Minerals Transport Infrastructure

With the exception of gold projects, large mineral deposits require bulk product transport infrastructure to get the product to market. On average they say it takes 30 years from discovery to development for a large mineral deposit.  Most of this time is taken up building certainty and gaining the approvals required in order to build enough confidence to invest the capital. At any one time there are lots of projects that are waiting for certainty around the infrastructure and in many cases there are whole mineral regions that remain undeveloped.

Continue reading “Minerals Transport Infrastructure”

MEC Underground Coal Delivers Mine Planning Solutions

Faced with tight customer deadlines, MEC Mining recently delivered multiple mine planning and production scenarios for a major underground coal producer. The scope included a “first principles” mine design and bottom-up productivity review for Continuous Miners and Longwall operation. Coal reserving and production scheduling of multiple scenarios were executed with XPAC which delivered the required inputs to financial modelling.

Continue reading “MEC Underground Coal Delivers Mine Planning Solutions”

The machines are coming!

Automation in mining has been very slow to catch on. The reason is that much of the present batch of automated machines follow a sequence rather than think for themselves. When a sensor detects something out of line, safety protocols intervene and the sequence stops, undermining their cost effectiveness. Mining is a very dynamic environment and little things like rocks on the road present a complex challenge for a pre-programmed machine.

Continue reading “The machines are coming!”

What drives innovation?

Since the federal government has been bombarding us with political messages about innovation, I started to reflecting on what really drives innovation. I can’t speak for other industries but I would like to tell you my story. Everyone knows that the mining industry is tough right now. Back in 2012, MEC (my consulting company) collectively decided that we needed to be innovative to remain competitive as the mining boom slowed down.

Continue reading “What drives innovation?”

From the Director’s chair

I’m writing to you today from my new desk in our open plan office. It’s quite a cosy layout, with everyone effectively sitting on one great big long centre desk. Prior to our move I had an enclosed office, which at the time I thought was great because nobody hear confidential phone calls or see my screen when. Well now I’m fully converted to open plan. It can get a little noisy as we don’t have any policies about silence and making phone calls in quiet rooms, and in fact, a little banter is encouraged. The brilliant part is that now everyone knows what is going on with everyone else’s work. Collaboration has really lifted and the time we spend in meetings has declined because you can just yell out. Everything seems to happen faster in this environment.

Continue reading “From the Director’s chair”

Why grads don’t operate equipment anymore

I started my career 18 years ago on a salary of $50,000 which was good money at the time. Mining was in a downturn and there weren’t too many jobs around. I sent 85 job applications and got one interview which thankfully went well and I got the job. Throughout the early part of my career a truck operator would get paid around $85,000 and most grads aspired to operating equipment for 6 months, motivated in large part by the extra money. Senior engineers in the 90’s were also actually mostly senior, many had aged enough to go a little grey or bald so it was understood that career aspirations would most likely take a while to play out.

Continue reading “Why grads don’t operate equipment anymore”