A brand new fleet for Lady Loretta

Glencore awarded Redpath Australia the Lady Loretta zinc mine contract in December 2017, encompassing the entire underground and surface operations and associated facilities management. Redpath’s responsibilities range from crushing the ore it extracts and loading it onto road trains for haulage to Glencore’s processing facility in Mount Isa, to managing the camp and keeping lawns manicured. Redpath also holds full statutory responsibility for the operation, a unique role for a contractor typically tasked with driving a decline or undertaking development and production. The broad scope intrigued John McKinstry, who came onboard as Redpath’s operations manager for Lady Loretta. McKinstry has managed mines across Australia and North America during a 30-year career. “Operating a mine is an exciting proposition for Redpath,” says McKinstry, the senior site executive at Lady Loretta. “A normal contractor scope is to put down a heading or undertake a specific task, but we have a much broader scope here. The infrastructure’s already in place, so it’s quite a different role for a contractor. Being a life-of-mine contract is unusual in itself. Most mines evolve as you develop and find more ore, but this orebody is very well-defined.”

Two Sandvik DD421 jumbos with 10/16 split feeds have outperformed since commissioning. Redpath has consistently achieved 400 development metres per month using one Sandvik DD421, with the second serving as a backup and handling any rehabilitation work. “We’ve had an excellent run out of the jumbos since they’ve been here,” McKinstry says. “From day one, we’ve consistently exceeded expectations that we had.”

Redpath’s motivation for implementing automated loading was simple: regain the productivity lost during each shift change. “There’s a long period of time from when a blast occurs to when you can re-enter the mine,” McKinstry says. “If we can operate those machines from the surface over shift change, we can pick up up to a couple of hours a day in productivity. The other thing about AutoMine is that it does the same thing time and time and time again without banging the walls. It really does just run the perfect line each time.” Redpath runs three levels at any one time, optimizing the loading process. From the comfort of a remote hut on a nearby level, operator Tony Rosvall trams ore to the stockpile with precision. He’s developed an appreciation for AutoMine’s mapping capability.

“It can show you where you are in a stope,” Rosvall says. “If you get out there and if there’s a bit of dust around you can get half lost and you’re sort of not sure where you are. With the AutoMine at least you can see where you are, you know where the walls are and you know your angle. You’ve got a level in there and you can go ‘Oh, I’m about to tip over.’ You can correct yourself, so that’s good.” The connectivity provided by a Wi-Fi network underground has not only enabled Redpath to implement the automated loading from the surface, the contractor can also monitor and manage its fleet in real time through My Sandvik Productivity, the cloud-based version of OptiMine Monitoring. OptiMine has been synonymous with equipment monitoring in the Australian mining industry since its first installation in 2014. My Sandvik Productivity mobile fleet monitoring allows Redpath to keep tabs on equipment condition online and act more quickly to remedy any issues that arise. The solution provides detailed, readily analyzed data. Each connected loader collects data onboard and uploads it when it comes within range of a Wi-Fi antenna. The data can be accessed from any computer or tablet.

McKinstry believes having better-informed operators who understand their equipment and its limitations will reduce downtime. “We hope that by giving operators the feedback that they’ll change their behaviour in their operation of the machines,” McKinstry says. “And if we can address it early, then I believe we’re going to get better availability out of this equipment.” Timothy sees vast potential in the equipment monitoring solution. “The opportunity to jump online and have a look and see exactly where that loader is or that piece of plant is at any one time, see how our operators are operating that equipment, see if they’re operating that equipment effectively and efficiently, and being able to pick up those very minor improvements if something isn’t going the way that it’s meant to, and then being able to share that knowledge across our fleet, across our operators, it will drive improvements across this mine site,” Timothy says. “It will help to keep our prices down and keep our productivity up.”