IIoT Insights: Remote Monitoring Key to Chilean Gold Mine Operation

Salares Norte is a gold and silver mining project owned by Gold Fields, in the Atacama region of Northern Chile. An enterprise-grade digital platform—Ability Genix Industrial Analytics and AI Suite from ABB—is being installed to drive efficient, sustainable, remote operations.

The gold and silver mine is located among the highest peaks of the Andes Mountain range with elevations of between 13,780 ft. (4,200 m) and 16,076 ft. (4,900 m). It is 808 miles (1,300 km) from the Chilean capital of Santiago where a remote monitoring center for the mine houses the analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) software.

With the technology, Gold Fields hopes to gain data insights that will help the mining company increase industrial productivity and operational excellence and reduce costs. Safety will be improved because remote connectivity will help reduce the number of people needed at the actual mine location.

The analytics software suite combines the power of industrial analytics and AI to integrate 25 engineering, operational and information technology (IT) systems across different functional areas, including the mine, processing, geology and exploration, asset management, finance, legal and human resources.

Solution details

Starting with data capture and integrating cross-functional data, the analytics software suite connects operational, business and engineering systems. It then collects, contextualizes and converts data through advanced analytics into meaningful information to unlock productivity improvements by driving smart business decisions. In addition, it will help visualize and analyze information required to support Gold Fields’ reporting and drive its environmental commitments, helping the company achieve its vision of becoming the global leader in sustainable gold mining.

“Salares Norte deploys a high level of digital industrial software and technology. This is critical to this project due to its remote location—the nearest town is Diego de Almagro, 180 km [112 miles] away—the altitude of the project, and adverse weather conditions, which make site access and fieldwork challenging,” said Max Combes, project director of the Gold Fields mines. “It demands a solution for the remote monitoring center in Santiago that could integrate and contextualize information from many systems, including some common to Chile, as well as perform data analytics.”

ABB will deliver an integrated electrification, automation and digitalization solution to Salares Norte. Iván Villegas, hub product marketing manager for Automation in South America for ABB said, “ABB Ability Genix, set to be fully commissioned in record time, will help Gold Fields use [its] data from operations better by combining it with engineering and IT data for multi-dimensional decision making.”

ABB has already deployed its ABB Ability MineOptimize solution to supply an integrated power and automation system at Salares Norte. The solution comprises six electrical rooms and a suite of process and power controls under the ABB Ability System 800xA distributed control system (DCS). The control systems include Power and Process Control Library and Camera Connect (the ABB video system embedded in the control platform for optimized process monitoring).

ABB Ability Knowledge Manager is used to manage information production through Plant Information Management System (PIMS), alongside ABB Ability Asset Vista Condition Monitoring.

ABB’s Dynamic Process Simulator reviews plant control logics, which reduces commissioning times and allows Gold Fields to train operators to acquire the skills required to achieve high-quality operations.

Looking ahead

Salares Norte is expected to produce 3.7 million ounces of gold over an initial mine life of 11 years. The operation involves drilling, blasting, loading and hauling methods for ore extraction, and has an installed production capacity of two million tons per year.