Charles Pratt is the new CEO of Kinder Australia. Picture: Kinder Australia
Kinder Australia has announced a major step for the company by unveiling a new chief executive officer.
The Australian company has appointed long-time employee Charles Pratt to take the top job after starting his journey with Kinder more than two decades ago.
Kinder Australia founders Neil and Christine Kinder have transitioned into managerial roles on the company’s advisory board. Neil will maintain his role as a managing director.
In a statement, Kinder welcomed the promotion of Pratt as the company prepares to celebrate its 39th anniversary in the bulk handling industry next year.
“Charles Pratt is characterised by his unwavering diligence and diplomatic approach to achieve the best possible outcomes and practical solutions,” they said.
“He encourages a culture of inclusiveness and upskilling – qualities that have played a pivotal role in his rapid rise within the company.
“His hands-on experience and profound understanding of heavy process industries make him a remarkable problem solver, not only for Kinder but also for the company’s valued customers.
“Charles has an uncanny ability to dive deep and uncover issues, often identifying challenges that even the most discerning customer might overlook.”
Pratt previously served Kinder as the operations manager and is remaining as a company shareholder.
With its next generation of ground-engaging tools, supported by intelligent digital offerings, Bradken is driving the future of surface mining.
Bradken has evolved over the past 100 years to become a leading wear solutions provider to the global mining and resources market, delivering ground-engaging tools (GET), bucket and undercarriage solutions that equip customers to achieve their production objectives.
The company’s range includes mining buckets for excavators, face shovels and front-end loaders. Its buckets have long been known for their proven quality, reliability and performance.
The cast beam bucket, the latest in Bradken’s bucket range, takes that proven history of success and dials it up to 11.
“Buckets are traditionally fabricated and that inherently means you have structural welds in areas that are highly stressed and fatigue prone – particularly around the upper structure or beam of the bucket,” Bradken head of product and marketing, Simon Burgoyne, told Australian Mining.
“This results in a lot of bucket maintenance cost and asset downtime.
“We have leveraged our foundry expertise to design a new bucket that converts the entire beam into a casting. The cast structure gave us the freedom to design smoother and more organic transitions, placing steel where it’s needed to reduce stress throughout the beam. Importantly, the design eliminates welds from fatigue-prone areas and that, along with Bradken’s proprietary alloy, has produced a structure with significantly longer fatigue life that is more durable and reliable.”
Bradken is delivering an optimised future.
The result is a bucket that delivers a stronger, safer, and more productive solution than a fabricated counterpart.
“We’re projecting that the cast beam will last up to 2.5 times longer than a fabricated bucket,” Burgoyne said. “This gives the customer a reliable asset, less downtime repairing buckets, and better productivity as the shape of the bucket has been optimised for dig efficiency.”
The Zenith plate lip GET system is also new to Bradken’s range. Engineered to minimise dig energy and extend the wear life of its points, the Zenith design is reliable and intuitive to use.
“Zenith is a next-generation plate lip GET system from Bradken and has been engineered to suit excavators from 100-tonne up to the 250-tonne class,” Burgoyne said.
The Zenith plate lips currently come in standard, long and heavy-duty options, to suit all application requirements.
Beyond efficiency, Zenith is designed to keep workers safe.
“Once GET has been used for a long time, it can become fused to the bucket and requires tools like sledgehammers and oxy torches to remove it,” Burgoyne said.
“This exposes operators to all sorts of hazards, including burns, hammer strikes and dangerous metal shards.
“The industry has been trying to move away from using hammers with GET for a while now. A lot of vendors have been able to introduce locking systems that don’t require hammers to remove points, but very few have been able to produce a truly hammer-free GET system like Zenith.
“Zenith has been designed so that it doesn’t require a hammer on the lock or in the removal of any part from the lip. It stays on when you want it to stay on, and it’s easily removed when you want to take it off.”
In support of these innovations and building on its longstanding digital product, SmartLiner, used in fixed plant for asset management and condition monitoring, Bradken is further expanding its digital offerings to include a range of solutions that enable customers to get the most out of their GET.
Bradken’s GETVision solution provides a remote monitoring system that detects GET on mining buckets and alerts operators if they become lost, delivering an operational benefit that reduces downtime and costs related to delayed production.
“Through the use of a vision system and object detection algorithms, GETVision detects the loss of GET on a machine, which can be quite disruptive to production were it to fall into plant equipment,” Bradken principal product manager, digital, Tim Radbone told Australian Mining. “It’s a huge problem when an uncrushable bit of steel falls off and gets stuck inside a crusher, for example.”
GETVision alerts operators in the event of GET loss, helping mine sites avoid catastrophic and expensive disruptions.
Bradken Inspect is another digital tool the company has developed.
Bradken Inspect is a mobile app allowing operators to digitally capture wear-life data for GET, helping to efficiently coordinate change-out timing for maintenance scheduling and monitor wear trends for forecasting maintenance programs.
“GET wear-life data has historically been captured on paper which is easily lost and difficult to collate for any useful analysis or insights,” Radbone said.
“Bradken Inspect allows workers to capture that information digitally to provide sites with a more detailed level of understanding of their GET usage.”
Bradken Inspect can be used both online and offline to capture information and supply detailed reports. Report outcomes allow the operations to determine wear metrics relevant to conditions and maintenance requirements.
“Whether a site’s GET is lasting three months or they’re chewing through parts on a daily basis, Bradken Inspect can help customers understand GET wear rates and performance across their fleet,” Radbone said.
The latest additions to Bradken’s range of GET, along with the supporting digital tools, are helping to make operations more predictable, safer and efficient. From its traditional manufacturing origins to today’s mining solutions brand, Bradken is constantly pushing the envelope when it comes to surface mining technology.
Atlas Copco has launched a next-generation electric submersible dewatering pump, the WEDA D95, incorporating state-of-the-art Wear Deflector technology.
The robust and reliable pump delivers a best-in-class performance over a longer lifetime than comparable pumps in heavily abrasive environments such as mining, tunnelling and construction, and enables operators to improve their sustainability and productivity.
WEDA D95 has a power rating of 37–43 kilowatts (kW) and is the latest pump in the WEDA D drainage range to feature the innovative Wear Deflector technology designed to minimise wear and provide consistent performance over a longer operating life.
Features such as a high chrome wear resistant impeller combined with solid-redirecting auxiliary vanes contribute towards its performance. The pump also features re-adjustable hydraulics which allow the pump to be simply realigned to compensate for any wear, thus prolonging its life.
All these elements have a significant positive impact on the overall operational productivity, meaning users can achieve a lower total cost of ownership.
“There are often many suspended solids in harsh applications which can cause excessive abrasion and wear to the internal workings of the pump,” Atlas Copco Power and Flow product marketing manager – submersible pumps Bart Duijvelaar said.
“At Atlas Copco, we are driven by innovation, and so we have taken the fundamental design of the drainage pump back to the drawing board. We have optimised the hydraulic design using computational fluid dynamics and applied 21st century manufacturing techniques combined with decades of experience to produce this new long-lasting and reliable pump.”
The pump has also been built with maintenance and serviceability front of mind. Thanks to the clever design, users can also carry out inspection and maintenance on site themselves and reduce downtime and associated costs. For example, the mechanical seal is a unique stainless-steel single cartridge, rather than many separate components, and so it is easy to replace in one piece.
For Atlas Copco Power and Flow achieving a more sustainable future is crucial. Therefore, facilitating the repairability of its pumps has been at the forefront of the design to ensure less time-consuming maintenance and best-in-class service support. It gives a second life to these pumps with increased uptime.
WEDA D95 also features external oil inspection screws. Operators can easily access the screws to check the quality of the oil and the health status of the seal without having to dismantle the whole pump. This makes preventive maintenance easy so users can detect problems before they lead to failure.
Overall, with the ease of service, it is possible to readjust the pump to the original performance without changing many parts. The pump’s repairability prolongs the life of the pump, giving it a second life and contributing towards a more sustainable future.
Additionally, the pumps in the D range are available with various accessories including different types of discharge connections, pump rafts and zinc anodes to provide extra corrosion resistance.
The new WEDA D95 pumps are backed by Atlas Copco’s service team and supported by a wide network of local dealers and technicians worldwide with readily available parts to help users keep their operations up and running to improve productivity.
With state-of-the-art manufacturing and 3D modelling tools, Atlas Copco is addressing product performance and technical challenges at the design stage. The WEDA D95 submersible pump is the latest example of a well-crafted and thoughtfully designed pump range, with more models expected in the company’s portfolio in the coming years.
Keramos is located in Port Kennedy, Western Australia in the heart of the Western Australian mining industry. We have customers throughout all states of Australia and supply throughout the world to countries including New Zealand, Laos, Dominican Republic, Solomon Islands, Senegal, South Africa, Mali, Tanzania and Ghana.
Keramos acquires C-Tech Engineering, a metal fabrication business located in the industrial hub of Canning Vale, Western Australia. C-Tech will be fully integrated into Keramos, and we are excited to welcome the experience and expertise of the C-Tech team to Keramos.
Read about Keramos silicon carbide ceramic cyclone overflow pipes and how we can extend the wear life and increase the reliability of pipes in slurry wear applications.
As the ink dries on Whitehaven Coal’s $US4.1 billion ($6.5 billion) acquisition of two of BHP’s Queensland coal assets, movement on the ASX shows that stakeholders are mulling over the broader significance of the deal.
Following the announcement of the deal on Wednesday, Whitehaven opened on the ASX with a bang at $7.79 per share (up from $6.69 on Tuesday), its highest share price since the coal boom at the beginning of the year.
The purchase of BHP’s Daunia and Blackwater coal mines comes with a price tag of $US2.1 billion in cash up front, $US1.1 billion in cash over three years after completion and the potential for up to $US0.9 billion in a price-linked earnout payable over three years. This comprises a total sale price of around $6.48 billion, with completion of the deal expected in the June 2024 quarter.
Whitehaven chief executive officer and managing director Paul Flynn called the acquisition of the two metallurgical coal assets ‘transformative’ for the company.
Metallurgical and thermal coal differ in quality and carbon content. Thermal coal is traditionally burned to generate electricity, but as Australia and the world transition to cleaner energy, thermal coal is heavily regulated and arguably falling from relevance. Metallurgical coal, on the other hand, is a higher quality coal used in steelmaking with strong global demand.
The deal will mean 70 per cent of Whitehaven’s coal production will be metallurgical, giving the miner some much needed longevity in the heavily regulated realm of coal mining.
“Daunia and Blackwater produce metallurgical coal that is in high demand across Asia… where population growth and economic development is expected to drive strong demand for steel production and metallurgical coal through to at least 2050,” Flynn said.
The two mines also expand Whitehaven’s coal assets outside of NSW, where the company currently operates four mines in the Gunnedah Basin.
But BHP seems to feel differently when it comes to the longevity of Daunia and Blackwater – at least under its own capital investment model. The mining giant first flagged the two Queensland mines for sale so it could focus on producing higher quality metallurgical coal, a move it views as more sustainable.
“A key route for steelmakers to be able to reduce their carbon intensity will be through more efficient blast furnace operations. That requires the highest of quality coking (metallurgical) coal. And that’s what we have in assets like Peak Downs, Goonyella, Saraji and Broadmedow,” BHP said.
“And so those assets we see as having both sides through the energy transition. What we’re doing here is further concentrating our portfolio on the best of the best assets.”
Glencore has announced plans to close its Mount Isa copper operations in Queensland by the end of 2025, but said it will keep its other metal assets open.
Operating for over 60 years, the company’s copper mine life has already been extended six years past its original life expectancy.
All three copper mines at the Mount Isa operation – Enterprise, X41 and Black Rock – are set to close, as well as the company’s copper concentrator.
Other Mount Isa mines and operations will remain open, including the copper smelter, the George Fisher mine, the zinc-lead concentrator, the lead smelter in Mount Isa, as well as the copper refinery in Townsville.
Glencore said it has conducted a range of studies and reviews seeking to further extend the life of the underground copper mines, but the end of mine life has been confirmed.
Glencore’s Lady Loretta zinc mine, located 140km north-west of Mount Isa, which was a finite orebody with a seven-year mine life, will also close in 2025.
“We know this decision will be disappointing for our people, our suppliers, and the Mount Isa community,” Glencore Australia zinc asset chief operating officer Sam Strohmayr said.
“The reality of mining is that mines have a beginning, middle and end. And unfortunately, after 60 years of operation, Mount Isa’s underground copper operations have now reached that end.
“We want to give our people as much time as possible to consider the best options for them and their families, which is why we are notifying our workers and the community almost two years before these mines close.
“Our focus over the coming months will be to work closely with our people and contractors, our suppliers, and the Mount Isa community to provide support as we move towards closure of these assets.”
Glencore’s Mount Isa underground copper mines, copper concentrator and supporting services currently employ around 1200 people.
BHP’s acquisition of OZ Minerals is paying dividends, with operational records falling across its new copper district in South Australia.
The Carrapateena mine, located 100km south-east of BHP’s Olympic Dam operation, achieved record development metres in September, producing 14,100 tonnes of copper in the September quarter. This is a 21 per cent increase on the previous three months (11,700 tonnes).
Olympic Dam, which BHP owned before the OZ Minerals acquisition, mined 2.64 million tonnes (Mt) of material during the September quarter – its highest mark since the 2014–15 financial year (FY15).
This equated to record gold production of 53,028 ounces, the second time Olympic Dam has achieved this in three quarters.
Combined with a 48 per cent increase in copper production at Prominent Hill, BHP produced 71,700 tonnes from its South Australia copper operations – a 44 per cent uplift from the same quarter last year (bearing in mind it only owned Olympic Dam at this point).
BHP achieved a 11 per cent group copper production uplift from the third quarter of 2022, with the Escondida and Pampa Norte operations in Chile also delivering strong performances.
Iron ore production fell three per cent from the same quarter last year, which the major miner attributed to “tie-in activity for the Rail Technology Programme (RTP), the ongoing ramp up and maintenance at the Central Pilbara hub (South Flank and Mining Area C), and the timing of track renewal maintenance”.
BHP said South Flank remains on track to ramp up to full production capacity of 80 million tonnes per annum by the end of FY24.
The miner’s quarterly was released on the same day as the divestment of BMA’s Daunia and Blackwater coal mines was revealed, with Whitehaven buying the mines for $US3.2 ($5.02) billion.
BMA is a joint venture between BHP and Mitsubishi Development.
Canadian-based First Quantum Minerals has commenced a maiden diamond drilling program along the Yarramba Palaeovalley on the tenements of Boss Energy’s Honeymoon uranium project in South Australia.
Boss Energy first entered into an exploration earn-in agreement with First Quantum Minerals in February 2022. The agreement covers the base metals rights of five tenements at the Honeymoon project, which commenced mining operations last week.
“With a proven track record in discovering and developing deposits, Boss considers First Quantum Minerals an ideal partner in the exploration and potential development of any base or precious metal discoveries at Honeymoon,” Boss Energy said of the agreement.
The new drilling program will target basement-hosted base metal mineralisation below the Yarramba Palaeovalley and will cover three high-priority targets identified from extensive analysis and modelling of geophysical and geochemical datasets.
It will consist of at least five diamond core holes for a minimum of 1800m drilling. Global drilling company DDH1 – which was acquired by Perenti last week – will complete the 4–6 week-long drilling program.
The geochemical assay results are expected to return within 1–2 months after the program’s completion.
“This agreement is an outstanding opportunity for Boss and our shareholders,” Boss Energy managing director Duncan Craib said.
“We have a global leader in First Quantum Minerals funding base metals exploration at Honeymoon, giving Boss significant exposure to their success at no cost to us while we focus on our goal of becoming Australia’s next uranium producer.”
After the drilling program’s completion, First Quantum Minerals may choose to earn a 51 per cent interest in its agreement with Boss by spending $6 million on exploration within five years, as well as maintaining minimum annual expenditure on the project of $500,000.
If First Quantum Minerals follows this path, it will enter into a joint venture agreement with Boss Energy.
Taking a more holistic, long-term view of tailings technologies will benefit companies, communities and other stakeholders.
Mining companies are analysing more alternatives to tailings storage facilities (TSF) earlier for new projects as they respond to the global industry standard on tailings management (GISTM) and stakeholder expectations.
Launched in August 2020, the GISTM sets a global benchmark for environmental, social and technical outcomes from tailings management. The goal is zero harm to communities and the environment from tailings facilities worldwide.
The GISTM has been widely adopted by members of the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM). These companies had until August 2023 to conform to the GISTM for tailings facilities, with “extreme’” or “very high” potential consequences for not doing so. All other tailings facilities have until 2025 to conform.
Requirement 3.2 of the GISTM necessitates operators of new tailings facilities to undertake a multi-criteria alternative analysis of all feasible sites, technologies and strategies for tailings management. They should consider TSF alternatives over the project life cycle and address environmental, technical and socioeconomic impacts.
The goal is twofold: select a TSF alternative that minimises risks to people and the environment through the TSF life cycle, and minimise the volume of tailings and water placed in external tailings facilities.
Lack of planning can result in catastrophic TSF failure.
The GISTM requires the process to be reviewed independently and disclosed to stakeholders in order to aid public accountability.
SRK Consulting senior tailings engineer Sam Kendall said the GISTM’s requirement for the early evaluation of alternative tailings technologies and strategies has significant implications for new and established mining companies.
“In the context of GISTM compliance, there is increased attention being paid to the assessment of best available practices and/or best available technologies; however, some established mining houses have long been applying these principles,” Kendall said.
“Some miners are drawn to short-term capex (capital expenditure) and opex (operational expenditure) without sufficiently considering the longer-term, less tangible aspects of TSF design, which also derive value.
“For newer companies at the very early stages of project development, the initial selection of a low-cost, status quo tailings management solution can be appealing, particularly when considering time and budget constraints.
“During the initial stages of project development, it can be easy for project managers without specific tailings experience to favour selecting a familiar, cost-effective solution; however, with large-scale uptake of the GISTM, the industry is being encouraged to invest in optimising tailings management to find more sustainable, long term, cost effective solutions.”
A tailings dam on a mine site.
Kendall believes expectations are changing with the implementation of the GISTM and all miners developing new TSFs are expected to demonstrate that they are working towards a defensible evaluation of management options.
“This is an important consideration for mining companies, particularly those looking for early-stage investment from institutions which expect GISTM compliance,” Kendall said.
“More broadly, this process also influences perceptions from regulators, communities and the public. Companies should understand this change and be taking steps now to adapt to it.”
Sustainable growth
According to Kendall, the long-term benefits of comparing TSF alternatives can far outweigh the extra cost and risk, particularly when there are unique project drivers or TSF constraints.
“Examining alternative TSF technologies will help mining companies to implement the optimal result on mine-waste design, now and in the future,” he said.
“Fundamentally, it’s about being future-focused and open-minded about TSF technologies.”
Documenting and disclosing the process used to consider TSF alternatives has other benefits, Kendall said, including project transparency and stakeholder collaboration. Similarly, adopting this approach helps to demonstrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles in TSF and cultivate a more holistic view of tailings management going forward.”
Arguably, the main benefit of this approach is the potential to “future-proof” TSF design.
“Given life of mine is often 10-plus years, it is well worth exploring options that have the potential to improve the risk profile of the operation and licence to operate into the future,” Kendall said.
“Business-as-usual-type facilities might not be able to maintain acceptability, as ongoing public disclosure requirements set a high bar for the mining industry in general.”
Kendall acknowledges, however, that this approach adds extra cost and risk for smaller mining companies. Assessing more TSF alternatives requires greater internal resources or use of industry consultants. Documenting the process to select a TSF technology and strategy, and having it independently reviewed, adds other costs.
The main risk for smaller miners when selecting alternative tailings management approaches, such as large-scale filtration (reducing the amount of water transported from a processing plant to a TSF) or co-disposal (combining tailings and waste rock), is reliability and the potential for operational delays.
“These are important considerations that can be addressed with time,” Kendall said.
“Mining companies that don’t adhere to GISTM requirements around TSFs will find it increasingly hard to attract capital from investors or will have to pay a higher cost for that capital.”
Stakeholders have demanded more rigorous and stringent TSF processes after the catastrophic tailings dam collapse at Vale’s Córrego do Feijão mine in Brumadinho, Brazil, in January 2019.
“Investors are scrutinising TSFs in more detail than ever,” Kendall said. “They recognise the immense reputational risk that can arise from a tailings failure, and the potential destruction of mine value.”
Kendall believes it is a good sign that mining companies are starting to adopt GISTM principles for tailing facilities.
“Like many things in mining, change usually starts at the top and works its way down,” he said. “There’s no one-size-fits-all approach.”
The key is a different mindset.
“It’s easy to view a TSF as only a cost and focus mostly on its impact on project economics. It’s harder to identify and value the long-term, less tangible benefits of a successful TSF strategy and the damage caused if something goes wrong,” Kendall said.
“The GISTM provides an opportunity for mining companies to show stakeholders the process they went through to choose their TSF. That’s good for the company, communities, investors, and the environment.”
SRK Consulting is a leading, independent international consultancy that advises clients mainly in the earth and water resource industries. Its mining services range from exploration to mine closure. SRK experts are leaders in fields such as due diligence, technical studies, mine waste and water management, permitting, and mine rehabilitation.
Metso has chartered a new path in India after announcing plans to extend its manufacturing capacity of mobile track-mounted crushing and screening equipment.
The company will expand its manufacturing operations in Alwar in India. The Alwar facility will be 35 per cent bigger at 340,000 square metres.
The Alwar facility is one of Metso’s biggest manufacturing facilities. The site employees 1300 people with a production ramp up expected to continue into the next year.
The factory, which originally opened in 2008, was showcased on September 19 with the new expansion. Key features, according to Metso, include automated warehousing, automated assembly lines, modern painting lines and 13,000 solar panels installed to enable increased energy production. After the extension, solar energy covers 85 per cent of Alwar’s total power generation, which is the maximum permitted as per state government guidelines.
President of the Aggregates business area of Metso Markku Simula said the expansion was key for Metso.
”With the increased manufacturing capacity, Alwar becomes the major Metso site for increased domestic business in India and exports to Metso’s customers globally. Additionally, significant investment has been made in engineering and R&D resources, making it one of our key global engineering hubs,” he said.
The increased capacity in India will be used for the manufacturing of mobile McCloskey and Tesab equipment. At the same site, Metso is also producing wear parts and pumps for the aggregates and mining industries.
