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A four-year collaboration between Orica and Elkab using wireless start-up technology at the Kiruna iron ore mine in northern Sweden has resulted in the first production blast.
These explosions – which were claimed in mid-May and exploded in early June – go some way to supporting LKB’s safety, productivity and long-term automation objectives, said Abhishek Roy, Orica’s head of EMEA marketing.
According to Injmar Hasslinger, Head of Technical Services at Orica Europe, getting to this explosive stage involved extensive work.
He explained: “It all started in 2008. That’s when LKAB showed interest in the new WebGen™ wireless technology in 2018. They could see the safety and productivity benefits of the new way of manufacturing.
Orica went onsite at the Kiruna mine in March 2018 to begin a signal survey, testing whether the company could get a good signal between the antenna and the downhole receivers.
WebGen enables in-hole primer groups to be wirelessly triggered by firing commands that interact with rock, water and air. This avoids the limitations usually imposed by physical contact with each primer in the blast. A wireless blasting system improves safety – by keeping people out of harm’s way – improves productivity – removes the limitations of wired connections.
Therefore, it is considered an important precursor to automating the charging process.
To this point, WebGen has fired more than 3,000 explosions on customer sites worldwide, with more than 100,000 components, Orica says.
In Kiruna, however, the process from testing to technology onboarding was less than straightforward.
“In the area where the signal survey was completed in 2018, it was found that the signal could not penetrate the magnetite organ at all,” Haslinger said. “It was the first time we encountered this and it was a setback for Orica and LKAB.”
At the time, Orica did not have the field equipment or advanced diagnostic equipment in place to diagnose the antenna issue, making it difficult to determine the root cause.
“We had to go back to the global WebGen specialists and try to understand why this happened, which we were able to do successfully,” Hasslinger said.
After the dedicated work of the international team, Orica returned to Kiruna in September 2020, looking to repeat the signal survey from 2018 and to measure the antenna performance and output of its advanced diagnostic equipment.
“We also had the opportunity to test the behavior of the signal in the holes, as well as to measure the characteristics of the rock around the antenna and the in-hole receivers,” added Hasslinger.
The survey was successfully confirmed, which explains why the signal could not pass through the Orebow. This allowed the international WebGen team to start developing solutions to overcome the signal problem, which was able to work in a short period of time.
In December 2020, the Orica team was back in an underground iron ore mine to test the new solution.
“The first tests with the new solution showed positive results and the global team continues to grow,” said Hasslinger. “In May 2021, we tested the solution in different scenarios and applications to make sure it works in the mine. These tests gave us a lot more knowledge about the environment and how the new solution works.
“In 2022, we were ready to test the system in active mining operations and it was a lot of work to get to that point.”
Before the explosion in mid-May, the first two production rings were charged using WebGen by Elkeb engineer Michal Grienko in Kiruna. This is one advantage of the system, the wireless primers can lie dormant in the blast profile for 30 days prior to the blast.
“The results look good so far,” Grienko said. “We will explode a total of five production rings, and the last three are scheduled to explode in September.”
Among the benefits that Grienko cited are the reduction of risk associated with hole priming by overcoming damaged or unstable blast applications and the possibility of blasting more blast holes.
Orica Roy said the collaboration between the two companies had been “fantastic”.
“Despite the challenges surrounding signal transmission on the magnetite orebode, which is a prerequisite for a successful wireless launch, both companies have worked together over the past four years to find practical and innovative solutions,” he said.
“We hope this is the start of a long-term, sustainable wireless blasting solution that supports LKAB’s safety and productivity objectives and long-term automation goals.”
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