PROCESS CONTROL
The Kairos Mining JV between Honeywell and Codelco is unique in the industry . This shows the integrated remote operations centre of El Teniente mine in Rancagua , 130 km south of Santiago
global miners are now working with Honeywell in Chile and elsewhere to roll out similar systems based on what was learnt through Kairos Mining , including replacement of existing systems .
“ Following the initial tests , Codelco then started some tests focused on APC and remote operational control at Andina in 2010 / 2011 using at ROC in Los Andes . There were some challenges at this project ,
which was followed by the first big success at Mina Ministro Hales ( MMH ) and followed by El Teniente in 2018 . At MMH it was driven by a contractor strike in 2015 which blocked the roads to the operation so the plant operators could not reach the site . And so with no shift changeover the plant had to shut down . Codelco asked Honeywell initially for a temporary solution to be able to avoid this type of scenario in the future – so at that point it was operational continuity they wanted not just more productivity .” A test was set up in 2016 where MMH was remotely operated from the Honeywell office in Santiago as all the required equipment was there – it worked for a few
hours then Codelco allowed it to run for a week , then a month , and it stayed like that until late 2019 when all the functions were moved to an all new Codelco ROC for all Codelco Norte operations in Calama , including Chuquicamata Underground , Radomiro Tomic , Salvador , Andina and MMH .
The main enabler for remote operations centres is to have a plant that is able to run without human intervention rather than just moving the operators to a ROC where they have the same function just located further away . In a true ROC the operators are just supervising the plant not running it . The system is secure as it is connected via fibre optic cable . Codelco also implemented change management plans so that there was better coordination between the ROC and all the onsite teams so that the operational departments from milling to flotation were no longer running as separate silos . But helping operators understand that APC is not a threat to them is also important .
So what is different technology wise to make a true ROC system work ? “ Two things need to be added . While the basic DCS instrumentation stays in place as there is nothing new there , it is all about the APC layer on top of the DCS . While that has also been available technology for some time , what is new is being able to guarantee that those automation layers are operating the plant most of the time – up to 98 or even 99 % of the time . This is a big difference from having monthly reports that might say APC of the SAG mill was used 76 % of the time . The new system knows when APC has been disabled , and even