Anglo American has achieved a significant safety milestone at its Queensland coal mines.
Anglo has five steelmaking coal mines in the Bowen Basin, along with additional joint venture interests in steelmaking coal and manganese, and base metals exploration projects in Queensland.
The miner has been focused on implementing autonomous solutions across its Queensland operations for over a decade, culminating in all its Bowen Basin mines becoming fully autonomous.
These operations completely remove workers from hazardous areas, and have since notched up 10,000 longwall mining shears from its remote operation control centres.
Anglo American Australia automation superintendent Matthew Wakeford said the rapid pace of technological innovation – especially in areas like data analytics, automation and digitalisation – had unlocked incredible opportunities for the mining sector to be safer, more productive and more sustainable.
“At Anglo American, we have re-imagined mines where our people can remotely manage operations from a safe distance, using real-time data to make informed decisions,” Wakeford said.
“Since transitioning to remote operations, we have reduced exposure risk to hazardous areas by 22,500 hours across our Bowen Basin mine sites.”
Anglo head of operations Matt Cooper said more than 1000 system initiatives had enabled remote operation success during the company’s 10-year journey to this point.
“Our people are irreplaceable, and we are equipping them to grow with the industry, preserving a legacy of knowledge that will always be essential to our success,” Cooper said.
“By developing state-of-the-art technologies and prioritising the well-being of our workforce through a collaborative approach, our steelmaking coal mines in Australia have emerged as leaders in the industry, reshaping the future of underground coal mining on a global scale.”
Anglo is also currently trialling remote-controlled stockpile dozers that reduce exposure to concealed stockpile voids at the company’s Capcoal Complex near Middlemount.
The move is expected to reduce in-cab dozer exposure time by 45,000–75,000 hours a year once the technology is fully deployed across all sites.
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