Bellevue Gold implemented the Reconcilor system from Datamine to monitor compliance, track material through the mining value chain and rapidly identify and implement business improvement opportunities.
The customer
Bellevue Gold Limited is a publicly traded company on the ASX. The historic Bellevue gold mine in Western Australia holds one of the highest-grade gold discoveries in the world.
The Bellevue gold project is situated in the Goldfields region of Western Australia, about 40km northwest of Leinster, in a major gold and nickel-producing district. The company is developing a high-grade underground gold mine at the Bellevue gold project. The mine plan includes a 1.0 million tonne (Mt) per annum processing plant, which will use a conventional gravity and leaching circuit. Mining operations will focus on underground production from multiple production centres accessible from the same portal.
The challenges
Meeting the anticipated high grade and cost-effectiveness of the Bellevue Gold Mine during its first five years of operation is crucial. To achieve this, it is necessary to establish and improve the means of tracking and evaluating the effectiveness of the mining process about the model estimates before the start of production.
Challenges included:
- Mining contractor, not owner-operator (outsourced work), can lead to decrease visibility
- Multiple source systems on site
- New software implemented; new users can be hesitant to change
- No ease in comparing the model with mining actuals
- Difficulty measuring mine compliance to the plan
- No established process to measure the performance of the resource model and data inputs along the mining value chain due to the infancy of the project.
The solution
The services selected to solve the challenges included developing a mining contractor, dispatching the LiveMine software and the Reconcilor software.
Adopting Reconcilor and LiveMine can address the challenges faced in tracking and measuring the mining process at the Bellevue gold mine.
The potential benefits included improved data management, streamlined reconciliation process, real-time data collection, improved data quality and reliability, enhanced operational productivity.
Overall, the adoption of these solutions will improve the tracking and measuring of the mining process at the Bellevue gold mine, leading to improved performance and cost-effectiveness.
Reconcilor is a HTML5 web application that makes use of modern web technologies to deliver improvements to the reconciliation process, with subsequent results-driving value across the entire mining chain – from resource to mine to plant product and shipping.
LiveMine was chosen as the comprehensive production data collection solution for Develop, replacing the traditional reliance on manual paper-based record-keeping and unwieldy spreadsheets. LiveMine’s revolutionary approach to underground and open-cut mining data collection has gained significant traction, positioning it as a highly sought-after solution for mining operations.
Digital tablets capture and validate data directly at the source, enabling the efficient transmission of information to the client’s databases for real-time review, approval, and reporting.
The results and future plans
The successful integration of Reconcilor and LiveMine has provided significant benefits to Bellevue, including standardisation of location hierarchy across all data sources, confidence in the quality of data before analysis and reporting, and tracking of spatial and mining compliance across multiple mine plans.
This has enabled the implementation of an optimised stockpile management system, leading to improved blend quality and optimal material allocation for plant processing.
LiveMine has demonstrated its ability to track all hauling, loading, development drilling comprehensively, and production drilling operations at Bellevue, achieving high levels of automation and data accuracy.
In addition, the upcoming launch of its Explosives Management product will provide an end-to-end system for tracking and managing explosives across the mine site, delivering significant value across the entire drilling to the charging process.