Advanced Technology for Progressing
India's Underground Coal Mining
Lisa Duncan
August 2014
We are:
The largest publicly
traded independent
group of mining technical
experts in the world.
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18 Office Globally
45+ Years Experience
118 Countries
5000 software installs
14,000 Studies
$Billions value added
Solution Offering
Production Simulation
Software Solutions
We are:
Production Scheduling
.
The clear market leader in
production simulation,
BLASTING SOLUTIONS BY
scheduling and costing
DFPCL
solutions to resource
Project Costing & Budgeting
companies globally
Mine Planning Scheduling Horizons
BLASTING SOLUTIONS BY
DFPCL
Agenda
• The Story Today
• Introducing Coal Solutions
• Case Study
• Simulation
• Summary
The Story Today
7
Todays Mining
Landscape
• High demand on local coal
• Focus on increasing production
• Land access issues
• Resources remain static
• Mining methods constant
• An interest in innovation
Why Is It Challenging?
• Resources are getting deeper
• Resources are complex
• Demand is increasing
• Planning considered difficult
Urgent Planning Issues
Common urgent issues include:
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Smaller properties
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Overlying constraints
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Open cast and underground mines in
same vertical plane
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Geological disturbances
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Land and rehabilitation
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Skilled manpower
Why is Good Planning
Currently a Challenge?
• Complexities such as
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Multiple seams
Fire
Water
Gas
• Surface constraints
• Old mine workings
• Planning is often done while mining
progresses
• Mines may not be optimised
• Geological and geotechnical data is
complex and sometimes inaccurate
Technology?
• Software available, but often not used
• Medium and short term schedules not
created to optimise the operation
• Testing of how the operation works prior
to production not possible
• Software must be easy to use
Introducing Coal Solutions
13
Application of Technology
This conference will give you:
• Many good ideas
• An awareness of what is new
• What other mining operations are trying
This presentation will help you consider:
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How to combine new ideas and
technologies
How things can be improved at your
mining operation
The benefits effective use of software will
bring
We are:
The largest publicly
traded independent
group of mining technical
experts in the world.
•
•
•
•
•
•
18 Office Globally
45+ Years Experience
118 Countries
5000 software installs
14,000 Studies
$Billions value added
Effective Mine Planning
New software concept – Coal Solutions
• Advanced, robust, interactive
scheduling tools
• Designed to be easy to learn
• Designed to be easy to use
• Commodity specific
• Mining method specific
• Process driven
• Intuitive
• Fast
• Accurate
Understand what your mine is capable
of.
Sophistication Without
Complexity
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Integration of all schedule components:
• Mining
• Haulage
• Processing
• Dump construction
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Components “aware” of each other with
continual, seamless data flow
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Easy to rapidly incorporate changes to
underlying data
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Scheduling that is interactive - change
something, see the impact immediately
More advanced and
accurate models
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Engineers can analyse many scenarios
quickly
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Scenarios run so quickly, scheduling
becomes interactive
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Users will:
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Retain focus
Concentrate longer
Absorb and remember changes
Understand deeply
Engineers will learn what the mine is
capable of
Training Fast and Easy
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Engineers require minimal training time
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New staff up to speed quickly
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Learning curve very fast
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High and fast user effectiveness
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Skills easily transferred
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Models quickly understood
Case Study
Case Study – Planning
Options
This planning exercised considered:
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Production
Resource recovery
Tonnes per development metre
Principle stress direction
Depth
Surface constraints
Access
Spontaneous combustion
Gas
Ventilation
Many more
Option 1
Results of the long term plan:
Y20:
• 4,268,825t
• 4,630m
• 921.99 t/m
Based on tonnes per metre, this seems the better result
Y1
Y2
t
357,481
355,286
m
12,705
12,502
Y3
Y4
Y5
Y6
Y7
Y8
Y9
Y10
Y11
Y12
Y13
Y14
Y15
Y16
Y17
Y18
Y19
Y20
3,252,989 3,043,214 4,768,960 4,674,854 5,168,491 4,225,434 3,920,444 4,241,888 4,399,216 3,660,464 3,664,215 3,081,912 4,709,076 4,826,273 4,719,843 5,214,277 4,427,146 4,268,825
13,382
12,516
12,327
5,666
6,538
6,203
6,414
9,301
13,121
12,717
12,394
13,396
11,881
6,407
6,446
6,268
6,853
4,630
Option 2
Y20:
• 5,578,814t
• 11,549m
• 483.06 t/m
However, considering all constraints this option is:
• Safer
• Has better product quality
• Geotechnically achievable
• Less likely to have gas issues
Y1
Y2
Y3
Y4
Y5
Y6
Y7
Y8
Y9
Y10
Y11
Y12
Y13
Y14
Y15
Y16
Y17
Y18
Y19
Y20
t
348,599 1,665,714 2,822,213 3,524,013 3,588,261 4,641,357 4,290,687 4,219,578 4,078,608 2,040,981 1,847,042 3,739,506 3,766,801 3,813,387 4,299,845 5,307,393 4,073,231 4,161,575 5,565,775 5,578,814
m
12,352
13,621
13,906
12,779
12,483
11,356
7,844
6,969
6,641
8,216
3,910
5,842
5,531
6,029
11,892
11,061
11,099
5,542
9,731
11,549
Simulation
24
Common Modelling
Issues
Equipment / fleet
• Productivity improvements
• Cycle times
• Justification of new equipment
• Delays
Mining constraints
• Congestion
• Changing variables
• Changed mine design
Discrete Event Simulation
• With the dynamic nature of mining,
simulation is required
• True – “discrete event simulation”
requires a link to both planning and
execution:
• Evaluate plans and enable scenarios and
capital configuration to be tested prior to
production
• Real time data from the operation feeds
assumptions in the simulation model.
• The simulation model is always ‘learning’
from actual production data
• These learnings are then feed back into
the plans – ongoing better planning
Plans will continuously be more
accurate and achievable.
Targets are more likely to be met.
What simulation is
possible?
HAULSIM is a powerful tool to model, analyse,
visualise and optimise your haulage network
• Accurately model mine haulage
• Visualise impact of changes
• Quantify design improvements
• Validate assumptions
• Make informed decisions
TALPAC is a simulation tool for evaluating the
efficiency, productivity and economics of the
mine
• work out the size of fleet
• which equipment is the most compatible
• investigate and compare time-period
productivity
New Mine Layout
Problem
We are regularly not meeting production goals.
Will changing the longwall design help to
increase production?
Questions
• Will the change help improve production?
• How will the change impact the surface
fleet?
• Will the capacity of my conveyor network
keep up with the production change?
• Will there be bottlenecks?
The answers to these questions can now be
easily found and communicated and the right
decisions made by doing a simulation
A 3D simulation solution for analysis of entire
mining systems so users can accurately determine
and test key system measurers.
• Improve equipment system efficiency
• Accurately test safety and/or production gain
initiatives
• Quickly build simulation models and run scenarios
• Determine whether capital expenditure is required
• Dynamic dashboard reporting for instantaneous
results
• Integration with RPM applications to simulate an
entire mine plan including higher level costings
Summary
RPM’s XPAC Solutions
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Process driven, rules based schedules
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Models updated automatically as the
mine evolves
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The best, most sophisticated tool set to
build your model, making it fast and
easy to get results
Solutions have taken away the
“good model” vs “bad model” problem.
Now, they are all good.
HAULSIM value
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Visualise ‘what if’ scenarios
Test haulage options prior to production
Explore multiple scenarios
Visualise the impact of changes in
minutes
Incorporating HAULSIM into your
software suite will help you to:
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Justify new equipment expenditure
Reduce 3rd party consulting expense
Use past data to improve future
production
Operate more efficiently
Maximise production
Can you imagine?
Now that you know about coal solutions,
and also the value of simulation. Imagine if
you could combine the two?!
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Share parameters from the schedule
into the simulation
Make a change in the schedule, and
immediately test the impact it will have
Determine if your schedules are
realistic
Understand how likely your targets are
to be achieved
Advanced Technology for Progressing
India's Underground Coal Mining
Lisa Duncan
lduncan@rpmglobal.com