Gold giant becomes first to use self-driving trucks in mine but experiences bumpy transition

Gold giant becomes first to use self-driving trucks in mine but experiences bumpy transition
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A Caterpillar 793 hauler being filled. Newmont Corp. is using 36 autonomous versions of the truck at its Boddington open pit mine in Australia.

JOHN_CARVER

By Greg Avery – Senior Reporter, Denver Business Journal

Self-driving trucks are now hauling ore at mining giant Newmont Corp.’s biggest gold mine in Australia, completing a $150 million transition to using autonomous vehicles started there last year.

It’s a first for a gold mine worldwide, a change the Denver-based company (NYSE: NEM) predicts will increase efficiency and extend the life of the mine. But using self-driving haulers hasn’t come without difficulties.

Newmont this month began fully switching to using 36 large, autonomous haulers made by Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar Inc. at the Boddington gold mine in Western Australia.

Tom Palmer, Newmont president and CEO, called it an accomplishment for the company and a milestone for the industry as a whole. It’s also a preview of a technology likely to be used elsewhere.

“The scale and long life of our operations enables Newmont to implement leading technologies to promote both safety and productivity,” he said in a statement. “We look forward to leveraging this project and our commissioning experience at our other operations and projects around the globe.”

Newmont's new CEO Tom Palmer.

KATHLEEN LAVINE, DENVER BUSINESS JOURNAL

Boddington was Western Australia’s largest gold producer in 2020, delivering 670,000 ounces and 56 million pounds of copper. The mine employs 2,000 people southeast of Perth.

A handful of open pit mines digging other materials have made similar switches, but Newmont is the first gold miner to start relying on autonomous haulage.

The operation is moving fewer tons out of the mine to be processed than was hoped, some of which is related to adjusting the new autonomous haulage system in difficult conditions, the company said. Adopting self-driving at Boddington came during a stretch of unusually severe weather and rain for the region, Newmont said, and there were operational delays related to moving deeper into the pit mine.

Boddington is now expected to produce 140,000 fewer ounces this year than the 830,000 ounces the company previously projected, a nearly 17% reduction.

Newmont has previously forecast an eventual 35% or larger financial return on the autonomous-hauler investment, because they will make the mine operations more efficient and extend the life during which it’s economically viable.

Palmer noted that the autonomous system adoption was completed on time and under budget, and he said it will rate as a proud achievement in the company’s 100-year history.

“The record implementation of this project is a tremendous example of Newmont’s trademark ability to set and achieve ambitious goals,” he said.

Newmont said it would work with mine employees and unions to retrain haulage truck drivers at Boddington to work on keeping the new autonomous system running smoothly.

The company operates major gold mines and claims in Australia, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Suriname, the Dominican Republic and Ghana.

It employs about 35,000 people worldwide and is the world’s largest gold producer by volume after a pair of multibillion-dollar transactions in 2019 that reshaped the global gold industry.www.fotavgeia.blogspot.com