North Queensland Copper take out major awards at national conference
Media release
Glencore’s North Queensland Copper team was awarded Best Paper and Best Presentation at the 13th Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM) Underground Operator’s Conference on the Gold Coast in October.
Ernest Henry Mining (EHM) Senior Mining Engineer Conor Te Kloot, Production Engineers Zao Liu and Tim Purvis, and Orica’s Steve Thomson, Mike Lovitt and Tuan Nguyen developed the winning paper 'Improving Safety through Technology: Orica Wireless Electronic Blasting System (WEBS) trials at Ernest Henry Mining'.
By trialling WEBS detonators in the blasting rings at EHM the group were able to provide proof of concept for wireless blasting in an operating underground mine.
The use of this technology eliminates the need for personnel to access drawpoints to hook up pre-charged rings, improving safety and reducing risk of operational delays.
EHM is the first operation to have trialled the wireless system in an underground environment.
Mount Isa Copper Operations (MICO) Business Analysis Superintendent Jade Bullock accepted the award for Best Presentation for the paper 'Productivity and Safety Improvements Supported by MST’s ImPact System at Glencore’s Mount Isa Copper Operations'.
ImPact is an underground digital network that that links operators, machinery and supervisors to a tracked system providing opportunities for a range of safety and operational efficiency improvements.
Simon Pope, Chief Mining Officer Copper Operations North Queensland says that the awards reflect a strong culture of improvement and innovation that ensures Glencore’s North Queensland operations would continue to capitalise on safe production efficiency improvement opportunities at the mines.
“These awards recognise the incredible amount of hard work our teams do to make continual gains in the key area of safe production. These initiatives and others like them allow us to bring positive change to our operations,” Simon says.
“To have so many of our improvement and innovation projects recognised at such a high profile industry event is testament to the high quality of the people we have working at our operations in north Queensland.”
For further information, please contact:
Nadine Roberts
m: +61 436 341 650
e: Nadine Roberts
Notes for editors
About Glencore
Glencore is one of the world’s largest global diversified natural resource companies and a major producer and marketer of more than 90 commodities. The Group's operations comprise over 150 mining and metallurgical sites, oil production assets and agricultural facilities.
With a strong footprint in both established and emerging regions for natural resources, Glencore's industrial and marketing activities are supported by a global network of more than 90 offices located in over 50 countries.
Glencore's customers are industrial consumers, such as those in the automotive, steel, power generation, oil and food processing industries. We also provide financing, logistics and other services to producers and consumers of commodities. Glencore employs around 160,000 people, including contractors.