Vedanta’s Black Mountain mine the latest to adopt Sandvik innovations

Vedanta Zinc International (VZI), a subsidiary of London-listed Vedanta Resources (LON:VED), is bringing its Black Mountain Mining (BMM) operations in South Africa up to speed in terms of digital innovations by implementing Sandvik’s OptiMine platform.

The miner, which expects to boost safety, efficiency and productivity with the solution, said it will commission OptiMine for trucks, loaders and drills next year, accelerating BMM’s data-driven operation for world-class mining.

Sandvik’s digital platform includes equipment and asset location tracking; planning and task management; scheduling; monitoring equipment and operations and OptiMine Analytics with IBM Watson IoT.

“OptiMine gives us end-to-end visibility and control over our underground mining operations,” Andre Trytsman, General Manager, BMM said in the statement. “It was important to us to have the full scope, from scheduling to analytics, to ensure we’re optimised for the safest and most productive operation possible.”

BMM’s copper-zinc-silver operations comprise two underground shafts – Deeps and Swartberg – and a processing plant. It also holds Vedanta Zinc International’s flagship Gamsberg project, said to be one of the world’s largest undeveloped zinc deposits.

VZI’s vision is to create a Southern African zinc cluster that incorporates both Black Mountain Mining and the Gamsberg project as well as the Namibia Zinc mining and refining operations in southern Namibia.