Yeah, I coined (pun inadvertently created) the term TradMi first. Think of me as the Web3 Shakespeare, just gonna keep making up words until one makes it into Urban Dictionary.
Can we extract (oops another one) any value from advancements in Traditional Mining Operations and apply them to digital asset mining BTC or ETH?
THE MINING INDUSTRY is about as old as civilization itself. From the Bronze Age to the Industrial Age to today, every time humans make significant advances in extracting natural resources from the earth, it shapes the rest of the world as we know it.
Without question, mining will again be front and center at a key moment in history as the world transitions to a low-carbon future. Metals like copper and zinc are required for this evolution, and Teck Resources Limited (Teck) is using innovative technologies to supply the metals needed for this global transition in ways that are more efficient, safe, and sustainable. The organization-wide effort is called RACE21™ and it’s simultaneously transforming the company and driving change in the industry.
Such evolution comes at a crucial moment. Copper, with its unique conductive properties, is critical for the global transition to green energy. As solar panels, wind turbines, power transmission, electric vehicles, and battery storage are widely adopted, the demand for copper is expected to more than double by 2050. Natural resources are, by nature, limited, so to meet the needs of global electrification, Teck must leave no copper behind.
Digging In
Getting copper out of the ground starts with drilling and blasting to extract ore, which is then hauled on trucks to a processing site. Ore goes into a crusher to be broken down for processing and gets distributed on a conveyer system based on its properties. The ore bits are added to a slurry with reagents that foam up and bring the copper to the surface to be skimmed off.
For any mining operator, such processing is typically the biggest bottleneck in production—and therefore efficiency. Teck had years of relevant data from sensors and equipment across its full portfolio of operations, with events recorded down to the millisecond. It just wasn’t sure what exactly to do with all of it. That’s where the RACE21™ initiative came in: It was the prerogative the company needed to make use of terabytes of data that was just collecting dust.
By using machine learning and data analytics to gather key insights from this wealth of information, Teck, with support from its partners including BCG who worked hand in hand with Teck on mill optimization at HVC, developed a way to transform the company’s entire business. RACE21™’s end goal: utilize data to continually optimize operations through a four-pronged process:
Renew: Teck’s technology needed to be unified and modernized. A key part of setting the initiative up for success, for example, was upgrading wireless site infrastructure to accommodate the sensors needed for advanced analytics.
Automate: Finding ways to supplement human ingenuity with valuable automation technologies was essential.
Connect: All of Teck’s disparate systems connected to create a collaborative digital platform for real-time analysis to create dynamic and predictive models and improve production.
Empower: The transformation at Teck wasn’t just about technology, but also re-designing the operating model to attract, train, retain—and, most importantly, continually empower—the workforce of the future.
“All digital transformations at their core are people transformations. We’re now using these technologies to augment and support the work that people are doing.”
Putting RACE21™ to the Test
Stretching for miles off Highway 97 in south-central British Columbia is Teck Highland Valley Copper Operations (HVC), a large open-pit copper mine. At HVC, managers in the mill noticed that productivity and efficiency fluctuated, but they weren’t sure exactly how to optimize operations in response. Mining is so complex and variable-laden that it’s not always possible for humans to deduce the correct patterns.
Highland Valley was the perfect place to put RACE21™ to the test.
Extensive planning went into harnessing sensors and data to optimize operations. From drilling and blasting to downstream grinding and recovery, prescriptive models were developed and implemented across the end-to-end value-chain.
Unlike “pristine” digital environments, the team had to solve for many unknowns with creative solutions: for example, deploying 20,000 radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags to better analyze and model downstream ore movement. Even with the models developed, they still had to be refined and enhanced through robust field testing.
Critical to this work was ongoing communication and partnership with Teck’s operators. Alongside building trust in the data-driven recommendations, their participation allowed the team to further enhance the models—and even catch anomalies in the data through their extensive real-world experience.
Using the data-driven recommendations, operators can now optimize throughput by fine-tuning ore blend supplying Teck’s semi-autogenous (SAG) and autogenous (AG) grinding mills—huge rotating drums that grind hand-sized rocks into fine powder—based on rock size and hardness. The addition of vibration sensors and site developed advanced process control (APC) allows for automatic, real-time micro-adjustments based on the optimal impact angle recommended by the data feed. The models are also helping to improve the recovery rate of Teck’s flotation tanks. Data on grind composition informs more than 40 factors, from pH level to reagent use and froth velocity, leading to a significant increase in the percentage of copper that’s captured from each slurry.
Unearthing New Value
The results at Highland Valley were faster and more impactful to key baseline metrics than Teck could have hoped for. The mill has marked a 7 percent increase in copper production based on the model recommendations. Productivity records are constantly being broken.
“Any time you have very complex flowsheets and extensive data, you know right off the bat that machine learning is going to give you insights and advice on optimization opportunities,” Brouwer says. “What BCG brought and applied were models for optimization.”
The testing ground was one specific copper mine, but the company’s transformation has become universal as advanced analytics drive results across its copper, zinc, and steelmaking coal operations. In fact, Teck now has about 800 different data streams from its production sites flowing into one central cloud repository. At the same time, the RACE21™ team has grown from just a handful of people to a broader group that are using analytics to help Teck’s business run smarter and safer. This includes analyzing data to drive efficiencies in Teck’s logistics system—like moving products from mine to port, reducing the risk of heavy and light vehicle interactions, and enhancing the capacity of its water treatment facilities.
Moving forward, Teck is using RACE21™ to continue fostering an innovative mindset, where employees imagine ways to improve operations and can then test these ideas in a real-world setting. RACE21™ technology and innovation is being put to use in many aspects of Teck’s business from geoscience, mine planning, and mobile equipment maintenance.
But this program is about more than just theory work or simple cost-savings. RACE21™ is allowing Teck to meet the challenges of the world’s growing copper needs—not only reducing the amount of copper that’s lost to mining inefficiencies, but also minimizing Teck’s impact on the environment.
The world needs more copper than ever before, without sacrificing sustainability. As it turns out, Teck had the answers to those pressing problems all along. They were just buried beneath the organization’s data surface—waiting for someone to find a new way to dig them up.
Lesson for the day: Be the first or come in 2nd and be the first loser.
https://www.wired.com/sponsored/story/how-data-science-is-revolutionizing-the-mining-industry/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=paid-spon-bostonconsultinggroup-&utm_brand=wired&utm_social-type=paid
