New mining technology is pointing to continuous round-the-clock operation on many fronts

This audio is brought to you by Astec Industries, a Global Leader in manufacturing equipment for infrastructure, including asphalt production, construction, and material processing, driving innovation and sustainability. The new mining technology being advanced by Master Drilling promises "continuous", round-the-clock mining uplift - even when it comes to narrow reef extraction. On the new technology being developed, Master Drilling director Koos Jordaan displayed a slide that repeated the three words "continuous rock excavation" three times over, whether for shaft sinking, tunnelling or reef boring - and precise reef boring with minimum dilution, to boot. Popping up repeatedly as well during this Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed company's presentation of 399%-higher half-year after-tax profit of $18.1-million was the repeated use of the words "automation, remote operation, robotics, digitisation, artificial intelligence (AI), and virtual reality." Encouragingly, project after project came with the word "complete", to indicate that the main work needed is already done and dusted. To prove this were pictures of real rigs, real tunnel borers, real reef borers - and even real screen grabs, one of which showed Master Drillings' mine safety technology providing subsidiary A&R tracking of about 75 000 people underground daily, which gives an idea of the amount of data collected, reported, stored, analysed and AI-augmented, to provide clients with ongoing resource management. "I think it's safe to say that the world is changing faster and we're looking at how and where we should position ourselves to be relevant and sustainable," added Jordaan during the presentation covered by Mining Weekly. "In the short term, we're setting up and developing our capability in terms of shaft sinking, tunnelling, reef boring, where we want to offer a solution for quicker underground access. We're also working on solutions to do selective mining, providing higher grade for clients. Then also rig automisation and remote operation," Jordaan reported. A significant amount of operation would, he explained, be done in an autonomous, remote manner to enable safe and efficient performance. Regarding exploration, investment has been made into the development of robotics for materials handling for underground and surface core drilling projects. This is also applicable to projects where remote operation is required in opencast mines for delineation, grade control, reverse circulation, and percussion pre-drilling. Outlined was also the role that geophysics could play in gathering data quicker, easier. The use of AI to make information available quickly was emphasised, with digitisation creating an operational technology platform on which all big data was collectable, processable and integrated to uplift dispatch and everything else. Technology development and trends around the globe are continuing to be monitored by this Proudly South African drilling and mechanised rock excavation technology company that operates in 28 countries across five continents. Regarding raiseboring, which represents 80% of the business, factory acceptance testing has been done for the Bluebot rig, and two of the three large capacity RD6 DC low-profile raise-bore rigs manufactured have been deployed to operations. In addition, a second-generation design for the mobile, smaller capacity slot boring LP 100 rig is scheduled for completion by the beginning of 2026. In slim drilling, the surface concept validation, testing and commissioning of a surface robotic core drilling rig has been completed, making it available for further field trials. The experimental sinking of a shaft was completed at the beginning of this year to get down deeper much faster. Funding is being reviewed and design work done on the next phase, for testing during the first half of next year. In parallel, market engagement is taking place for the pursuit of commercial projects for this service. In tunnelling, a co...