China’s top gold producer Shandong installs 5G network underground at its Laixi operations

Shandong Gold Mining Co Ltd, which has a Hong Kong listing, gave some insight into the technology moves being made by the prominent Chinese mining companies in its 2019 full-year results released yesterday.

The Company is the leading local producer and achieved a gold mine production volume of 40.12 tonnes or 1.42 Moz during the year, representing a rise of 2.03% year-on-year. This compares to a Chinese domestic total production across all mines in 2019 of 314.37 tonnes or 11.09 Moz, representing a decrease of 9.13% year-on-year. Sanshandao, Shandong Jiaojia and Linglong gold mines have all produced over 100 tonnes of gold in total, again a first for Chinese gold mining complexes.
The Company says it plans to boost its large-scale operations by “vigorously improving the mechanized operation and the efficiency of enterprises.

“the equipped production level and mechanization degree of the mining businesses firmly occupy the leading position in the domestic mining sector. Also, the underground trackless mining equipment configuration has always been at an advanced level in the world.”

Shandong says

The Company is steadily advancing the execution of its planning programmes including the ‘Mineral Resources Development and Utilisation Project of Sanshandao Gold Mine’ and the ‘Resources Development and Utilisation Project of Jiaojia Gold Mining Belt.’
The three crucial Laboratories of the Company, namely the deep underground mining laboratory, beneficiation laboratory and filling laboratory, have started to take shape, and some of the scientific research outcomes are playing or will play a vital role in the Company’s technological innovation development. For instance, the national-level ‘Key Technologies on Safe and Efficient Mining of Large-scale Submarine Metal Deposits’ worked on by the deep underground mining laboratory are being implemented at the Sanshandao gold mine; the mine rock mechanics data management and visualisation system fills in the gaps in rock mechanics work for domestic underground metal mines; and the first domestic industrial use of 5G technology in the mining area has been successfully realised in Laixi mine. The Company emphasized the importance of reform and innovation and gathered resources on transformations and upgrades. Sanshandao gold mine is being built into a safe, efficient, smart and safe modern mine this year.
On the Laixi 5G Project, China Mobile and Huawei successfully deployed the first network of 5G base stations 500 m underground. The 5G coverage is across the 500 m level of the underground mine, and it has been successfully used to control the unmanned electrical rail transportation cars. This is one of the first occasions that 5G has been deployed for an underground mine operation in China. Huawei and China Mobile say they will continue to deepen cooperation and promote the construction of 5G smart mines.
At Laixi, field test data reveals that the downlink speed is steady at over 800 megahertz. While the end-to-end delay is significantly less than 20 milliseconds, the uplink rate is stable at more than 100 megahertz. This actually exceeded customer expectations. In the future, Shandong Gold’s Laixi mine plans to combine the 5G, Unmanned motor, edge computing, cloud platform, and other new-generation information technologies to gradually achieve remote control and automation of its underground production fleet as well as scrapers and rock drilling rigs.