Efficient mining – Face-to-surface

Purpose and goal
The Strategic innovation programme for the Swedish mining and metal producing industry (STRIM) aims at strengthening the mining sector’s competitiveness and contributing to a sustainable development. This project has significantly reduced production costs, improved resource efficiency and improved characterisation of the ore.

Structure and implementation
The project Face-to-surface has been implemented as two individual projects, one surface project and one underground project with essentially different applications. This broad approach and the significantly different technical conditions have not been ideal from a project implementation perspective, and have brought a lot of extra administrative work. The research work carried out in production environments, however, meant that the results have industrial relevance and have a shorter way to applications.

Results
The Face-to-surface project is focused on the goals More efficient and competitive processes, equipment and methods, Resource efficiency and Increased energy efficiency in the STRIM agenda. The project has demonstrated how significant savings can be achieved by optimising fragmentation. The influence from rock mass properties, mainly structural information such as cracks, fractures, voids, etc., has been used to optimise the charging and blasting operation. Loading and transport efficiency have been increased for both surface and underground operations.