Kazakhstan is ranked among the top 10 countries in the world for mineral reserves, and is home to a variety of natural resources including uranium, chromite, titanium sponge and magnesium metal. Accounting for almost 40% of the world’s uranium production and around 13% of the world’s chromite, Kazakhstan’s rapidly growing mining sector now makes up 9% of the country’s GDP (as of 2015) and has become a promising target for investors.
Despite this, many mining companies in Kazakhstan are still reliant on antiquated technology and the digitization of mining operations is still far off.
We talk to Vladimir Kroupnik, Resource Consultant at Altynalmas Gold Limited, about his company’s transition from a largely manual process to a computerized system in a post-socialist era.
“It took us two to two and a half years to complete the full transition from pen and paper to computers. At the start of this campaign we visited a few mines, none of which had managerial support for basic computerization – which we define as a process of self-development in the sphere of mine planning software usage,” says Vladimir.
To achieve a level of basic computerization, Vladimir puts forward the following process.
Identify the levels of support and participation needed
1. Corporate managerial support
2. Mine managerial support
3. User-level support (Geologists, Surveyors, Engineers)
Garnering support from all three levels is the ideal situation, but in many cases it is possible to start with two out of three of these levels. The most efficient way to get things going is:
- To pinpoint key specialists – even one out of ten will do
- To spend as much time as possible working directly with the local data (surveys, geological databases, polygons and stopes etc.)
- To demonstrate the advantages of working digitally to those at the third level
Training is key, but in stages
Implementation should be split into four stages of training, ideally supervised by a dedicated project manager. At every stage, write down as many detailed instructions as possible, even if it is a small step in using Surpac. Keep updating instructions as required – it has worked for most of the successfully computerized mines.
- General training
- Training based on local, relevant data
- Advanced training
- Open discussion and troubleshooting of issues
Geology training
Here are some tips on training junior geology teams:
- Start working with polygons. Show people that the tasks they commonly perform can be done much more quickly..
- Demonstrate the main steps of database handling and grade control.
- Use externally created resource models for 3D visualizing and first steps in planning.
If training is successfully conducted, geologists will quickly see that it is necessary to regularly update resource models and to have local (Grade Control) models, which would be the right time to introduce them to block modeling.
Pit Optimization
If implementation is being carried out in a relatively large company with significant open pit resources, which is constantly extended or better outlined due to drilling, consider having Whittle in your software arsenal.
