Eldorado Gold, final week, introduced an encouraging replace on its high-quality progress tasks in Greece, within the course of highlighting its maturing automation efforts on the Skouries underground gold challenge.
Greece stays key to Eldorado’s technique, with three tasks, Skouries, Olympias Growth and Perama Hill, advancing as deliberate, it mentioned within the replace, positioning the gold miner for important manufacturing progress, improved margins and enhanced money move.
Homing in on Skouries, a copper-gold porphyry deposit set to mined utilizing a mix of standard open-pit and underground mining methods, the corporate mentioned general challenge progress had reached 90% as of December 31 when together with the primary part of building, and 78% when contemplating “part 2”.
Based mostly on the 2022 feasibility examine, Skouries’ preliminary lifetime of mine is 20 years, and it’s anticipated to provide on common 140,000 oz of gold and 67 MIb (30,391 t) of copper per 12 months, or roughly 240,000 oz/y of gold equal.
First focus manufacturing is predicted in the direction of the tip of March, with industrial manufacturing anticipated in mid-year, the corporate mentioned final week. Open-pit mining was progressing forward of schedule, with important ore stockpiles being established for plant start-up, whereas, underground, the corporate had efficiently accomplished the primary of two take a look at stopes, with ore stockpiled on floor.
It’s within the extra detailed report on underground growth at Skouries the place automation was talked about.
A complete of 1,155 m of underground growth was accomplished in the newest quarter at Skouries. On the identical time, the corporate carried out a take a look at stope program that, it says, delivered high-quality outcomes through the quarter. The primary of two take a look at stopes was utterly mined out and mining of the second take a look at stope shall be accomplished in February.
“Every take a look at stope mined so far is predicted to supply roughly 72,000 t of ore, with dimensions of 60 m in peak and an space of 30 x 15 m,” the corporate mentioned. “Ore fragmentation has exceeded expectations, and stope cavity monitoring and extraction has met our expectations. This success has elevated our confidence within the deliberate trial of 4 bigger take a look at stopes in 2026, every designed at roughly 97,000 t per stope with dimensions of 60 m in peak and an space of 30 x 20 m per stope.”
“Semi-autonomous ore loading and open stope drilling”, with operators on floor, was efficiently used through the mining of those two take a look at stopes, in keeping with the corporate. “This know-how allows a single operator to manage a number of items of apparatus concurrently, growing security, drill accuracy and productiveness, lowering idle time between shifts and through blast clearance, and reducing related prices,” it famous.
At Skouries, stope drilling, mucking and haulage is carried out by Finland-based underground contractor Tapojärvi, in coordination with native Eldorado groups. Slot raises are developed by raiseboring and carried out by a sub-contractor, in keeping with Niklas Frank, Senior Vice President Operations.
On the subject of the “Semi-autonomous ore loading and open stope drilling”, Frank mentioned the operation was using tools and infrastructure from two totally different OEMs to attain the outcomes cited within the newest report.
“For longhole drilling, an Epiroc Simba E60S tophammer unit is used for each upholes and downholes,” he informed IM. “Longhole drilling is generally operated in teleremote mode from a management room on floor, however there’s additionally some guide drilling that takes place.”
The Simba E60 S (see beneath; picture: Epiroc) is, Epiroc says, a long-hole manufacturing drill rig for medium-to-large drift mining that’s designed for teleremote operation.
Frank mentioned: “For stope mucking, Sandvik LH517i diesel loaders are used with Sandvik’s AutoMine® Lite system, which helps automated cycles.”
AutoMine Lite is an automation system meant for a single Sandvik loader (such because the automation-ready Toro® LH517i) or truck and a extra superior different to AutoMine Tele-Distant, Sandvik says. The answer (pictured beneath; picture: Sandvik Mining) maximises machine efficiency by way of automation, leading to elevated productiveness, security and value effectivity in mining operations.
Frank added on the potential for additional load and haul automation at Skouries: “This could feasibly be upgraded to Multi-Lite performance sooner or later for one operator to manage a number of items from floor.”
Sandvik states that AutoMine Multi-Lite is an automation system that allows every system operator to remotely and concurrently supervise a number of automated Sandvik loaders and vehicles, whereas performing automated missions in devoted manufacturing areas.
It’s good to level out that this isn’t Eldorado’s first load and haul automation rodeo.
Lamaque was the primary of its mines to implement teleremote tools with the introduction of AutoMine for Sandvik tools and Cat Command for underground for Caterpillar tools. The corporate has since gone on to conduct distant mucking through AutoMine Multi-Lite on the Olympias gold-silver-lead-zinc mine, additionally in Greece, with the implementation starting in 2023.
In a weblog put up on the Olympias deployment from 2024, Eldorado mentioned: “The best advantage of distant mucking is that it takes individuals out of hurt’s approach. Our group on the bottom takes each precaution; nevertheless, there’s at all times a component of danger when cell tools is concerned. We all know from our current well being and security perceptions survey that our frontline employees in Greece have a robust beneficial sentiment about having the instruments and tools wanted to finish their work safely. It’s steady enchancment concepts like distant mucking that may assist this sentiment proceed trending in a beneficial route on future surveys.”
