Mining Archives - North America FarmQuip Magazine

Philippi-Hagenbuch Introduces New Business Development Manager

Michele Catinari — Wed, 16 Feb 2022 16:00:31 +0000

Philippi-Hagenbuch introduces Aaron Boyce as a business development manager with an emphasis on mining. Boyce will work with mining and aggregate customers in the western regions of the United States and Canada as well as niche clients across the United States.

With a vision to grow Philippi-Hagenbuch’s footprint within the mining industry and expand annual sales and special products, Boyce will partner one-on-one with new and existing clients to provide the equipment and services they need to maximize the profitability of their operations.

“Learning about the unique condition of every mining operation is something I’ve always enjoyed. I am excited to work alongside customers to examine how they are using their equipment and find innovative ways to maximize their productivity,”

said Boyce.

Boyce has had a lifelong interest in mining operations. He brings 21 years of industry experience to his role at Philippi-Hagenbuch and abroad, yet in-depth knowledge of the coal, aggregates, industrial minerals, precious metals, and contract mining industries. His previous role was the director of business development and technical services for a contract mining company, where he was responsible for estimating costs of new projects as well as managing contracts and commercial terms for new customers and contract renewals. He also has experience supervising aerial surveying and inventory management programs.

“Aaron’s well-rounded and practical experience aligns with our vision to provide customers with personalized equipment that will ultimately improve their day-to-day efficiency. He has the expertise to identify and implement customized solutions that are the hallmark of Philippi-Hagenbuch,”

said Josh Swank, Philippi-Hagenbuch vice president of sales and marketing.

Boyce resides in Phoenix, Arizona with his wife and children. He is originally from Utah, where he studied mining engineering at the University of Utah and then went on to receive his MBA from Washington State University.

“I am confident that my new role will open up doors to use my skills and expertise to help solve the challenges that operations, maintenance, and engineering managers face every day,”

Boyce said.

Philippi-Hagenbuch welcomes Aaron Boyce as a business development manager for clients in Canada and the U.S. He brings 21 years of industry experience to his role and a broad, yet in-depth knowledge of the coal, aggregates, industrial minerals, precious metals and contract mining industries.

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Hitachi Rolls Out Grade Control Technology Options for Select Excavators

Michele Catinari — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 17:00:03 +0000

Hitachi Construction & Mining Division rolled out options for its grade control technology, on select excavators, including 2D Grade Control and Solution Linkage 3D Grade Control, which allow an operator to set a grade and hold it. The new factory-integrated technology increases efficiency while also lowering daily operating costs by enabling operators to spend less time getting the grade right the first time.

“We gave a sneak peek of Hitachi’s grade control technology at CONEXPO-CON/AGG last year. It’s thrilling to share this solution with our customers for increased efficiency. We know grade management technology is the future of the excavator industry, and we’re glad to provide a variety of options for our customers,”

said Justin Steger, solutions marketing manager, site development & underground, Hitachi Construction & Mining Division.

Solution Linkage 3D Grade Control offers efficiency for your crew and provides factory-integrated precision – backed by Hitachi dealers, ready to work on day one.

With Hitachi’s grade control technology, the machine controls the boom and bucket as the operator handles the arm. This is especially useful as it reduces the need for multiple passes to achieve the correct grade. Likewise, less experienced operators are able to achieve the correct grade more efficiently while a crew member who previously had to check for the grade can now be assigned elsewhere on the worksite.

Solution Linkage 3D Grade Control with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) controls position and elevation with respect to a global reference while the 2D Grade Control manages the elevation of the cutting edge in relation to a benchmark. The 2D Grade Control technology can also be upgraded to 3D Grade Control, through Hitachi excavator dealers.

With Hitachi Solution Linkage 3D Grade Control, the machine controls the boom and bucket as the operator handles the arm.

“Our 2D Grade Control and Solution Linkage 3D Grade Control unite advanced grade technology with the smooth hydraulics and fast cycle times of Hitachi excavators. It saves time and helps make good operators great,”

Steger said.

With an over-dig protection feature, the new grade control technology also lowers the likelihood of over-excavation by preventing the machine from digging past a defined surface or depth. With the prevention of over digging, operators can finish jobs more quickly, reduce material costs and save fuel costs, too. The Virtual Front feature hydraulically limits and automatically stops the bucket cutting edge from contacting the front of the machine at a selectable distance. Additionally, operators can set virtual boundaries helping prevent damage when working around job site obstacles. Virtual Ceiling, Virtual Floor, Virtual Swing, and Virtual Wall features provide visual and audible alerts to the operator as the machine approaches an adjustable set point, allowing operators to focus on productivity.

The grade management systems are fully integrated from the monitor in the cab to the components on the machine. Wire harnesses are thoughtfully routed and sensors are covered and protected from damage.

Hitachi offers customers four options for grade management technology: 2D grade guidance, 3D grade guidance, 2D grade control, and Solution Linkage 3D grade control. Hitachi’s integrated grade management technology arrives ready to work thanks to factory installation and calibration. The systems are also fully supported by Hitachi excavator dealers. Machine integration helps ensure that key components such as sensors and harnesses are protected – increasing uptime. System data from all options work with ZXLink for analysis, so the machine’s health can be monitored to keep projects on track.

Hitachi grade management technology is available on the ZX210-6, ZX210LC-6, and ZX350LC-6 in the United States and Canada.

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U.S. Gold Corp. acquires Northern Panther resource corporation

Michele Catinari — Fri, 11 Sep 2020 18:00:49 +0000

U.S. Gold Corp. has closed the acquisition of Northern Panther Resource Corporation in an all-share transaction pursuant to a merger agreement between Company and Northern Panther.

Northern Panther, a Nevada corporation, has merged into a new subsidiary of U.S. Gold Corp. Northern Panther’s principal asset is the Challis Gold exploration project and it also has $2.5 million in cash. Concurrently with the closing of the merger, several Northern Panther shareholders have led a concurrent financing in which the Company received subscriptions for shares of its preferred stock and warrants up to $5.5 million, bringing a total of up to $8.0 million in additional capital to the Company.

Northern Panther’s Challis Gold Project provides U.S. Gold Corp. with its newest exploration project, located in Idaho. The founding group of Northern Panther has significant experience in growing mining companies with Challis Gold being a high-priority drill-ready target in a premier and growing U.S. gold district.

Under the terms of the merger agreement, U.S. Gold Corp. has issued 581,053 restricted common shares to shareholders of Northern Panther, in addition to 106,894 shares of newly created Series H perpetual preferred stock. Each share of Series H preferred stock will potentially convert into 10 common shares of U.S. Gold Corp. following a shareholder vote, anticipated to be on the Proxy Statement at the Company’s next annual general meeting.

Northern Panther is a newly formed Nevada corporation comprised of leading mining industry shareholders. One of its shareholders, Mr. George Bee, is a seasoned mining industry professional. His career spans over 30 years of experience operating and developing world-class mines and projects, most recently in Latin America. He was the former President, CEO and Director of Andina Minerals Inc. and served on the Board of Directors of Peregrine Metals, which was acquired by Stillwater Mining Company. Previously, he was Chief Operating Officer at Aurelian Resources, Inc. where he was primarily responsible for the development of the Fruta del Norte Project in Ecuador. Prior to that, Mr. Bee was Director, Technical Projects for Barrick Gold Corporation. During his 16-year career at Barrick, he was responsible for a number of operating and development projects. Having been part of the team that developed Goldstrike in Nevada in phases between 1988 and 1995, he left Goldstrike as Mine Manager. In 1998, Mr. Bee returned to Barrick as Operations Manager to bring together the operating team and work to finalize the construction and commence operations at the Pierina gold mine in Peru, culminating in his oversight of the first full year of production of over 800,000 oz of gold. He left in 2000 for the Pascua Lama project in Chile before moving in 2002 to the Veladero mine, where he was responsible for leading the team that took the mine from advanced exploration through feasibility, permitting and into production. Veladero was the first major mine investment to be made in Argentina’s San Juan province and one of the first investments in Argentina after the financial crisis of 2001-2002. Mr. Bee is a graduate of the Camborne School of Mines in Cornwall, United Kingdom.

Another notable Northern Panther shareholder, Mr. Robert Schafer, has more than 40 years of exploration and mergers and acquisition experience in both the junior and senior mining sectors. Mr. Schafer has mining experience in more than 70 countries. His past executive management and Board experience includes Hunter Dickinson Group, Kinross Gold and BHP Billiton. Mr. Schafer is the former President of the SME, PDAC, CIM, MMSA and Boards of Mining Halls of Fame in the US and Canada. Mr. Schafer was awarded the Saunders Gold Medal (A.I.M.E), Jackling Award (SME) and Dreyer Award (SME) for career achievements in the mining industry.

“NORTHERN PANTHER RESOURCE CORPORATION IS ANOTHER STRATEGIC ACQUISITION FOR U.S. GOLD CORP. IN ADDITION TO ACQUIRING THIS NEW HIGH POTENTIAL EXPLORATION PROJECT, WE ARE VERY PLEASED TO WELCOME MR. GEORGE BEE, MR. ROBERT SCHAFER AND OTHERS AS NEW SHAREHOLDERS OF U.S. GOLD”,

stated Edward Karr, President & CEO of U.S. Gold Corp. “This acquisition was very attractive for our Board, and we view this as a win for our shareholders,” Mr. Karr continued. “We are acquiring not only an additional high-potential exploration project, but a significant cash balance and some of the industry’s leading shareholders, who plan to be very hands-on going forward. The Challis Gold project is located in the western state of Idaho and has, we believe, significant upside exploration potential. USAU shareholders now benefit from exploration and development projects in three of what we believe are the best U.S. states for mining development – Wyoming, Nevada and Idaho.”

Edward Karr, President & CEO of U.S. Gold Corp. Source: U.S. Gold Corp

The Challis Gold Project is located approximately 75 kilometers southwest of Salmon, Idaho, within the tertiary challis volcanic field. The Challis Gold Project is a low sulfidation, gold/silver epithermal vein and stockwork deposit localized along intersecting NW – NE trending shear structures in a window of sedimentary rocks exposed through the challis volcanics. The Project has a historic 43-101 (not current) resource of approximately 313,825 ounces of gold at a grade of 1.22 grams / ton gold, with a potential low strip ratio and exploration upside potential. U.S. Gold Corp. will be designing and announcing future exploration programs to advance the project.

Source: U.S. Gold Corporation

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Volvo CE partners with professional futurists and students to present visions of a possible future

newsroom — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 20:00:16 +0000

Volvo CE has unveiled a new project that furthers its efforts in “Building Tomorrow.” The company has partnered with professional futurists to gather their forecasts for the industries that Volvo CE’s customers work in, including construction, agriculture, mining and infrastructure. The company has also partnered with students from the Columbia College of Hollywood to animate these visions of the future.

Futurists forecast the coming trends in science, technology and business. They help companies understand how the innovations of today will impact the industries of the future. Volvo CE recently engaged David Zach and Glen Hiemstra — known for their work with dozens of innovative fortune 500 companies — to provide expert forecasts on where the industrial industries may be headed.

Stephen Roy, senior vice president for the Americas, Volvo CE, said:

“In order to build tomorrow, that means having a good sense of what tomorrow may look like. While no one can be 100% certain about what the future has in store, these professional futurists can give us an educated guess based on the research, science and economic trends we see today. We asked students from the Columbia College of Hollywood to animate some of these forecasts so that we have a vision of the possible future from those young persons who will soon inhabit it.”

Presented below are a sample of the forecasts for each industry. Each one includes a link to view a more in-depth report on each industry that includes many more forecasts presented in richer detail. Scroll down to view the Columbia College of Hollywood’s animations.

Road Infrastructure

Nanotechnology will enable roadways to be built from more resilient glass-like materials.
Photogenic cells along roadways will capture solar energy for transporting to local power grids.
Self-healing epoxies will enable bridges and other metal structures to “heal” themselves from damage.
Roadways will have embedded censors that provide road, weather and traffic conditions.
Autonomous equipment that is fully electric and emissions free will handle duty-cycle work.
Sensors in construction equipment will provide data for predictive analytics and increase uptime.

Construction

Buildings of all sizes will be increasingly modular, utilizing more prefabricated elements.
Entire rooms and their furnishings will be built in a specialized location, then installed at the job.
Flying drones will monitor construction on job sites, reporting critical data and visualizations.
Rolling drones will travel up and down building shafts and behind walls to take readings.
New paint polymers will improve air quality while wall sensors monitor for chemicals, smoke and fire.
Entire neighborhoods will be 3D printed, then completed with prefabricated elements.

Waste Management and recycling

Companies will have more responsibility over the entire lifecycles of their products and the materials used to make them, creating a more “circular economy.”
Vehicles that collect waste and recycling will be fully electric, reducing emissions and noise.
Waste and recycling bins will become autonomous, driving themselves to collection points.
Robots will use artificial intelligence to separate materials, “eating” some of them for energy.
The gamification of the industry will lead the work to become more scientific and videogame like.
Machines that accept recyclables will show what those materials will be used for in the future.

Agriculture

Vertical skyfarms near cities will boost the amount of food that can be grown on a single piece of land.
These indoor farms with multiple stories give the ability to control weather, irrigation and pests.
Plants on all farms will be tagged with RFID and sensors to control nutrient and water intake.
Autonomous electric construction equipment will help prepare lands and transport harvests.
Robots that use artificial intelligence will pick crops and sort them for either human use or composting.
Halophytes, crops grown in saltwater, will help tackle freshwater shortages around the globe.

Mining

Autonomous and remote-controlled equipment will remove humans from dangerous situations.
Humans will control mining equipment from remote locations via simulators that give tactile feedback.
Automated, fully electric machines will handle repetitive duty-cycle work with no emissions.
With programmed, autonomous machines, mining operations will work around the clock.
Robots will move in to pick materials from mine shafts and use artificial intelligence to sort them.
We will increasingly extract materials from the ocean, asteroids and other planets.

Courtesy of volvoce.com

Source: Volvo CE

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Komatsu Customers Surpass 3B Metric Tons Moved Autonomously

Marco Pinza — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 15:00:21 +0000

Marking another industry first for autonomous haulage, mining companies have now hauled more than three billion metric tons of materials leveraging Komatsu’s FrontRunner Autonomous Haulage System (AHS).

Today’s FrontRunner system operates around the clock, hauling copper, iron ore, oil sands, and coal at 11 customer sites across three continents. At the end of June 2020, there were 251 trucks in operation, with an additional 100 (mainly from installing AHS retrofit kits) planned to deploy within FY2020. Working closely with its customers, Komatsu teams developed the first commercially available autonomous haulage system to help mines move material more efficiently. First deployed in 2008 at CODELCO’s Gabriela Mistral (Gaby) copper mine in Chile, AHS brings together some of the world’s best-selling, ultra-class dump trucks with Modular Mining Systems’ DISPATCH Fleet Management System.

“Our mining customers’ ongoing investment in technology and equipment to transition to autonomous haulage underscores the value the system provides,”

said Toshio Kurokawa, General Manager of Marketing Department, Mining Business Division, Komatsu.

“We are gratified to have helped our customers save hundreds of millions of dollars while autonomously moving another billion metric tons of essential minerals and driving for zero harm. We are also honored that autonomous haulage has been a valuable resource to help our customers mitigate risks associated with the global Covid-19 pandemic.”

The FrontRunner system is designed to enable manually operated equipment (such as loaders, dozers, graders, light vehicles, etc.) to seamlessly interact in an autonomous truck environment. Komatsu recently introduced system functionality to enable manual haul trucks to also operate with the autonomous trucks. To further support the growth of autonomy in mining for its customers, Komatsu is leading initiatives within ISO to develop standards for interoperability between Komatsu and non-Komatsu autonomous vehicles.

Source: Komatsu

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Sandvik develops Stage V compliant underground trucks

Lazzarini Sabrina — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 16:00:39 +0000

Despite current global market uncertainty, Sandvik’s flagship truck, the TH663i, equipped with brand new Stage V engine technology, is currently undergoing an extensive field trial period at Boliden’s Tara mine in Ireland. Trialing the unit and obtaining first-hand customer feedback on its technical and operational performance is an integral part of Sandvik’s way of working and customer-focused mindset.

The Stage V engine in the 63 tonne truck is expected to deliver lower emissions, contributing to reduced mine ventilation rates. Designed to fit seamlessly together with the truck and to perform specifically in underground use, the engine system includes built-in fire prevention solutions, increased wiring protection with shrink mesh wiring harness and electric hardware that is specifically designed for demanding conditions, with corrosion, heat and water resistance. The new Stage V, requiring ultra-low sulphur fuel and low-ash engine oil to operate, will be an optional engine for the TH663i.

To reduce particle emissions in the lower Stages/Tiers, standard engines on both in TH663i and TH551i trucks can be equipped with a DPF. Based on studies conducted, the optional sintered metal DPF reduces particle mass by approximately 99%. From a reliability and maintenance viewpoint, the DPF is well protected but still designed for easy cleaning to reduce downtime and operating costs. The DPF is also available as retrofit kit.

Pia Sundberg, Product Line Manager for Trucks at Sandvik Mining and Rock Technology, explains that thorough field tests are of utmost value for both the OEM and the customer:

“We want to allow enough time for sufficient testing of new technology, since it is of benefit to both sides. Possible hiccups that can often occur when developing something new are identified prior to the product being fully commercialized, which enables us to serve our customers better in the long run. Based on the feedback that we receive, we are still able to do some modifications if necessary and thereby make sure that the TH663i meets expectations when it is released to the market with the latest engine technology at a later stage. Of course, there is also some additional new technology on the test truck that we are testing at the same time”

The TH663i also benefits from the recent significant improvements in Sandvik’s AutoMineoffering, as Automine for Trucks now enables autonomous truck haulage not only underground but also on the surface, which is an inevitable part of a truck’s normal duty cycle at numerous mines.

Interesting glimpses into the future truck offering have also been seen in Australia, where the Artisan Z50 battery truck from Sandvik did an extensive tour in early 2020 and gathered customer feedback for the new upcoming battery generation.

Source: Sandvik

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