anglo aimed to move from an average 102
operating hours in 2018 to 120 over the longer term.
Over the 2020-2021 period, it anticipated the
increased uptake of automation on the new SL 900s
bringing another two operating hours to the party.
Anglo is, most likely, factoring in the SL 900’s
growing reputation across the globe and its
experience of working with Eickhoff when making
such predictions.
An SL 900 helped SUEK’s Yalevsky mine in
Russia achieve three world records over 2017-
2018, with the 1.627 Mt produced in August 2018
still at the top of the coal production record books.
“This really kicked off the machine’s global
reputation,” Dr Johannes Krings, Director Sales
E4A (Europe, America, Africa, Australia, Southeast
Asia) at Eickhoff, told IM. “It has ended up
becoming our best-selling machine this year and,
most likely, next year.”
Anglo has worked with Eickhoff for many years
at other operations, knowing how both its
machines and organisation operate.
It previously employed an Eickhoff SL 300
shearer at its Grasstree longwall before recently
replacing it with an automation-ready SL 750.
Performance improved with this change.
The two SL 900s to be deployed at Moranbah
will be a cut above this.
John Smallwood, former Managing Director of
Eickhoff Australia, talked IM through some of the
new elements to be bolted onto the SL 900s
destined for Moranbah.
“We are bringing together our top end of
technologies for this machine,” he said. “It will
use anti-collision radar, as well as infrared seam
detection and acoustic monitoring. These
elements will be incorporated into the
autonomous programs we run on the shearer, with
the intention to, first, collate the data and then
start analysing it before leveraging that data
within an automation program.”
Another new application the company is
collaborating with Anglo on at Moranbah is the
use of LiDAR on longwall shearers.
“The LiDAR was something they placed a lot of
emphasis on,” Smallwood said, referring to Anglo.
“What we have seen from initial testing
underground is the quality of the images coming
back from the LiDAR sensors is over and above
some of the other visualisation technologies we
have previously used.”
One would expect LiDAR to help locate, steer
and navigate equipment to the richest part of the
coal seam with the highest accuracy, while
avoiding potential danger hotspots.
“With the exception of LiDAR, we have
introduced these elements separately on different
machines in a staged process, but this would be
the first machine to operate in an underground
coal environment where all elements will be
integrated,” Smallwood said.
Ahead of going underground, this new shearer
will be run through its paces at Eickhoff Australia’s
new Life Cycle Management Centre, in New South
Wales (see more details on page 84).
One of the SL 900s is already at this centre
being reassembled and run through its paces,
while the second was dispatched from Eickhoff’s
Bochum facility in Germany, in August, expected
to arrive two months later at the facility in
Australia, according to Smallwood.
Without any holdups, both machines would be
delivered to Moranbah by the end of the year,
fulfilling some of the potential Anglo previously
told investors about.
Following Australia’s lead
If it wasn’t for the onset of COVID-19, Eickhoff
would have been celebrating the deployment of a
new CM45 continuous miner at the PVK5 coal
mine in India.
This machine was delivered, reassembled at
mine site and “no-load” commissioned on surface
by Eickhoff Bochum technicians earlier this year
but, as IM went to press, it was still above ground
awaiting commissioning in the underground mine.
Smallwood said: “Unfortunately or fortunately,
the timing was such that we completed the
surface commissioning just as COVID-19 was
ramping up. Our guys were naturally removed
from India in the middle of March.”
When the operation re-starts, the continuous
miner could, in theory, be underground at PVK5
within a week.
The company has been in continual
communications with its dealer in India and has
set up remote capability to ensure the machine
can start up smoothly without Eickhoff Bochum
engineers travelling to site.
This situation has been helped by the fact
Gainwell India, a former Caterpillar dealer now
looking after Eickhoff’s continuous miners in the
India market, is also the mine contractor on the
bord and pillar application.
Krings said of Gainwell India: “We know we
have a team to rely on that has more than a
decade of experience in continuous miners. They
are now our exclusive partner in India.”
Asked whether the India market was receptive
to taking up new autonomous technologies,
Smallwood referenced the CM45 at PVK5 and
Gainwell India’s wider knowledge of the global
coal market.
“They are certainly keen to utilise new
technologies and are aware of automation in
applications around the world,” he said of
Gainwell India.
The dealer, prior to the onset of COVID-19, also
visited South Africa to see some of Eickhoff’s most
technologically advanced continuous miners in
action.
“This machine itself (the CM45) is capable of
the next level of automation,” Smallwood said. “It
will start off with a data reporting package onboard,
and we will begin collating that data on a
shift-by-shift basis. From here, there will be a stepby-step
approach to utilise the full digitalisation
and automation capabilities of that machine.”
Striving for 100% automation
The step-by-step approach the leading longwall
coal miners in Australia have taken has got them
close to the point of fully autonomous operations,
but, as mentioned earlier, not quite.
Smallwood, as former head of Eickhoff’s
Australia subsidiary, has seen this situation evolve
over the last two to three years, with Australia
82 International Mining | SEPTEMBER 2020