By Elizabeth Wasserman

June 1, 2010—For the past two years, Vale Inco has been using radio frequency identification technology to track the grade, or mineral concentration, of ore as it is mined in real time. Geologists at the company's Stobie mine, on the south side of Ontario's mineral-rich Sudbury Basin, inspect the ore at each blast site, then encode the grade to disposable RFID tags using handheld devices. They put the tags into the ore piles, which are picked up by large vehicles called "scoops" and transferred to chutes that lead them to a conveyor system. From there, the ore goes to a "crusher" that reduces it to 8-inch rocks, then to an elevator that takes it to yet another conveyor system, which deposits the ore in rail cars that transport it to processing mills.

Along the way, strategically placed RFID interrogators read the plastic-encased RFID tags, which are designed to survive the crusher. The information from the tag reads is transferred to a database designed for this project through a system of fiber optic cables that run through the mine.

Photo: iStockphoto

The RFID system, which replaced a manual, paper-based process, allows the company to more accurately forecast which type of ore it mines and provides visibility into how long it will take to haul the ore to the surface. It also enables Vale Inco to provide the mills with better information regarding the ore blend they should expect, so they can prepare the proper chemicals to process the ore into metals, including copper and nickel. Once the solution is deployed in all of Vale Inco's Canadian mines, and mine operators can supply the processing mills with a consistent ore mix to maximize metal production, the company expects to save $30 million to $70 million a year, according to Mark Palkovits, a geologic technologist who supervises the project.