South Australia is shaping up as the country’s leader when it comes to copper mining innovation. And I’m not just saying that because I grew up there.
It’s now the country’s biggest copper producer, but is also pursuing all sorts of new technologies when it comes to how the industry finds, extracts and processes the ore.
The latest initiative is a new Research Consortium called Unlocking Complex Resources through Lean Processing.
Led by the University of Adelaide, the $14.6 million project brings together a number of mining sector and research partners, supported by $4 million over four years from the State Government’s Research Consortia Program.
The group will explore advanced technologies like the Industrial Internet of Things to help boost production in a smart, sustainable way.
Its a crucial strategy if the global copper industry is to keep improving its environmental performance, while cutting rising operational costs and boosting supply in a world where new discoveries are increasingly hard to find but demand keeps going up.
I-and Hal Stillman from ICA in the States-recently met with Professor Stephen Grano, Director of the University of Adelaide’s Institute for Mineral and Energy Resources-and Director of the new Consortium-to talk about copper mining innovation.
According to Professor Grano, one of the biggest challenges for miners is the high variability of the copper ore. The new Research Consortium aim is to better tailor mining and processing at the specific characteristics of the mineral ore in real-time–an approach known as lean processing.
The Group wants to do that when the ore is both underground and right through the whole mining process using new tools like data analytics, advanced sensors and machine learning.
It’s a great initiative that promises to put South Australia-and Australia-at the forefront of a digital revolution in copper mining globally.
Find out more: https://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news102102.html