Automation Proof of concept
Used as a testing ground within Agnico Eagle’s larger LaRonde Mining Complex, LaRonde Zone 5 (LZ5) has been testing Sandvik’s AutoMine platform since 2018. Nicholas Kenny talks to Luc Girard, mining operations superintendent at LZ5 for Agnico Eagle, and David Hallett, vice-president of automation at Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions, about how Sandvik’s AutoMine solution has benefi tted LZ5’s production and how the company’s AutoMine Concept Vehicle is being used to showcase its vision of the future of mining automation and digitalisation.
B
ack in 2018, a new kind of mining technology was brought into operation at the LaRonde Complex, located in the Abitibi region of north- western Quebec, Canada – specifically, in the LaRonde Zone 5 (LZ5) mine. The whole mining complex is owned and operated by Agnico Eagle, and the main LaRonde mine is the company’s oldest operating mine, achieving commercial production in 1988. LZ5 was acquired by Agnico Eagle in 2003, based just to the west of the main mine, and achieved commercial production as an underground operation on 1 June 2018, with ore processed at the LaRonde Complex’s processing facilities.
The LZ5 site has been used since then to trial new technologies, as it did in 2018, when Sandvik’s
AutoMine system was implemented to introduce autonomous vehicles to the mine’s operations. Bringing to mind self-driving Teslas, Amazon drone swarms or militarised robots, ‘automation’ is the very watchword of the future, and few sectors have more to gain from this technology than the mining industry. Adoption has grown steadily in the past few years – in 2019, a year after LZ5 began implementing the AutoMine system, Market Research Future valued the global mining automation industry at $2.31bn. By 2025, the market value is expected to reach $4.03bn. An engineering group involved in mining and rock excavation, rock processing, metal cutting and materials technology, Sandvik’s AutoMine platform is the world-leading solution for fully autonomous
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World Mining Frontiers /
www.nsenergybusiness.com
Sandvik Mining and Rock Solutions
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