Micromine, provider of technology solutions to the mining industry, announced Monday the Micromine Pitram suite has been implemented at the Fruta del Norte mine owned and operated by Lundin Gold.
Located in southeast Ecuador, Fruta del Norte is considered one of the highest-grade gold mines currently in production in the world, with mineral reserves of 5.5 million ounces of gold grading 7.89 grams per tonne.
Key to Lundin Gold’s decision to adopt the technology was its goal to consolidate the mine’s various operational aspects in one harmonized mine production system, Micromine said.
The unified control offered by the suite enhances operational oversight and control, enabling the mine to optimize fleet productivity with existing resources and make informed decisions based on real-time data, the company said.
“Ongoing fleet analysis and monitoring helps identify machine and time cycle inefficiencies in real time,” Edward Leal, mine project superintendent at Lundin Gold Ecuador, said in a news release. “In this environment, even minor adjustments can lead to considerable improvements in operational efficiency.”
In addition to insights into fleet performance, asset health and material flows, Micromine Pitram enhances in-field communication with direct-to-operator messaging. This enables real-time identification and mitigation of shift issues via a platform that allows operators, supervisors and control room to coordinate short interval control (SIC) activities.
“The full-scale implementation of Micromine Pitram at Fruta del Norte not only demonstrates the solution’s versatility but also sets a new industry standard,” Erich Guevara, Micromine’s head of business unit for Micromine Pitram, Americas, said.
With the core system now live, further implementations, including underground-fleet positioning, haulage management and fleet monitoring, are scheduled over the months to come.