Anglo American’s industry-leading remotely operated autonomous longwall technology has been recognised for excellence in innovative collaboration at the 2022 Queensland Mining Awards.
Head of Transformation for Anglo American’s Steelmaking Coal business, Dan Reynolds, said the team which won the METS Ignited Collaboration Award had worked tirelessly to successfully deliver remote operations at the underground mines, including Moranbah North, Grosvenor and Aquila.
“Through collaboration with our industry partners, our Steelmaking Coal team has delivered a breakthrough in the development and implementation of autonomous longwall technology and remote operations,” he said.
“Remote, autonomous longwall operations will deliver a significant step change in the safety and efficiency of underground mining as it gives us the ability to remove our people from more hazardous areas, to instead be located on the surface in our new purpose-built Remote Operations Centres (ROCs).
“Our Underground Technology and Automation team partnered closely with site operational teams at Moranbah North, Grosvenor, Aquila and Grasstree, as well as various local and international key supplier partners – including Restech, Aurecon, Komatsu, Eickhoff, Marco and G -Tick systems – to successfully deliver an incredible program of work including industry-first safety and production systems that were required to unlock autonomous longwall operations.
“Congratulations to all our teams who have supported this work, which was also named as a finalist in the Innovation Award category. It has changed the way our underground mines operate.
“I would also like to acknowledge our Longwall Pressure Monitoring System team, who were finalists in the Innovation category, and our teams working to deliver Collision Avoidance Technology for our open cut operations, who were also nominated in the Collaboration category.”
Award judge Jason Economidis said any initiative that got people away from the coal face was an exceptional one – “and the whole of supply chain integration here was outstanding”.
“Anglo American’s effort to link autonomous operation to safety and hazard elimination is first-class,” he said.
Presented by the Bowen Basin Mining Club, in partnership with the Queensland Resources Council, the bi-annual Queensland Mining Awards recognise industry excellence.
Anglo American was recognised as finalists in the following Queensland Mining Awards categories:
Collaboration Award
- Anglo American Autonomous Longwall Technology and Remote Operations (winner)
- Anglo American Level 9 Collision Avoidance Technology.
Innovation Award (miner)
- Anglo American Autonomous Longwall Technology and Remote Operations
- Anglo American Longwall Pressure Monitoring System.
