Modern Mining December 2020

BRMO is currently producing just over 4-million tonnes per annum, the majority of which is exported. Ore is predominantly railed to Port Elizabeth and Saldanha Bay for export. The plan, says Lerm, is to expand output to about 5-million tonnes per annum within the next five years. One of the key enablers will be the implementation of the company’s tech- nology roadmap, which is currently anchored by the rollout of the Mobilaris Mining Intelligence system from Epiroc South Africa. Why Mobilaris? One of the key levers that the mine can control is its cost per tonne. BRMO is therefore constantly seeking for various ways to reduce cost, improve efficiencies and safety. “To achieve this, we realised that we needed to make use of technology, but at the same time we had to manage the risk of iden- tifying and implementing the different technologies available successfully,” explains Lerm. This was one of the triggers that led to the estab- lishment of Black Rock’s Technology Office, which focuses specifically on identifying and implement- ing various technologies across the company’s operations. In developing its Technology Roadmap, one of our biggest requirements was the need for more granular information in its underground working areas. After a thorough market research, the com- pany identified Mobilaris Mining Intelligence as the ideal solution for its specific requirements. “One of the main reasons why we chose Epiroc and the Mobilaris Mining Intelligence is that their system is agnostic and very well advanced to inte- grate various OEMs’ equipment and systems. Given the pace at which technology is advancing and changing, this was key for us to ensure that we can keep up and adopt accordingly as the need arises,” explains Lerm.

Another reason for going the Mobilaris route was that Epiroc was also extremely accommodative to allow BRMO to give its input with respect to the development of the system to ensure that the mine’s needs were taken into account from a system func- tionality perspective. “Although a lot of unknowns were and are still being discovered as we go, Epiroc and Mobilaris are always willing to improve their product as well as supporting it. Both the interna- tional team in Sweden and the local guys really take our operational needs into account to give us the best practical solution in support of our business strategy,” says Lerm. The Mobilaris system has thus far been rolled out on a selected portion of Nchwaning 3, which is BRMO’s biggest shaft. Initially scheduled for February this year, the implementation was only done in November this year as a result of COVID-19 influenced delays. “We basically started full testing during the first week of November. Before that we had done some functionality testing with the project team,” he says. Lerm says the rollout of the Mobilaris system has several streams. “We first need to rollout an under- ground Wi-Fi network, which will enable us to collect and transmit data. We are therefore currently rolling

A live report from the Mobilaris system.

The Mobilaris system has thus far been rolled out on a selected portion of Nchwaning 3, which is BRMO’s biggest shaft.

December 2020  MODERN MINING  13