AFRICA
Driven by technology While the state-of-the-art dredge is one of the mine ’ s main time savers , Patarica is determined to embrace further technologies to maximise efficiency , from production through to its rail network and its presence at the Port of Dakar .
“ We want to be leaders in terms of innovation ,” he spells out . “ We have a business intelligence project that we ’ ve initiated across the mine in particular , but we are expanding it through the entire value chain from pond to port .
“ We ’ re aiming at standardising our time usage models and then looking to implement a software system where we can analyse data and then using that data to make decisions , to be more proactive rather than reactive .
“ We want to be able to use our information to predict what is going to happen and to then make changes to make sure we maximise productivity and foresee and mitigate risk .”
Premium zircon GCO mines around 50mn tonnes of sand every year , making it the biggest mineral sands operation of its kind in the world . Its orebody consists primarily of ilmenite and zircon , with smaller but high-value quantities of rutile and leucoxene . The majority of its ilmenite is delivered through its integrated logistics system to its titanium and iron ilmenite upgrading facility in Norway , which is owned by holding company TiZir . Zircon is produced in either a standard
Rail is a key mode of transport for GCO www . miningglobal . com 45