Ms Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill iron ore mine to introduce driverless mining trucks

6 November 2017

Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill iron ore mine plans to roll out driverless mining trucks in the second half of next year and will look to increase capacity beyond current plans of 55 million tonnes per year, once the new operations are running smoothly. The move to implement autonomous mining trucks sees Roy Hill join its three bigger rivals Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Fortescue Metals Group in the Pilbara mining region of Western Australia in moving that way and follows a program to install autonomous drilling.

Roy Hill chief executive Barry Fitzgerald on the sidelines of the International Mining and Resources Conference in Melbourne said that “We are looking at the phased implementation (of autonomous trucks) in the second half of next year.” He said there would be an eventual reduction in workers but that many drivers would be redeployed. Roy Hill has a fleet of about 70 mining trucks.

Once the mine was consistently running at an annual rate of 55 million tonnes (which it did in September but not October), Mr Fitzgerald said the mine would look to expand. He said that “We’ll be looking at maximising our assets. Up until now there has been the challenge of getting to 55, but once we are there, the next challenge is how to maximise that. If we can find better ways to run the process plant, or get more out of the car dumper and ship loader, then we will do that.”

Mr Fitzgerald said he was confident of passing a 90 days lenders’ completion test where the operations are supposed to run continuously at a rate 55 million tonnes a year. He said the test was about halfway through. He said that “We had a very good month in September, where we ran at a rate of 55 million tonnes, we had a lower month last month, but we’re going through and our process plant and railway system are all heading to making 55 million tonnes reliably.”

He added that “At this stage we are (confident), but you can only be really confident when you’ve done it.”

Source : THE AUSTRALIAN

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