Rio Tinto’s Australia Pacific bauxite operations achieved a serious milestone throughout the latest cyclone season: no “stack outs” and no ship diversions on the Port of Weipa.
Anybody that is aware of this port, positioned on the far north coast of Queensland in a extremely weather-exposed a part of the Western Cape Peninsula (the place the Andoom, East Weipa and Amrun mines are positioned), is aware of the importance of this achievement.
It’s no coincidence that Rio Tinto’s Australia Pacific bauxite operations completed this feat similtaneously its flagship mine, Amrun, exceeded its design capability of twenty-two.8 Mt/y for the primary time since operations started in 2018, attaining 23.3 Mt in 2024 as quite a few month-to-month after which quarterly data had been damaged.
An enormous contributor to that is the continued refinement and optimisation of applications devised by the remotely managed Operations Centre (OC) in Brisbane.
This facility, much like some 80% of Rio Tinto’s operations, is being formed by the Protected Manufacturing System (SPS) – a manufacturing system based mostly on the philosophy that nice groups bringing their greatest day by day will safely and sustainably realise the complete worth of the corporate’s belongings. Rio Tinto explains: “It (SPS) guides us on how we glance after our folks and our belongings, how we prioritise and enhance, and the way we remedy issues in order that they don’t reoccur.”
Steady operation
Vanessa Thorley, Supervisor of the OC in Brisbane, says the SPS focus performed a job in attaining each bauxite milestones.
“Amrun is likely one of the most uncovered ports,” she instructed IM on a go to to the OC final month. “That a part of Queensland suffers from each cyclones and swell circumstances on a seasonal foundation, which frequently impacts our capacity to ship product from there. Up till the latest cyclone season, we had by no means been in a position to navigate an entire yr with out shutting down manufacturing attributable to a stockpile stack-out or the necessity to divert ships to the less-exposed Weipa port.”
The port operation, which may maintain six days’ price of fabric in stockpile and units out a six-week stockpile forecast, is considered one of two that Rio Tinto owns on the Western Cape Peninsula – Weipa being the opposite.
“The Port 365 Kaizen inside the SPS was devised to maximise operational hours and port effectivity throughout the moist season months on the Amrun port,” Thorley defined.
It achieved all three goals this yr.
Some particular actions inside this undertaking included placing extra ships on the water to make sure operational flexibility, and extra precisely timing ship loading operations based mostly on each historic loading instances of that vessel and anticipated climate occasions.
That is the place the OC’s Dynamic Scheduling and Weipa’s Marine groups pooled their experience to refine the method. In relation to ship loading instances, these groups ensured ships had been directed to wharfs based mostly on the time window out there for loading and the typical loading time of that ship – or comparable ships – previously.
Such finetuning has develop into half and parcel of those groups’ every day work.
Amrun acceleration
For Amrun, the mixed introduction of SPS and the Asset Administration (AM) Uplift applications, plus an intense focus from the OC on producing a secure plant feed, drove the efficiency.
The Amrun group focused on key SPS practices, together with Kaizen which led to important supplies dealing with and charge enhancements, and the AM group centered on optimising shutdown technique and bettering upkeep practices. The Asset Well being (AH) group, in the meantime, continued to refine the real-time monitoring perform within the OC. The AM group centered on the planning, engineering and upkeep features, collaborating intently with AH.
One space of focus for the AH group has been prolonging the lifetime of tyres in a cellular gear fleet that, throughout all three operations, totals greater than 90 items. Leveraging Rimex’s TyreSense resolution – a temperature and strain monitoring system – the AH group located on the OC has been in a position to advise operators of potential overheating of tyres and strain occasions. Contemplating a number of the CAT 789 vans (modified to take trailers) have haul cycles of as much as one-and-a-half hours at this operation, a tyre blowout can be important.
Lowering the interplay between heavy and light-weight autos throughout scheduled upkeep has been one other focus space for the AH group – bettering security in addition to streamlining the arrival and departure of autos within the workshop.
Kaizen (downside fixing) greatest observe occasions generated concepts to enhance plant circulate by 6%, and to eradicate shutdown losses fully since March 2024. Additionally they have the potential to enhance port capability by 10% by specializing in vessel turnaround time, in line with Rio Tinto.
On the plant circulate enchancment, Thorley says a shift to producing one product – versus three – allowed the corporate to extend utilisation of the moist crushing and screening plant at Amrun, by eradicating grade change losses, rising feed charge and rising stockpile capability.
Built-in considering
The OC, opened in 2019, runs throughout 4 shifts 24 hours a day, seven days per week, twelve months a yr. Staff members within the OC remotely handle dispatch, monitoring and management capabilities for each the Weipa (together with Amrun and Andoom) and Gove bauxite mines, positioned greater than 2,500 km away.
With the inclusion of each operations, the centre operates a completely built-in bauxite mine dispatch, resulting in safer operations within the pit, elevated pit productiveness and a brand new alternative to share greatest observe throughout the mines. The centre additionally contains utilities, stockyard, port scheduling for each export gross sales and inner refinery deliveries, and asset well being for the Weipa Operations. Gove’s asset well being, dynamic scheduling, stockyards and ports features joined the centre in 2020.
In 2021, all these operations moved into new premises on Charlotte Road in downtown Brisbane.
A transfer to a contemporary cloud platform, plus incorporation of a back-up communications resolution from Motorola Options, has ensured the operation is ready to gather close to real-time info from every of its three mines in a single digital location, enabling an entire view throughout the whole provide chain.
Not solely is the group linked to their colleagues in Weipa and Gove, it has round the clock connectivity to the business group in Singapore. The house additionally options digital desktops, two-way radios and interactive screens forming a customized “live-feed wall” to show Energy BI real-time efficiency knowledge and targets, RTVis mine mapping and climate alerts.
All of this has been designed to allow real-time collaboration, communication and connectivity, Rio Tinto says.
Simply two years in the past, the OC added the Smelter Staff to the ground, furthering that integration piece.
“This group is doing a little very technical work in the case of troubleshooting discount line operations,” Thorley defined of the Smelter Staff. “We now have 1,800 of those discount cells being monitored. Ought to considered one of them expertise a problem, the group within the OC are in a position to undergo a five-loop course of after they detect points that ensures the operations group at website deal with these issues earlier than any cells go down.”
Simply getting began
Thorley is extremely happy with what her group have achieved so far, however she is ready to record off a number of incremental enchancment tasks which are both about to start or are near fruition.
Having broke data on quite a few events in 2024, the Amrun group have been tasked with persistently attaining a run charge of 6,000 t/h, over and above the nameplate 5,600 t/h.
At Gove, there was a concentrate on easy methods to greatest leverage its “sweetener” traits throughout the broader Australia Pacific bauxite operations. “We now have to be extra selective over what we mine, how we mine it, and the ratios that go into the general product feed,” Thorley says. “Each refinery is tuned to obtain a sure mix, and we have to be sure that we replicate that in our deliveries.”
That is the place nearer collaboration with the Smelter Staff within the OC, plus the potential introduction of a Refinery group, will assist streamline that provide chain determination making.
Optimising the dry scrubbing course of – tied to the moisture content material of its merchandise – is one other space of improvement, Thorley defined.
And introducing an Vitality group can also be on the playing cards, with Rio Tinto realising the altering mixture of diesel and renewables on the mines, refineries and smelters requires a brand new strategy.
Since IM’s go to, Rio Tinto additionally introduced plans to start early works and conduct ultimate engineering research to extend manufacturing capability at Amrun, aiming for first output as early as 2029.
The undertaking, named Kangwinan on the request of Conventional Homeowners, the Wik Waya folks, will contain constructing a brand new mine and increasing the present port to virtually double bauxite manufacturing from Rio Tinto’s Weipa Southern operations, the place Amrun is positioned.
Manufacturing from the Kangwinan undertaking would exchange output from Andoom and the Gove mine within the Northern Territory, that are each anticipated to shut towards the tip of the present decade.
Extra broadly on the OC, Thorley and the Australia Pacific bauxite operations are specializing in upskilling present employees to work throughout a number of groups and websites, plus making certain extra Brisbane-based operators often go to website and extra site-based employees go to the OC.
“We now have discovered that the day-to-day interactions between the OC and website enhance considerably after each units of personnel achieve a broader understanding of what all sides experiences,” Thorley stated. “A majority of these exchanges are the one strategy to improve transparency and enhance communication throughout our operations.”
