What do enterprises extract? Gold, iron ore, coal, diamonds? No!
Every enterprise extracts money. That is the goal of every business. If a ton of gold or iron ore does not bring you income or, worse, your costs exceed the profit from the sale of the product, what value does that ore have for the enterprise?
Each ton of ore must bring maximum income or incur minimal costs while ensuring safe production and adherence to extraction technology. In other words, the distribution of mining mass over time should lead the enterprise toward its goal. To achieve this goal, it is essential to create a solid plan that models the production process with maximum achievement of volume and quality indicators. Each plan must be supported by accurate, precise, and up-to-date data, especially when it comes to short-term or operational planning.
What data is essential for planning mining operations? This includes surveying and geological information, design data, and production and technical information (for example, from ERP systems).
All these processes carry a vast amount of graphic, digital, and textual information, such as laser scanning point clouds, surveying databases, operational surveys of stopes, geological block models, drilling test data, changes in contacts within the blasted mass, production metrics and their variations, changes in equipment operation dynamics, etc. The flow of data is continuous and infinite, with much of the information being interdependent. It is crucial to remember that all this data is the primary source, the information from which the plan creation begins.
Therefore, to create an optimal plan, one must be able to obtain the most accurate data possible. The correctness of the initial information exponentially affects the ultimate goal.
If any of the sources contain data with reduced accuracy or incorrect information, the entire chain of processes will be erroneous and will move away from the goal. It is essential to have resources that allow for the quality preparation and management of this data.
When it comes to short-term planning, it's important that this data is not only accurate but also current. It is necessary to have the ability to obtain information at any moment to respond to changes and quickly edit production scenarios. Accordingly, systems and equipment that enhance the efficiency of information gathering and processing are needed. LiDAR scanners allow for prompt data acquisition with high precision, geological core sampling technologies provide a picture of the ore body’s position within the mass, positioning systems track the location and status of equipment in real-time, and GEOVIA Surpac design and planning systems are essential tools for creating projects and development scenarios for mining operations. To achieve objectives as quickly as possible, these systems must be interconnected into a single productive chain. Imagine: you receive data from various systems and sources, but it is only available upon request, and furthermore, this data is passed to you by a specialist who may change the content at any moment. This leads not only to reduced data retrieval speed but also to potential inaccuracies or unreliability at one of the stages of data transmission. Therefore, data must be centralized, stored on one platform, within a single digital ecosystem, and accessible at any moment. Additionally, it is important to ensure collaboration among all divisions, versioning, integrity, and data security. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform addresses this challenge.
Information obtained from various sources — electronic systems, GIS systems (GEOVIA Surpac), ERP systems, automated mining planning systems (), mining management systems (for example, VISTA Group) — comes in different data formats.
This raises the question of system integration. Often, all solutions in the mining planning and design chain can be integrated with varying degrees of effectiveness.
However, the intensity of data flow, the number of their types, and their variability are such that a person cannot convert from one system to another in a relatively short time. Whether it's a geologist or a planning engineer, the specialist should not spend time importing and exporting files from one system to another; they should create value and drive the business towards its goals. Therefore, it is essential to automate the integration process, configuring it in such a way that the number of data processing manipulations is minimized.
Without automation, the process looks something like this. After conducting the survey, the surveyor connects the scanner to the PC, extracts the survey file, converts the data into the appropriate format, opens the file in the GIS system, creates a surface, performs the necessary manipulations for volume calculations and reporting, and saves the new version of the surface file on the network resource. To update the block model, they find the updated survey file, load it along with the corresponding block model, apply the survey file as a new boundary, perform manipulations to calculate volume and quality indicators, and generate reports.
With operational data available, such as from dispatching systems, the geologist exports data from such a system, imports the coordinates into the GIS, and creates a new boundary file. If up-to-date test data from the lab is available on the network resource, they navigate through a series of folders to retrieve it, update the block model, create reports, save working files, convert data into the format required by the dispatching system, and upload it into this system. It's important not to forget to create an archival copy of all files.
The automated process of data processing and integration in survey and geological support for mining operations using GEOVIA Surpac looks as follows. The survey is ready; the surveyor connects the device to the PC, opens GEOVIA Surpac, launches the import and processing function for survey data, and selects from the list what is needed as a result.
The system generates graphic and tabular data, updates the working file on the network resource, and saves the previous version of the file. The geologist initiates the block model update functions based on the current surveying data and/or the data from dispatch systems.
All data is loaded from the network resource/platform, and the macro command converts and imports the necessary data; the geologist only needs to select the appropriate settings. After verification using the relevant functions, the result is saved and exported to other systems.
This process is implemented in the surveying and geological services at the Kachkanar Mining and Processing Plant of the EVRAZ company.
EVRAZ KGOK is among the top five mining enterprises in Russia. The plant is located 140 km from EVRAZ NTMK, in the Sverdlovsk region. EVRAZ KGOK is developing the Gusevogorsk deposit of titanomagnetite iron ores containing vanadium impurities. The vanadium content allows for the production of high-strength alloyed steel grades. The plant's production capacity is approximately 55 million tons of iron ore per year. The main consumer of EVRAZ KGOK's products is EVRAZ NTMK.
Currently, EVRAZ KGOK extracts ore from four quarries, further processing it in crushing, beneficiation, agglomeration, and pelletizing workshops. The final product (agglomerate and pellets) is loaded into freight cars and sent to consumers, including abroad.
In 2018, EVRAZ KGOK extracted over 58.5 million tons of ore, produced 3.5 million tons of agglomerate, 6.5 million tons of pellets, and about 2.5 million tons of gravel.
Ore extraction takes place in four quarries: the Main, Western, Northern, and South deposit. From the lower levels, ore is transported by BelAZ trucks, and the rock mass is transferred to the crushing plant via rail transport. Powerful 130-ton dump trucks, modern NP-1 locomotives, and excavators with a bucket capacity of 12 cubic meters are used in the quarries.
The average iron content in the ore is 15.6%, while the vanadium content is 0.13%.
The technology for iron ore extraction at EVRAZ KGOK is as follows: drilling - blasting - excavation - transportation to the processing site and dumping into dumps.).
In 2019, an automated dispatching system from VIST Group was implemented at the Kachkanar GOK. This solution increased production control over the operation of mining and transport equipment, the movement of ore from the faces to the loading points, as well as providing real-time data on volumetric and qualitative indicators at the faces and loading points. A bilateral integration of the VIST ASD systems and GEOVIA Surpac was carried out, allowing the use of the obtained data (equipment position, degree of face depletion, balance of rock mass at the loading points, quality distribution at the loading points, etc.) for operational planning and design of mining activities, as well as controlling the production process at the level of line management and excavator operator.
Thanks to the work of chief geologist S.M. Nekrasov and chief surveyor A.V. Bezdenezhnykh, specialists from the surveying and geological departments utilized GEOVIA Surpac tools to automate most processes related to the processing of surveying data, design, creation of printed documentation, development of geological block models, and updating geological and surveying information on the online resource. Specialists no longer need to perform repetitive tasks daily, whether it's exporting/importing data from/to instruments, or searching for necessary information in a vast number of folders. GEOVIA Surpac macros handle this for them. It is important to note that this data is accessible to all relevant specialists from different departments. For example, to access the latest pit survey, updated block model, BWR block, communications, etc., a planning specialist does not need to search through numerous surveying and geological files. All they need to do is open the corresponding menu in GEOVIA Surpac and select the data to load into their workspace.
Automation tools have easily enabled the integration of GEOVIA Surpac and the VIST Group ASD, making this process as simple and quick as possible.
By selecting the appropriate menu in the GEOVIA Surpac panel, the geologist receives operational data from the ASD VIST system regarding the block's mining or data for a specific date and time. This data is used to analyze the current situation and update the block model.
After updating the block model and contacts for ore/overburden in GEOVIA Surpac, the geologist uploads this information to the ASD VIST system with the click of a button, making the data available to all users in both systems.
Thanks to the integration of the positioning tools for mining transport equipment in the ASD VIST Group system and the tools provided by GEOVIA Surpac, processes for controlling the movement of the rock mass from the face to the transfer point, placing the rock mass in the sectors of the transfer points, monitoring the balance of incoming/outgoing rock mass by sectors, and keeping mobile stock records for the operational filling period have been established.
To achieve this, block models of the transfer points were created in GEOVIA Surpac and a methodology for their filling was developed. At the geologist’s request, the process of entering the rock mass into the block model (BM) at a virtual transfer point, as well as shipping from it, can be carried out either wholly for the past period or in real-time. By setting the BM to fill with an end time specified, the macro program automatically requests (at set intervals) data from the excavators doing the digging, as well as extracts information on the movement and unloading of vehicles at the transfer point.
Thus, upon completion of the macro program's work, current information is generated regarding the status of the warehouse, the presence of rock mass in a three-dimensional graphic format at that time, and a summary table of operational changes is produced. This has allowed for the prompt tracking of ore movement, balance, and distribution of rock mass across the transfer point sectors, as well as graphically representing this information in both systems and ensuring quick, easy, and secure access to data for all staff. In particular, according to Chief Geologist S.N. Nekrasov, this process has improved the accuracy of quality planning for shipments from transfer points to rail transport.
He also notes that while previously it was only possible to speculate about what was brought to the transfer points and to represent only the average quality across sectors, today the metrics for each individual section of the sector are known.
To quickly analyze all sectors of the transfer points and generate a tabular report in GEOVIA Surpac, a macro command was created that displays and saves graphic information in the specified format. There is no need to open the block model of each sector, apply constraints, color the block model by attributes, or manually generate tabular reporting. All of this is done with the push of a button.
You can learn more about the process and results of the integration conducted at the Kachkanar GOK from the recording
Obtaining necessary current data at any given time, easy and quick access to relevant information, and possessing tools that allow for data exchange and management across various systems and interaction with aggregates opens the door to increasing possibilities for creating a digital twin of your enterprise, which allows for more realistic scenarios of your mining plan and quick responses to changes occurring during production.
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Source: habr.com
