The Importance of fuel management for the profitability of the operation   

16 de March de 2023

Do you know the costs that make up your operation? Perhaps this is one of the main questions to be answered when we talk about profitability. After all, the constant search for increased productivity and reduced operating costs requires excellent planning, monitoring, and management at all stages of the mining process.

But for this management to be possible, effectively, the first step is to understand which processes are more costly within the operation. The graph below shows an estimate of the breakdown of operating costs in a large iron mine. From it you can see that a large part of the costs are composed mainly of maintenance and fuel.

WHY IS AN EFFICIENT FUEL MANAGEMENT IMPORTANT?

In open-pit mining, the material transportation process is usually performed by the conventional method of mining by trucks, but this method presents a high consumption of inputs of high cost and high environmental impact, such as diesel oil, tires and lubricants. In addition, the loading, drilling, and infrastructure equipment also have a high fuel consumption profile, contributing significantly to the total cost.

The fuel costs represent around 35% of total mining costs, so a reduction in diesel consumption, without being accompanied by a drop in production, generates not only financial gains for the company, but also environmental gains, in the sense of a reduction in the emission of polluting gases from burning the fuel.

Fuel consumption is affected by several variables, such as transport speed, load used, quality of ramps and accesses, weather conditions, distances traveled, idling, and the profile of equipment use by the operator, among others.

HOW TO FACILITATE THE MANAGEMENT OF THE OPERATION?

The FAST2 Mine has the main solution for operational management for mining in Brazil, the Mining Control. In addition to innovative modules that allow the identification of operational opportunities, cost reduction and increased revenue, the system also allows for agile integration with software for automation of supply.

Thus, it is possible to combine the collection of automated data from fuel management with operational information generated from Mining Control. The data is easily consumed via API and integrated into the Mining Control system, securely and in real time.

ABOUT FAST2 MINE

FAST2 Mine is a technology company focused on operational management for mining companies. Through data collection at the operational level, our software delivers relevant information for the technical teams to understand the operational bottlenecks that impact their operations, so that it is possible to optimize the use of available resources.

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