Case Studies
CASE STUDY
1
Mining Review & Optimisation Overall client value add and profitability
Best fit equipment & operating hours, reduce $/ton & increase revenue whilst alternative supply & collaboration reduce spend
Nature of Project: A contract mining company validating commercial client offering & efficiency/cost optimisation
Industry Sector: Contract Mining
Analysis & Interventions:
- Equipment matching/optimisation– tendered vs. cost base & alternative OEM Equipment
- Alternative working hours/shifts & actual operating hours
- Equipment efficiencies: Physical site vs. Benchmark practice; and identifying key sites & routes to assess best practices
- Maintenance cost – actual vs. OEM Lifecycle cost
Impact:
- Alternative equipment higher profit & output at lower capital
- Labour/operational efficiency – alternative shifts marginal benefit; shift change & breaks material production impact (>5%)
- Maintenance cost quick wins (alternative tyres,- lubricant supply; focus on the hydraulic system (oils & hoses; and OEM collaboration & pricing basis)
CASE STUDY
2
Production Drilling Consumables and services ($/meter)
Incentivize supplier aligned to client business drivers delivers on increased production; and reduces $/ton, supply - & operational risks
Nature of Project: Two organizations had an insourced/partial outsourced production drilling. Global price on drilling consumables materially increase eroding revenue whilst penetration rates were below benchmark.
Industry Sector: Contract Mining & Global Mining Company
Analysis & Interventions:
Via technical/commercial review indicated :
- Production drilling consumable – contracted $/meter (with backup services)
- Production drilling services –contracted best fit service partner on $/meter basis and supported by a solid SLA
Impact:
- Production drilling consumables: cost reduced >10%, increased availability & penetration rates
- Production drilling services, >10% cost reduction, record drilling performance; lower redrilling & fuel consumption
CASE STUDY
3
Alternative markets Increased revenue by understanding process options
Understanding your final product and market demands can unlock revenue
Nature of Project: A Lead/Zinc mine engaged in process optimisation.
Industry Sector: Global Mining Company
Analysis & Interventions
- Alternative processing equipment options explored
- Ore characterization: One of the initiatives was doing an assay of the current product sold. Post a 5 element assay it was fount significant volumes of PGM’s in their product.
Impact:
Revenue
- PGMs can be 10 to 20 times more valuable. Therefore, by adjusting some reagents in processing (nominal increase in production cost) and marketing the Lead/Zinc as PGM concentrate their product revenue increases in orders of magnitude.
CASE STUDY
4
Engineering and Cost optimisation/Strategic Sourcing Dump truck bowl optimisation
TCO & main business drivers match with market standards reduces cost and improves asset sweating
Nature of Project: Two mining companies (Hard rock/Soft Rock applications) dump truck bowl repair costs significant $/ton contribution. Various historic interventions tested (Dual alloy steels, harder steel alloys) with limited success.
Industry Sector: Hard & Soft rock Mining Companies
Analysis & Interventions:
- Total cost of Ownership analysis indicated steel as the cost driver. Underlying drivers unlocked:
- Markup: Splitting steel supply and repairer
- Design vs. Manufacture: scrap per sheet reduced by tweaking the parts design
- Bowl liner thickness: Bowls repaired when liners worn through. Wear per bowl section: body & sides section (highest volume steel) last up to 7x vs. tail end. Thicker tail end & thinner body/sides sections reduced steel weight & cost with better bowl longevity.
Impact:
- Direct cost reduction of repair cost (±25%-40%)
- Bowl longevity increase of ±20-30%
- Lower weight of bowl indirectly increases potential production (increased payload weight) & reduced fuel consumption
Processing Case Studies
Waste and additional mineral processing
Considering the mining cycle, up to processing, you have spent 60-90% of cost. If you re-process waste, or add additional processing, there is relative low cost and capital outlay to gain significant revenue. This with reduced carbon footprint per ton (as more product with similar CO2 emissions and water consumption) In addition, with water shortages, new technology can reduce energy consumption, smaller water footprint and increased efficiencies.
Case study A: Understand your ore body and product
A Lead/Zinc mine post 5 assay element assessment found significant volumes of PGM’s in their product – by processing the PGM’s as a product could increase their product revenue more than 5x
Case study B: By products instead of waste
A mine was neutralizing acidic water with lime, producing gypsum waste (not environmentally friendly), switched to caustic soda, producing a saleable by product (e.g. active ingredient in washing powder)
Case study C: Alternative technology
Diamond mining has been moving away from DMS plants to sorting technology due to Efficiency improvement (±85% to >95%), waterless technology, 5-10X Less electricity consumption, materially lower maintenance cost and not additional water/dams and water licenses required
Initiatives: Preconcentration
As mines has been optimizing their processing circuit
and trying to run to maximum capacity, a material way to
increase production is to add a Preconcentration step. This
means that with a marginal capital investment, you increase
the % mineral to be processed and therefore produce
materially more production.
Example 1: Magnetic separation
of Chrome dumps
Example 2: Bulk ore sorting
of process minerals vs. waste close to mining face
