User Spotlight: Overcoming Challenges in the Filipino Mining Industry

By

Today’s post comes from long time GEOVIA user, Carlo Matilac, Senior VP Operations at Platinum Group Metals Corporation. 

Carlo Matilac, Senior VP Operations

The Filipino mining industry has faced a number of challenges that prevents miners from developing mineral deposits to their full potential. One of them is a lack of technology adoption which means mining companies are unable to extract deposits in a timely manner and provide the required results in the shortest possible time.

I have seen the positive impact of technology on mining performance in my previous roles and in my current position as Senior Vice President of Operations at Platinum Group Metals Corporation (PGMC).

I am a long time user of GEOVIA Surpac™, GEOVIA MineSched™ and GEOVIA Whittle™, starting from when I worked with BHP Billiton at QNI Philippines. We had a Nickel Laterite project in Surigao, Mindanao which is still in operation today and using Surpac we were able to produce a strategic plan for pit design as well as assimilate our short and long term mining plans.  

As both a Technical Specialist Asia-Pacific and as a consultant with QNI, I had the chance to travel throughout Asia to work on projects in New Caledonia, Indonesia and throughout Philippines. One in particular belonged to the Harita Group in Indonesia, where my team and I were able to get this mine online within the year which was extremely impressive. We were also able to meet strategic planning requirements in New Caledonia for our executive committee, and since then I’ve introduced Surpac to many clients in the mine planning stage.

Surpac’s ease of use, user friendly interface and highly capable performance in every aspect of mining operations are some of the reasons why I continue to use the software.

I introduced GEOVIA applications to the team when I joined PGMC for strategic and mine planning purposes as well as to determine project feasibility. We have really seen the benefits of using GEOVIA applications. PGMC’s success is in the numbers – We more than doubled the mine production and shipments from a mere 2 million tonnes a year to 5-6 million tonnes in 2014. We have more than 20 operating blocks in the plan, which is a nightmare for any mine planning engineer!

MineSched has also enabled us to cut time taken in preparing mine plans and to reduce manpower whilst still surpassing production. To put this into perspective, instead of a team of four to five draftsmen and mining engineers working for a month to prepare a plan, we now only take one hour to prepare the same plan using one engineer.

We will continue to use it on other projects in Philippines such as the Palawan project. Our executive committee strongly believes in the capability of Surpac and other GEOVIA packages and so we would like to continue strengthening the partnership with Dassault Systèmes and Paramina Earth Technologies, especially in the area of technical support and software usage for practical mining applications.

With the advancements in mining software, I really hope that the mineral industry will outpace our current achievements in the near future.

Watch the interview below with Carlo Matilac to learn more:

0

Arthur Pacunana

Mine Planning Superintendent at Phu Bia Mining
Arthur is a longtime user of GEOVIA Surpac and MineSched. He has worked at Phu Bia Mining in Laos (owned by PanAust) for the past six years as the Mine Planning Superintendent. Phu Bia operates a large scale open pit copper-gold mine in northern Laos as well as a gold-silver operation 30 km away. He recently presented a paper on the application of MineSched at Phu Bia Operations, at the GEOVIA Community Conference in Bangkok.