P RE-CONCENTRA TI
ON AND ORE SORTING
NextOree has created a OG3 sensing unit able to measure the average grade of up to 50 t of material on a truck tray in 20-60 seconds
risk / high-capital project like, say, a mill expansion costing hundreds of millions, is no longer on the cards, so they are looking for a lower cost, innovative way of boosting output, which may involve leveraging new technology.“ This is where solutions like ours come in.” Anyone following this space will be familiar with NextOre’ s work, which, to this point, has leveraged magnetic resonance( MR) sensor technology in base metal operations.
MR technology comes with no material preparation requirement and provides grade estimates in seconds, NextOre claims. This helps deliver run of mine grade readings, providing“ complete transparency” for tracking downstream processing and allowing operations to selectively reject waste material.
Having initially commercialised systems to be fitted above conveyors, the company recently branched out into the in-pit mining space with the development of its OGX Sensor portfolio.
The OGX Sensor – which stands for open geometry and the stated diameter( X) of the sensor – first came to light in Australia as a 3-mdeveloped by CSIRO to be used in a wide unit material feeder setup in 2022. Testing of this unit laid the groundwork for a bigger installation – a 7-m-wide ruggedised antenna that can be positioned over an open-pit haul truck and manoeuvred using a crane and guidance systems.
This system successfully underwent testing in Australia before being shipped and tested at a large copper mine in Africa.
The advantage of both scenarios, just as with a conveyor, is the ability to make accurate, whole- of-sample grade measurements at high speeds.
Beal says the OG7 prototype sensor testing proved out the concept, while acknowledging that the wait time needed to position trucks before accurately scanning the payloads of 180-t- class and 140-t-class haul trucks at the mine was the biggest operational“ pain point”.
Now, however, it is the original 3-m-wide sensor originally designed by CSIRO the company is looking to put through its paces in an underground mining setup.
Beal initially shared details of this plan last year, and the company is now in a position where it could be shipping a unit from its New South Wales base to a mine in the state later in 2025.
Upgrades to the hardware – mainly focused on streamlining truck alignment and scan time, as well as ruggedising the sensor for an underground setting – and the addition of usersensing unit able to friendly software has led to a measure the average grade of up to 50 t of material on a truck tray in 20-60 seconds
“ The higher the grade the material is, the shorter the analysis time,” Beal explained.“ The closer the grade is to zero, the longer the duration required for scanning
.” The OG3 is still very much a prototype, but
Beal already has an eye on commercialising it.
“ The miners want to know that setting the unit up is going to be straightforward and quick, that it isn’ t complex to operate, and that the analysis process is fast,” he said.“ We have had this in mind with all the work we have been doing.”
The initial application is likely to be for 30-50-t mine trucks given the size of the sensor, with Beal saying the most likely first adopter has recognised that such analysis could potentially reduce the number of truck loads transported from the bottom of the mine to the top as well as the number of truck loads transported from a satellite orebody to a centralised processing plant, among other benefits.
He also sees potential for having the sensor monitor LHD bucket loads in the right application.
“ To be able to suspend this sensor in something like a cuddy that has available overhead space where a bucket could be positioned underneath, check the grade, and then carry on doing what it’ s doing could be a powerful implementation,” he said.
Outside of open geometry sensor developments, NextOre continues to service ongoing enquiries for its conveyor-based MR analysers. To date, the highes st capacity
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APRIL 2025 | International Mining 69