*Two BHP employees in safety gear
Insights from an interview with Camilo Trouw, Manager Exploration, BHP.
As increasingly complex mining conditions and growing demand for critical minerals collide, mining companies must be willing to innovate. Companies like BHP that prioritize the testing, collaboration and integration of technologies are the future of the minerals industry.
Read on for insights from BHP’s Manager of Exploration.
Camilo shared the following as impactful technological trends in today’s minerals industry:
This list could go on, but these are some of the most exciting areas of technological adoption and testing in the minerals industry. Dive into this in more depth in a recent IMII blog!
Camilo cited these exciting innovations in the context of other historical breakthroughs. For example, technologies like GPS and cell phones were revolutionary for their time and progressed the industry by leaps and bounds. The above technologies are having the same impact now, in 2024.
As new technologies continually shape the minerals industry, Camilo views this one as a standout: equipment automation. While its extensive integration is still underway, the future of this technology is mining operations with no humans present, greatly increasing safety and efficiency.
At this point, automation has largely been adopted for haul trucks. However, it is also being explored for ore control, equipment maintenance, and metallurgical processes.
Learn more in a previous blog.
Locating and accessing ore deposits is becoming increasingly difficult. This means they’re becoming more deeply hidden under non-mineralized rocks or are covered. So, the minerals industry has a pressing need to address this challenge.
The main solution here, according to Camilo, is geophysics. This principle is not new, but thanks to cutting-edge technologies it’s constantly improving. New surveys and equipment are being developed with the goal of providing information about our planet’s interior.
In addition, the Minerals Systems Framework has been introduced. This system notes key characteristics required for ore to be present. This framework was made possible due to exciting equipment developments that provide insights into detailed chemistry and structural analysis while processing large datasets.
Advanced mining systems encompass everything from data collection to data processing. Camilo uses this example:
A rock specimen of 1kg can contain thousands of different minerals, and each of these minerals is comprised of millions of molecules. Of these millions of molecules, only some will contain the critical elements needed to support the future. One can never be 100% certain when it comes to identifying their exact content, so rates of error are taken into account.
This is where advanced systems come in. Equipment that is faster and more detailed can detect tiny variations and increasingly define the composition of the rocks. The growing ability of these systems to analyze the data is necessary as well. Integration and processing of these large datasets is key.
We look forward to hearing more about technological innovations from our minerals company members like BHP in the future. Thank you Camilo for sharing your insights!
To stay updated on the latest developments in the Saskatchewan minerals industry, visit our website.
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