With world class assets across the globe, MMG is one of the largest mining houses in the world. MEC has been selected as one of MMG’s preferred consultants and has engaged MEC on a number of different projects including onsite operational support, operational improvement, pit optimisation, the life of mine planning and to complete a number of feasibility studies. MEC has also provided project management support for a number of Sepon Mine studies.

A steady and consistent client of MEC, Newcrest utilised the expertise of our Business Improvement Team to work with the team locally in PNG to innovate a mine operations asset productivity improvement project that systematically tackled bottlenecks and constraints in the system to return 70% above target improvement.

The project team was formally recognised as drivers of a high-performance culture at Lihir when they won an internal Living our Values award for the step-change in productivity and throughput.

MEC doubled down on this success in later months with a study to further improve haulage efficiencies where we were comissioned to conduct a study and project manage a dozer push trial to replace truck haulage in difficult environmental and geotechnical conditions.

MEC has partnered with Motion Metrics to help develop and understand the business improvement opportunities that can be exploited by utilising the motion metrics ecosystem of vehicle, stand-mounted, and process installed units. The hardware, network-integrated via the bespoke AI cloud-based technology, is utilised across the production cycle for tracking material size and characteristic issues. MEC was commissioned by Motion Metrics to identify further opportunities for this technology beyond its original intended purpose. MEC found significant advantages in refining and tracking particle distributions and material characteristics across the site to get step-change improvements in throughput from the dig-face to mill output. MEC used data analytics to optimise dig rates, material tracking for reduced rehandle, payload maximisation and carry back reduction, crusher optimisation, mill-rate and ball dosing and significant cost benefits found in the regrind or HPGR risk management and throughput maximisations. The project successfully demonstrated the strength of MEC’s ability to seek out latent value by exploiting new technologies, delivering significant cost and emissions improvements.

MEC Mining was engaged to conduct a full transformational review of the assets of a large coal mining company. The purpose of the review was to identify and quantify the value of business improvement initiatives and innovative mining solutions which improved productivities and reduced operational costs. The areas which were examined included: mining operations; mine planning / technical services; equipment mix; coal product strategy and management (including CHPP operations); mobile equipment maintenance. As a result of this project, MEC Mining identified approximately $100M of value improvements across our client’s business.

MEC completed a bankable feasibility study for Metro Mining’s flagship project – The Bauxite Hills mine worth $2B. The study consisted of a life of mine plan, schedule optimisation and CAPEX / OPEX cost modelling.

MEC conducted XPAC model consolidation of Three UG operations. This involved the transition and consolidation of mining equipment, production and schedule into an optimised XPAC model. The project deliverables entailed production assumptions, XPAC models, sensitivity analysis and asset optimisation.