A growing number of mine owner-operators in Africa are pursuing increased production efficiency by upgrading their mine survey capability to deliver more timely information to planning and operations. Black Mountain Mining (Pty) Ltd, Boteti Mining (Pty) Ltd, ASA Metals (Pty) Ltd / Dilokong Chrome Mine (Pty) Ltd, and others have embraced new data processing and visualization technologies that accelerate mine survey cycles to enable faster, higher-quality decisions that improve mine performance.

Each of these owner-operators deployed Bentley’s MineCycle Survey software that ingests data directly from a variety of sensors, instruments, file formats, and collection techniques and automatically generates a 3D model of the mined volume. The model can be quickly compared to the mine plan for calculation and visualization of under-blast, over-blast, and other variances. These capabilities make it possible to execute survey cycles more frequently and with greater accuracy by eliminating intermediate steps to convert, combine, and process raw survey data. The software’s unique open data architecture provides unmatched flexibility and freedom to share survey intelligence across the enterprise, enabling mine owner-operators to make faster, higher-quality decisions that improve mine performance.

M. Dinake, Mine Surveyor at Boteti Mining (Pty) Ltd, Botswana, said, “MineCycle Survey will enable us to significantly shorten the time between survey measurements and fully processed survey results. This will provide a more current view of as-mined status which will support better planning and operations decisions.”

“MineCycle Survey will enable us to gather and represent survey data accurately and efficiently,” said Heinrich Pienaar, Chief Survey Draughtsman, Black Mountain Mining (Pty) Ltd. “The ability to store our survey information on a secure database ensures legal compliance for our team. MineCycle enables us to share information interdepartmentally, thus keeping us up to date with the latest shared technical information,” added Mr. Pienaar.

Lucky Molemi, Senior Mine Surveyor, ASA Metals (Pty) Ltd / Dilokong Chrome Mine (Pty) Ltd, said, “An accurate picture of current as-mined status is an invaluable asset to any mining operation. The ability to go from instrument measurements to actionable survey results quickly in one step with MineCycle Survey will allow us to plan and operate our mine more effectively.”

By shortening their survey cycles, these mine owner-operators have enabled a more continuous mine planning cycle that increases the ability to maximise profits as well as respond more quickly to market fluctuations and unexpected events.