Vale, Caterpillar as well as Sotreq, have signed an agreement in order to expand the fleet of autonomous haul trucks when it comes to iron ore mining sites in the Northern System, in the Carajás region, located in Pará.
The technology is going to gradually get expanded through the next five years at the Serra Norte as well as the Serra Sul units, thereby further increasing the operational efficiency, safety benchmarks, and also sustainability efforts of the company. The execution will be teamed along with a plan so as to develop employees and prepare them to do certain strategic functions in the digital environment.
At present, when we talk of the iron ore mining sites, the Northern System operation has 14 autonomous haul trucks having a capacity to carry around 320 t. This new agreement broadens the fleet to almost 90 autonomous trucks within the region by 2028 that are going to be operated by Cat® MineStar™ Command for hauling, which would include turn trucks having a capacity to carry almost 400 t throughout the mine sites.
Interestingly, this initiative represents a transformational leap, with autonomous trucks removing workers from the hazardous mining areas, helping with safer and more inclusive environments, and at the same time, increasing the operational efficiency as shown by inferences obtained in the other operations by Vale using autonomous vehicles, having gains of around 15% in operational performance and also a reduction of almost 7.5% in fuel, therefore contributing towards the reduction of the carbon emissions from the company, especially at the mining sites.
Ever since the execution of the autonomous vehicles in the Northern System that began in 2019, over 260 professionals have been trained in the new roles that have been put in place and also in interacting with digital systems, thereby following international best standards as well as global industry developments.
According to the Vice President of Operations for Vale, Carlos Medeiros, the usage of autonomous transport technologies in their operations in the Northern Corridor is indeed a fundamental strategy in order to strengthen their culture when it comes to operational excellence and preparing their teams to go ahead and lead the challenges of growingly efficient, competitive as well as sustainable mining.
Due to this sort of an expansion, Vale has reaffirmed its role as a leader when it comes to the mining of the future, which is more innovative, much safer, more efficient, and very sustainable, along with the development of professionals who are prepared to lead this kind of a transformation.
Rafael Bittar, Vale’s VP of Technical Operations, opines that through integrating autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, and advanced data analysis, they have taken the path to modernizing their mining operations across the Northern Corridor, thereby becoming a global benchmark in the smart mining segment and hence promoting the transformation of the sector and also connecting themselves to international best benchmarks.
Added Senior Vice President with Caterpillar, Marc Cameron, that they are indeed proud to bring to the fore Cat Command so as to haul the Carajás site of Vale. Through equipping haul trucks by Vale with their autonomous technology, they will be delivering scalable solutions that go ahead and meet their requirements throughout a mixed fleet.
Apparently, at the Serra Sul mining unit, the trucks that would be involved in the project are going to coexist with yet another technology that has been consolidated at Vale, which is the truckless system that makes use of a network of long-distance belt conveyors in order to transport ore from one mining point to another without any kind of fuel consumption and also with a major reduction when it comes to carbon emissions.
It is worth noting that the autonomous program by Vale started in 2018 with the execution of Cat autonomous trucks at the Brucutu mine site in Minas Gerais. At present, there are over 70 autonomous pieces of equipment that are in operation at the company, which includes the likes of trucks and yard machines as well as drills.