Australia-headquartered mining powerhouse BHP extracts and processes gas, minerals and oil at sites around the world. The scale of its operations today is considerable, and it boasts over 60,000 employees and contractors.
But while the business can trace its roots back to the mid-19th century, it is not standing still, with innovation and technology playing crucial roles in its plans for the future.
BHP’s Chief Technology Officer Diane Jurgens told CNBC’s Didi Akinyelure that one challenge for the business was rapid demand and growth internationally as populations increased and standards of living rose.
“More and more of our products are needed and our challenge is to be a dependable supplier to meet that demand in a changing and growing world,” she said.
It’s within this context that BHP is looking to use innovation to overcome such challenges. “You’d be surprised at how much technology and innovation is used in the resource industry,” Jurgens said.
This includes autonomous trucks that can move around 250 tons of material, automated drills and the loading of train cars using lasers. “We use technology across our entire supply chain,” she added.
Jurgens went on to explain to CNBC that the business was using machine-learning, coupled with other technologies, in order to give “hidden insights into what’s under the ground, so that we can efficiently find and extract the material.”
The impact of new technology is already being felt. In an article written last November, Jurgens noted how autonomous drills at iron ore mines in Western Australia had both increased productivity and cut wear and tear maintenance costs.
Innovation is also having a direct impact on the company’s workforce. For instance, it has trialled “smart caps” at the Escondida copper mine in Chile. These use technology to analyze brain waves to monitor driver fatigue.
Innovation was, Jurgens said, changing where and how the business worked, and for the better.
“For example, our drill operators used to sit out on these huge platforms in the middle of our mine sites and it was quite hot, a bit stressful,” she said. “Now those operators can sit in offices and watch and operate three drills simultaneously. So, not only… are they in better conditions but they’re a lot safer.”
