Block Cave Ventilation, Electric Vehicles, and Zero Emission Mining
OZ Minerals is an Australian based mining company focusing on copper. Currently, OZ Minerals is developing a new mine called Carrapateena located in South Australia, approximately 460 km north of the State capital Adelaide. Carrapateena will initially use Sublevel Caving (SLC) as the mining method but is also looking at transitioning into a Block Caving (BC) operation beneath the SLC footprint, as part of the Carrapateena Expansion Project.
Carrapateena orebody contains copper, gold, and uranium. Therefore, management of radon in dust and ventilation airflow is required to minimise exposure to mine personnel. In addition to this, the BC mine is located at the depth of 1.4 to 1.8 km below surface. At this depth, the demand of ventilation and refrigeration is high and expensive and therefore Carrapateena is considering to use Battery-powered Mining Equipment (BME) in order to reduce/eliminate diesel gaseous emission and heat load, and thus reducing ventilation and refrigeration cost and improve working condition in production areas. The objective of this project is therefore to look at how to improve ventilation and reduce personnel exposure to dust and radon, and how to employed BME in Carrapateena BC mine.
Project funding:
- The project is funded by OZ Minerals Carrapateena Pty Ltd from Australia
Project organization:
- Project leader: Adrianus Halim, PhD
- Project consultant: Mr. Tomas Bolsöy (EOL Vent Mining AB)
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