Author: yinghui

Yancoal’s Donaldson coal operation will go into care and maintenance from June this year, which will result in 92 redundancies.

An announcement from the Chinese miner said one of three mining units at the Abel coal mine would be shut down from March 14.

The move will immediately affect ten roles, which the company will endeavour to redeploy in the Ashton coal mine.

A round of voluntary redundancies will commence at the Abel, Ashton and Austar mines prior to the change in operations.

Donaldson currently employs 103 people, which will be reduced to eleven employees to keep the mine on care and maintenance.

Care and maintenance will include the ongoing rehabilitation of the Donaldson site and management below ground in anticipation of future mining operations.

The Abel mine produced 1.34 million tonnes of salable thermal and soft-coking coal in 2015.

Yancoal recently secured a $1.32 billion debt financing deal in exchange for handing over control of the Ashton, Austar and Donaldson mines to a Chinese consortium.

Yancoal’s full year loss for 2015 was reported as $291.2 million.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasing the connectedness of people and things on a scale that once was unimaginable. The magnitude of this evolution is momentous with more than 80 billion Internet-connected devices projected to be in use in 2024, up from less than 20 billion in 2014. When we then couple the data produced, and processes involved, in the interaction of things-to-things and things with people, what results is a powerful model upon which to drive the digitisation and transformation of companies, industries and whole nations.

The ability to use standard Internet technologies, such as unmodified Ethernet, throughout, from the enterprise all the way down to individual field devices, enables new levels in connectivity, providing greater productivity, better utilisation of assets, and improved decision-making to industrial companies.

According to Michael Boland, distinguished systems engineer at Cisco, “The IoT is connecting people in more relevant, valuable, and meaningful ways; delivering the right information to the right person or machine in real time. Data is being leveraged in more useful ways for better decision-making.”

The mining industry has a lot to gain from the connectivity that the IoT delivers. Mining operations around the world are on an automation curve – they are applying technologies to automate their key functions to gain efficiencies in production. However, these initiatives are often focused and restricted within production silos.

“We see a significant number of mines that have data locked away in individual systems but now want to federate that data together, instigate new processes, involving their people in new ways to achieve better outcomes. Mining generates big data because the number of sensors are growing rapidly and systems involved are becoming more intelligent, so the challenge ahead is to federate that data,” said Boland.

Productivity and safety are two key drivers in mining. Removing people from the mine site and into remote operating centres helps companies achieve both. By leveraging IoT technologies, the interaction between people, process, data and things can be securely and reliably monitored, modified and maintained remotely.

Turning big data into meaningful information
“The next big boom in mining is going to be connecting a lot more ‘things’. There are going to be more wireless and mobile devices that will be able to be instrumented, sensed and controlled more effectively,” said Boland.

This results in a lot of data being generated that needs to be analysed to generate useful information. Data needs to be intelligently captured, correlated and analysed to optimise systems.

Not only does this data need to be captured and analysed, but also to be available as useful information in real time so that the mine’s remote operating centre can modify processes, asset utilisation and maintenance to optimise production rates in relation to dynamic market demands. Through IoT, this next level of optimisation can be achieved for a single mine or a federation of mines, rail and ports. IoT enables the digitisation of the entire mining supply chain for optimisation.

Centralised control
The complete mining operation, from pit to port, involves many functions with many specialist devices and equipment. Centralising control allows mining operations to pool resources to optimise production and reduce costs.

“The other trend here is that we are arriving at a point where instead of doing everything ourselves, we are starting to contract out particular roles that require specialist expertise provided it makes commercial and economic sense and the miner is in full control,” explained Boland.

“However, it is becoming apparent that mining systems that have been implemented to date have not been designed for this concept of integrated but outsourced services. We need to have these roles inside the integrated operations systems, yet others may actually perform them in a secure and controlled way. Through well designed IoT infrastructure, the ability for remote experts to analyse information and real time systems securely,” he said.

The next wave of productivity
The IoT is taking the world by storm and opening new and exciting possibilities to businesses, government and industries. The mining sector also has much to gain from the benefits that IoT can provide, particularly in light of the current challenges.

Through IoT, mining operations can save energy, downtime and costs associated with production and transportation of resources. Remote operations remove people from potentially hazardous situations. The IoT provides the platform for the integration and optimisation of the entire supply chain.

“On a national scale, for Australia, the benefits that the IoT can deliver are most important because as a country we are not going to win on efficiency gains based on cheaper labour to drive down costs. We are going to use our expertise and knowledge of mining and automation systems to continually improve the most efficient and cost effective mining capability in the world,” said Boland.

Leveraging a unique solution
Together, Rockwell Automation and Cisco have developed a unique value proposition for mining customers to help bridge the gap between mining operations and business systems through network and security products, Converged Plantwide Ethernet (CPwE) reference architectures, training courses, services and solutions.

“By developing reference architectures for mining we are reducing risk for our customers. We are developing full guides on how to facilitate convergence of information technology and operational technology so that our customers do not have to do all the heavy lifting and have all the expertise themselves, yet still inherit the capabilities for safe, compliant and sustainable operations and performance,” explained Boland.

“We are unique in that we develop solutions that leverage our expertise in operational technology, through the Rockwell Automation offering, and then combine this with the deep networking, datacentre and security capabilities of Cisco,” he said.

Connecting people, process, data and things above and below the ground
A mine in Canada has established a new technology benchmark for future mines by applying IoT technologies throughout the site. A detailed evaluation process recognised that the Rockwell Automation and Cisco offering was capable of delivering the complete integrated solution. The central operations centre utilises IoT technologies and combines systems monitoring and control with remote equipment control and tracking.

The mine deployed the latest advances in controls and communications, including comprehensive Wi-Fi communications for surface and underground phone, data, asset and personnel tracking; and a Radio Frequency Identification-based wireless tracking system, used to create ‘ventilation-on-demand’ underground.

Combining operational technology with networking and security capabilities provided the inherent flexibility for the mine to adapt to changing requirements in real time.

According to Geoff Irvine, mining industry manager at Rockwell Automation, “Using standard Ethernet components really adds significant value in being able to combine control, safety, voice over IP, video, people tracking and also applications such as ventilation on demand.”

IoT technologies provide the capability to integrate and analyse data from various processes such as remote sensing of objects and the environment, images from cameras deployed for monitoring and maintenance, scheduling preventative maintenance procedures and monitoring power usage.

“Together with Cisco we help customers leverage technology to better gather and analyse data, and transform it into actionable, real time insightful information. By converging information technology (IT) with operational technology (OT) into a single unified architecture, mines can benefit from establishing a ‘Connected Enterprise’ and leveraging the power of this information to optimise operations and take their productivity to the next level,” explained Irvine.

The latest precedent from the Fair Work Commission relating to right-of-entry to BMA draglines has BHP furious about the prospect of loss of productivity, but that’s a very small part of the picture.

“If allowed to stand, this decision would unnecessarily reduce the productivity and economics of our operations as it disrupts the operations of our draglines, which at 2500 tonnes are the largest, most expensive equipment we have in our operations,” came the core complaint from BHP this week.

BMA have 20 draglines operating at their coal mines in Queensland, most of which have two operators on board at any one time to avoid downtime if one operator needs to take a lunch break, fill out paperwork, or use the toilets. Some machines only carry a single operator, and in that case you can see that any stoppage of the operator, union-related or otherwise, would result in a significant productivity loss.

It’s very difficult to get BHP to quantify the prospective loss of dragline productivity from union visits, especially while they are weighing up the prospect of an appeal against the new FWC decision.

On the flip side, the CFMEU is perfectly willing to describe the practical process by which a union rep would enter a dragline, and give us a starting point for estimating the loss of productivity.

It’s important for us to gauge this loss, as it forms the basis of BMA’s argument against allowing union reps to board a dragline, so let’s get into it.

Queensland CFMEU district president Steve Smyth told Australian Mining that it takes between one and two minutes for a dragline to stop movement to allow someone on board. This goes for anyone, whether you’re an operator starting shift, a drill and blast superintendent checking up on operations, a member of management or even the press there to take a tour, or a union rep paying a visit to one of their members.

CFMEU national secretary Andrew Vickers says that during a dragline visit, it is not necessary for the machine to cease operation if there are two operators on board. There’s no safety risk to the occupants while the machine moves: anyone would be subjected to greater risk standing on a train in Sydney on the way to work.

So while one operator speaks with the rep, the other operates in the cabin up front. There’s no risk that the one operator will hear the conversation of the other, contrary to the opinions espoused by FWC deputy president Ingrid Asbury.

We’re looking at a four minute loss of productivity for a single visit. Even with 10 union visits per machine per year (a gross overestimation in even the worst industrial dispute), this is probably small number of stoppages compared to what the machine faces every time a member management needs to board the machine for a visit, or for maintenance.

AMMA chief executive Steve Knott, understandably defending his members’ preferences, says this is “impractical”, but how practical is the alternative?

The alternative is stopping the dragline to allow the operator to leave, finding a replacement for him to accompany the other operator, driving the first operator 2.4 kilometres from the dragline to a lunch room he never uses (at least a 15 minute drive at safe site speed limits), meeting with him there, driving him back, stopping the machine again and allowing him to alight.

Neither of these situations is a “shutdown” of critical equipment. The machine never stops running, but one of these ways requires an extra dragline operator and extra steps in the overall process of meeting, and that is the way being suggested by BHP.

So we can rule productivity out of the equation altogether when trying to understand why BHP don’t want union reps boarding their draglines.

The second point that needs to be addressed relates to the law that’s at stake here. The CFMEU has sought meetings in crib rooms aboard the draglines as per the Fair Work Act s.492(3)(b), which stipulates union officials may meet with members in “specified locations provided for the purpose of taking meal or other breaks”.

The recent full bench decision rightly identified that the room aboard the dragline is the ordinary lunchroom for dragline operators, overturning the November decision which said it was not. The law clearly states that the place where a worker ordinarily takes their lunch, the ‘specified location’ is a suitable place for a union meeting.

BHP says the area in question is a “corridor” between two rooms aboard the dragline, but Central Queensland Services’ own drill and blast superintendent gave evidence to the FWC which described “half kitchenette”, which include an urn, a small sink, a microwave, cupboards and drawers. Regardless of what BMA or BHP legal representation calls it, dragline operators do call it a “crib room” because it is where they always take their lunch: That is the ‘specified location’.

Knott compared meeting in the drag line crib room to a union rep wanting to meet a pilot in the cockpit of a commercial airliner “because the pilots occasionally eat a sandwich there”. That would be a good analogy, except for the fact that a cockpit is not a specified location for lunch (there’s no kitchenette in the cockpit, that’s elsewhere in the plane), and the fact that they can’t halt the plane in two minutes to allow a rep to board.

So Knott brings us closer to the real heart of the matter: “This case is a strong example of why the business community has consistently opposed automatic or presumed access for union officials to employee lunchrooms, let alone to small pseudo-meal areas inside heavy production machinery.”

This fight has nothing to do with productivity. This has nothing to do with lunch rooms. This has everything to do with BHPs fear that this precedent is at the top of a slippery slope to union reps being able to go to any type of lunchroom they want. What if they could visit people at their desks because they eat the occasional sandwich there, BHP asks? Common sense tells us that is not an ordinary lunch room, or a specified area for lunch.

But BHP are assessing their options, and the only doubt about whether or not they will appeal lies with the amount of pressure they can put on the government to repeal the Fair Work Act s. s.492(3)(b). The Liberal Party will gladly oblige any move to restrict the legal powers of the unions, but the Labor party will gladly uphold them, so passage of an amendment put forward by government is not a foregone conclusion.

Dean Dalla Valle tried pressuring the Senate to overturn this amendment in late 2014, without any success, and it’s unlikely the same move will succeed in the same goal now. If that amendment is removed, where shall we say the union is allowed to meet with their members? BHP’s preference would be offsite and after hours, to be sure.

It is the prerogative of the Union to protect their right of entry to lunch rooms, for the sake of their members. Some cynically read this as territorial pissing, that the union are making a nuisance of themselves because “that’s what they do”, but what if they didn’t try to protect this right? They are actually obliged to uphold this right of entry to the ordinary lunch room space used by their members, and in the case of dragline operators this is always aboard the dragline. The same does not apply to haulage and other truck drivers, because they take lunch in a truck cabin only rarely.

The union has no choice but to protect the laws that cover their members just as the AMMA (effectively a union that has mining companies as members) must protect the interests of its own members.

It is not only a slippery slope for BHP: Even more so this is a slippery slope for the CFMEU, that by failing to uphold this principle they could be prevented from entering any lunch room, specified or otherwise.

It is amply clear that the dragline crib-room is the line in the sand where the battle will always be fought over right-of-entry to the workplace between the AMMA (representing a collective of companies) and the CFMEU (representing a collective of employees), but for now the law is in place, and changing it will be quite difficult indeed.

Iluka Resources is set to mothball the Jacinth-Ambrosia mine in South Australia, with 33 jobs to be cut.

The mineral sands mine will be shut down for 18 to 24 months, starting on April 16.

Iluka managing director David Robb said the remaining 46 positions at the mine would be retained or redeployed.

“The suspension is consistent with Iluka’s shareholder focused objective in that it will improve cash flow available for shareholders at a time of subdued market demand while also contributing to an improvement in zircon market dynamics as demand recovers,” he said.

“Inevitably, there will be further job losses associated with contractors and support services to the operation.”

Robb said the company would work with local and state government to coordinate the transition arrangements.

The Jacinth-Ambrosia deposit was discovered in 2005, and has the capacity to supply 25 to 30 per cent of the world’s zircon demand.

Robb said Iluka had altered production at the plant to operate at full capacity for maximum efficiency and to build stockpiles.

Concentrate stockpiles at Jacinth-Ambrosia are now at 800,000 tonnes, and will be processed at Iluka’s plants in Western Australia and Victoria.

Anglo American has announced it will completely exit coal, selling off its Australian assets as the miner posts a US$5.6 billion loss.

Anglo American CEO Mark Cutifani announced the company’s new strategy overnight, describing the new business as streamlined and the changes as “extensive, but essential…we are creating the new Anglo American”.

“We’ve deemed all the coal assets in Australia as non-core,” he said in a video released by the company,” and have processes across all of those assets.”

“Disposals processes are underway in the Moranbah and Grosvenor coal assets.”

No mention was made of Grasstree in his video statement.

“Changes that involve people are never easy, but we are committed to a thorough process and to treating people with the care and respect they deserve,” he said.

The miner will also exit from its nickel, niobium, and phosphate operations globally, cutting jobs from 11,500 today to fewer than 5000.

Anglo American is also focused on exiting its Samcor Manganese joint venture operations it runs in South Africa with South32.

It will continue the progress of divesting its previously named non-core Australian coal assets, having already sold off Callide and the Dartbrook coal mines.

It comes despite an aggressive restructuring plan announced late last year which planned to slash its workforce by two thirds and divest non-core assets.

“The markets are challenging the industry,” Cutifani said, “and that is likely to continue,” explaining the impetus for the new decision.

“Demand growth of certain commodities has slowed, prices also fell steeply, particularly towards the end of last year…and they remain volatile,” he said.

“We are taking decisive action to sustainably improve our cash flows and materially reduce net debt, while focusing on our most competitive assets.”

Anglo American expects these decisions to provide $US1.9 billion in cost and productivity improvements in this year, following a 55 per cent decrease in EBIT for the miner.

“We have detailed a series of measures, including $1.9 billion of additional EBIT benefits from cost and productivity improvements to deliver positive free cash flow in 2016 and beyond, and an additional $3-4 billion in asset disposal proceeds,” Cutifani said.

“As a result, we are targeting net debt of less than $10 billion in 2016, assuming current commodity prices and exchange rates. In the medium term, we are targeting net debt of $6 billion, supporting a return to a solid investment grade credit rating.

The decision follows on Moody’s downgrading of the miner.

“[The]downgrade of AAL’s ratings to Ba3 from Baa3 primarily reflects Moody’s assessment that the company now faces a higher business risk due to deterioration in commodities market conditions and a longer and more uncertain deleveraging period than previously expected,” the investors service said in a statement.

Terex Corp. has received an unsolicited, non-binding acquisition proposal from China’s Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science and Technology Co. to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Terex for $30.00 in cash. The proposal is conditioned on, among other things, receipt of U.S. and Chinese regulatory approval and Zoomlion shareholder approval.

Terex announced last August that it had entered into a Business Combination Agreement with Finland-based Konecranes Plc providing for a combination of Terex and Konecranes. The Terex board of directors has not changed its recommendation of the proposed combination with Konecranes.

Terex acknowledged it has entered into a confidentiality agreement with Zoomlion and is in discussions with Zoomlion regarding the proposal. Consistent with its fiduciary duties, the Terex board of directors, in consultation with its legal and financial advisors, is carefully reviewing the Zoomlion proposal to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interests of Terex shareholders. Terex will have no further comment until the board has completed its review.

Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC and Moelis & Company are serving as financial advisors to Terex and Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP, Bryan Cave LLP and Avance Attorneys Ltd are acting as legal counsel to Terex.

Zoomlion is believed to be China’s second largest construction equipment manufacturer, valued at about $4.4 billion.

Terex stock, which closed Friday at $15.49, has jumped 37.1 percent to $21.24 as of 2 p.m. EST Jan. 26.

The third Australian manganese operator in two months has closed operations as the commodity price falls.

Shaw River, owner of the Otjozondu manganese project in Namibia, has entered voluntary administration “as a consequence of low manganese ore prices”, which halved in 2015.

It follows fellow Australian companies OM Holdings – which closed its Bootu Creek mine in December – and Consolidated Minerals – which shut down its Woodie Woodie mine last week – in shuttering its operations.

Shaw River is placing “itself in a trading halt and then in voluntary suspension while the company pursued a restructuring of debt as a precondition of a fund raising to be initiated in the New Year,” it said in a company statement.

It explained that while it still has a credit line with its major shareholder available, “beyond an initial loan amount all additional drawdowns were at the discretion of the lender….late in the year, the lender informed the directors that its capacity to advance further funds was limited.”

Shaw River carried out an SPP last month to reduce debt obligations, however it failed to raise enough from its shareholders.

“Unfortunately the company has not received any assurance from a third part that is it possible to raise funds in the short term for a company such as Shaw River that operates in the resources sector or more particularly in the manganese sector, particularly while the stock markets are volatile.”

Shaw stated it has already ‘aggressively’ pared back operating costs “t o levels not previously thought possible”, however the fact that manganese ore has fallen to levels not seen since 2003 negated its efforts.

“These low ore prices are having consequences,” the miner said.

“Within the manganese ore market, production of internationally traded ore has been severely pruned with full and partial closures of mines in many countries including notably South Africa and Australia, and the closures announced continue at least through January.”

However despite the wide scale slaughter manganese operators are facing , Shaw River managing director Peter Cunningham does see a future for the commodity.

“These cutbacks are resulting in shortages of some grades of manganese ore,” he said.

“Spot prices in China are showing early signs of recovery.

“However, demand in China has been constrained in advance of Chinese New Year, and so stocks of ore in China ports have yet to decline significantly. Demand is expected to improve after Chinese New Year, and this improvement should provide opportunity for restructuring of Shaw River and its subsidiaries.”