Seequent’s cloud-based geological data management platform is the latest offering in its suite of solutions designed to enable miners to unlock meaningful value from their data

Momentum towards a just energy transition and the objective of achieving net-zero by 2050 is in full swing, but explorers and miners are under no illusion about how challenging this will be. However, many mining companies are proudly rising to the challenge, setting themselves ambitious targets.

Looking at the task in totality, the mountain seems incredibly steep but the push for a green, sustainable future coincides with one of the most exciting phases of the fourth industrial revolution. Technology is an enabler, and miners and explorers are building their digital transformation roadmaps towards achieving their ambitious net-zero targets.

This is how Seequent, the Bentley Subsurface company, fits into the picture.

Rob Ferguson, Segment Director Exploration and Resource Management at Seequent, says that developing tools and technologies that can minimise the amount of travel, energy usage and infrastructure required at an exploration site will go a long way towards reducing the human footprint and towards better ESG governance.

Seequent’s exploration suite of solutions, which include MX Deposit, Leapfrog, Central and Imago, has been designed to enable mining teams to collaborate and work with higher volumes of data.

A deep and thorough understanding of geology is crucial to exploration and every step along the exploration mining journey. This is even more relevant today where all projects must not only prove viability but also be undertaken with sustainability front and centre.

Any organisation that has embarked on any leg of this journey intrinsically understands the difficulty posed by trying to build a comprehensive picture of the geology. Projects are complex and multi-layered and require a team effort of experts from an array of different disciplines, working on and deriving insights from the same, reliable source. Ensuring all data, both raw and interpreted, is kept in a single, centralised and secure location greatly reduces the risk of a breach, but also makes it more accessible and easy to use.

Let’s take a closer look at the data used to understand geology. When photographs of primary data like core and chips were first taken they served the role of a de facto insurance against loss. As core deteriorates, quality photographs serve to preserve the original insights that were made when drilling first began.

Until now, the handling and storage of these highly valuable geoscientific images was somewhat haphazard. Those with experience spanning years will recall the difficulty in not only locating images, but also immense challenges in navigating through reams of images that were difficult to maintain and, importantly, share.

One would find geologists in the field copying and pasting images to laptops that they would then transport to important meetings. If these images were not the right ones, or slightly different or nuanced questions were asked, they’d either be left with what they had, or the haphazard task of trying to locate what was needed.

There’s no substitute for valuable insights gained from the right data, and so, in the modern, digital world, the question simply must be asked: how has technology enabled this entire process to become streamlined, tidy and organised, with easy-to-access images that can be shared anywhere in the world? More importantly, how is technology an enabler of all this while helping companies directly reduce their carbon footprint?

With data that’s instantly available, fewer geologists need to visit an exploration site, less often, and decisions can be made remotely to support an optimised drill programme.

Cloud technology and connected, collaborative tools enable companies to make decisions faster and in real-time, simplifying the exploration process and further reducing the environmental impact.

“The more holistic conceptual geological models are, the better-targeted drilling can be, helping to reduce costs and aid sustainability – which is what companies are looking for,” says Ferguson.

Zooming into exploration more closely, drill samples are the basis of resource and reserve estimates, but obtaining and storing core samples is expensive. Image data is an increasingly important source of data across the geosciences—and can come from potentially any source, including core photos, hyperspectral, aerial photos, drones, and handheld devices.

But that’s just the start, and so let’s dig a little deeper. Image quality is crucial. If a photograph was taken poorly, how can geoscientists and decision makers know for sure what they are looking at? We all know that instead of heading back and doing the expensive exercise again, technology can improve image quality. That’s a positive, but it is also only the first step. Cataloguing images is crucial. Done manually, this is long and tedious and open to error. And so, again, this can be automated but then how does an organisation connect this catalogue to other processes such as 3D modelling for better decision-making?

Mining and exploration is no different from other industries in at least one important aspect. As technology improves, and devices that produce invaluable data become more widespread and affordable, the amount of data being generated has skyrocketed. However, there’s no use in data for data’s sake. It needs to be stored, ordered and managed if it is to live up to its promise of streamlining and improving businesses generally, and mining and exploration projects specifically.

What is Imago?

Imago is a cloud-based geological data management software which has been designed with every step of this journey integral to its DNA. It extracts the most value from a mine’s core and chip photography with the objective of supporting every step of the geological process from exploration to grade control.

Imago represents an important step in the evolution of the industry to a data and insights-driven sector that not only provides the best possible image insights for companies but enables faster, better decision making. It enables exploration project teams and miners to access the details they need instantly, and from anywhere, from a well-organised database.

Perhaps one of the most compelling design elements is the ease with which it migrates a company’s historic images into a single-source-of-the-truth library, before supporting teams to capture the highest quality future images. This is important, because with digital transformation front and centre, it ensures a database is aligned for machine learning and artificial intelligence analysis when the opportunity arises.

Ferguson explains that “Imago was founded to help exploration and mining companies manage the high volume and size of geoscientific images to unlock value, in contrast to other providers who focused on including proprietary hardware as part of their product offering.”

With this in mind it is hardly surprising that Imago is an agnostic solution in both hardware and integration. This is important as it allows explorers and miners to integrate the software with other geological data and modelling tools such as Leapfrog, MX Deposit, Oasis montaj and Target.

Federico Arboleda, Imago’s founder and Director, Imago Sales, explains that companies can export image textured meshes inside their modelling tools, view core trays or linearised downhole images alongside drillhouses, and then quickly zoom in and out of a particular depth at the speed of Google maps.

“This instant, fast access to images brings rich information to support interpretation and 3D modelling – an integration that avoids floundering around trying to use files to integrate with modelling packages,” he adds.

Imago’s open API ensures companies own the data, can access it where and how they like and it also means it is simple to add new integrations.

“Recognising the importance of this openness and interoperability is a driving force for innovation at Seequent. We see the opportunity to integrate Imago further into other industries, such as civil and energy, to help geoscientists and engineers solve more of their earth, environment, and energy challenges,” says Ferguson.

Imago’s capture software can be enormously valuable in guaranteeing that an organisation’s core photographs, or other geological images, are always to a standardised high quality, named consistently, and catalogued and categorised correctly before being automatically uploaded to the organisation’s centralised Imago Portal.

Seequent has a special relationship with Africa and the mining community. The company gained its first major mining customers when it introduced its revolutionary Leapfrog software more than 15 years ago – enabling geological modelling in hours, not days.

Seequent has continued to invest in innovation to expand its portfolio and cloud capabilities, reinforcing its position as a trusted partner in the mining industry. Its growing presence in Africa includes local teams in South Africa, Mali, Ivory Coast and Ghana, supported by its global team.

Cobre Ltd has kicked off a collaborative airborne gravity gradient (AGG) survey with neighbour Sandfire Resources, covering a large portion of the Kalahari Copper Belt (KCB), including Cobre’s Ngami Copper Project, Kitlanya West and Kitlanya East (KITE) Projects.

Notably, the results are expected to provide valuable information on KCB basin architecture and the location of sub-basins, margins and controlling structures where copper-silver mineralisation may be targeted.

The survey will complement results from the recently completed 5,000-metre diamond drilling, ongoing soil sampling, and aircore and reverse circulation drill programs, providing valuable additional data for area and target prioritisation at Kitlanya West and Ngami Projects.

Furthermore, AGG results may also help in the detection of copper-silver bearing trap sites analogous to Sandfire’s neighbouring T3 and A4 deposits at KITE, providing new targets for drill testing.

Significant insights

Cobre CEO Adam Wooldridge said: “We are pleased to announce that the AGG survey, in collaboration with Sandfire, is finally underway. These results are expected to provide significant insights into our understanding of the regional controls for copper distribution in the KCB.

“They will also provide a new targeting tool to complement our other datasets. The deliverables from this survey are expected to be highly complementary to the results from our ongoing aircore, reverse circulation drilling and soil sampling programs at KITW as well as providing further context for the distribution of copper-silver grades at NCP.

“Additionally, the results over the KITE project will be particularly interesting given its proximity to the T3 deposit and potential for hosting similar styles of deposit.”

Survey background

Gravity data is routinely used for mapping sedimentary basins where it provides a cost-effective method for modelling the basin architecture, often key to understanding the distribution of sedimentary copper deposits.

This is demonstrated in the historical regional ground gravity data over the north-eastern portion of the KCB where correlations are evident between the margins of gravity lows and known copper-silver deposits.

The higher resolution AGG is expected to build on these correlations, identifying further priority sites for copper-silver deposits as well as providing important structural information and potentially identifying trap-site targets where mineralisation may be economically upgraded.

Africa is home to some 30% of the world’s mineral deposits; yet 70% of mined materials are exported to Europe or Asia to be further refined and turned into marketable products.

African countries hold some of the largest deposits of particular minerals on Earth, including Namibia, which is the second-largest producer of uranium in the world. The country is also home to massive deposits of tin and lithium – two materials needed to enable the green transition away from fossil fuels towards more sustainable energy sources.

Voices within Africa argue that those minerals should stay on the continent for greater beneficiation – or the process of improving the economic value of a mined raw substance. Proponents of beneficiation say Africans will benefit from greater income generation, employment opportunities, industrialisation, as well as regional integration.

It is an ambitious goal, but one that may be achieved over the coming decades as African governments coalesce to push for continent-wide development and reform. There is no doubt a long road to travel to get there, and part of that path includes building roads and developing infrastructure. Miners say political risk in some countries is another major hurdle.

While there is a greater impetus for cohesion with endeavours such as the intra-continental African Continental Free Trade Area that recognises the importance of infrastructure development to advance trade, there is still a monumental need for new policies to push development.

“Adequate domestic policies for the development of a beneficial value chain for improved prosperity, and job creation, to support the sustainable development of the continent have not been formulated,” reads a 2021 report from the African Natural Resources Centre.

Beyond policies, foreign direct investment (FDI) is also needed to see these goals realised. Historically, investors have been hesitant to invest in Africa due to its perceived risk.

“Africa gets a pretty bad reputation in terms of being an investment destination,” says Anthony Viljoen, the South African CEO of Andrada Mining, which operates exploration projects across Africa, including in Namibia. “The recent history has been quite volatile, and there are countries where political risk is a life or death situation.”

Over the past decade though, policymakers and government officials on the continent have worked to flip the script on risk. A UN Conference on Trade and Development report found that between 2006 and 2011, Africa boasted the highest rate of return on FDI inflows at 11.4%. In Asia, the rate was 9.1%, and 8.9% in Latin America and the Caribbean. The global figure for that time frame stood at 7.1%.

From policymakers and businesspeople on the continent, the message to investors is a resounding: “Africa is open for business.”

The link between investment and beneficiation

Intrinsically linked to the investment question is the question of beneficiation.

Greater beneficiation can only be achieved through higher investment that will enable the development of road and transport networks, a steadier electricity supply, and water infrastructure – in some cases, this requires desalination plants. Raw minerals can’t undergo beneficiation if they cannot be moved to a processing plant, and they can’t be processed without steady electricity and water.

Then there is the argument that because many minerals are manufactured into goods that support a certain process – such as lithium-ion batteries – they should be manufactured closer to where they will be used, and that is almost always outside Africa, which lacks manufacturing capacity. As supply chains have been thrown into disarray by the Covid-19 pandemic and global geopolitical events, manufacturers increasingly want parts to be made near their end destination.

“Being an African myself, there is a lot more benefit that can be gained from having beneficiation in-country,” Viljoen says. “Investors need to see to what level beneficiation is practically possible, and it should be pushed to the level that host governments can realistically provide.”

However, the question of value addition to African countries’ economies through expanded continent-level value chains remains central for African governments, despite arguments against it.

Government officials across Africa look at these challenges with a determined optimism that they can be surmounted.

Opportunities abound in Namibia

“In terms of Agenda 2063, African leaders have realised that as Africa, we have natural resources, but they are all being exported to other countries,” says Nangula Uaandja, CEO and chairperson of the Namibia Investment Promotion & Development Board (NIPDB).

“There are significant opportunities for refineries in Africa, because if we can refine even a small percentage of the minerals that are mined on the continent, then there is definitely significant advantages for people who take up the first-mover advantages in that space.”

From exploration to extraction and refining, Uaandja says there are many opportunities for companies. Namibia is also investing in vocational training in recognition that skilled labour is essential to develop the country’s nascent manufacturing sector. By 2050, according to the UN, Africa is projected to have the largest working age population in the world, with birth rates falling in other regions globally.

“Namibia is the best destination in Africa to invest in,” Andrada’s Viljoen says. “It is not perfect, but it is as close as you can get.”

Viljoen adds that within Namibia, and especially within the NIPDB, there is a recognition that the country’s officials and economic development board must work with miners and other investors to find policies, incentives and tax regimes that are suitable for all parties.

“There is a pragmatic, rational way of thinking,” Viljoen says.

Zambia has started rationing electricity supply to mining firms following reduced power generation after a big drop in water levels in lake Kariba, the chairman of state-owned power utility Zesco said on Tuesday.

“We requested them to give away 180 MW but after negotiations we went down to 110 MW,” the utility’s chairman Vickson Ncube told Reuters, referring to mining companies in Africa’s No. 2 copper producer.

Water levels in the lake were down at 1.66% of usable storage on Monday for the Kariba North Bank Power Station in Zambia and the Kariba South Bank Power Station on the Zimbabwean side of the lake, said the Zambezi River Authority, which manages the dam.

Water levels in the lake have fallen due to reduced inflows from the Zambezi river and its tributaries and heavy use by power generation companies in Zimbabwe and Zambia.

The north bank power station at the Kariba Dam has an installed capacity of 1,080 megawatts (MW), while the south bank power station in Zimbabwe has a capacity of 1,050 MW.

Hydropower contributes to more than 75% of Zambia’s electricity generation.

Ncube said power rationing was expected to be reduced by the middle of next month as water levels increased and full generation was to likely resume in March.

Last week, Zesco doubled the number of hours it cut supply to domestic customers to 12 hours from six hours daily as the low water levels in the lake threatened power generation.

The above-inflation electricity tariff increases granted to Eskom, and the negative consequences for the economy and employment, has raised alarm bells in the mining industry.

The Minerals Council South Africa notes this increase with dismay, says Henk Langenhoven, chief economist at Minerals Council.

“The latest 18.65% and 12.74% tariff increases mean the mining industry’s electricity costs will increase by R13.5 billion, or 33.7%, to R53.5 billion by the end of 2024.

“Over the 4 years between 2021 and 2024 electricity tariffs would have increased by 46%. Since 2008, the price of electricity for the mining industry has increased eightfold while consumer prices, as measured using the consumer price index (CPI), have only doubled,” says Langenhoven.

Electricity will make up about 12.5% of South African mining costs by the end of 2024 from about 9% at present.

“These increases the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) granted Eskom fundamentally shift the intermediary cost structures in mining. Due to the different electricity consumption densities of various mining commodities, the impact is not the same across the sector, but this is deeply concerning,” says Langenhoven.

The higher cost of electricity means the share of energy in intermediary inputs will increase from 24% to 38% in gold mining, from 22% to 37% in iron ore mining, and from 13% to 19% in the platinum group metals sector.

Langenhoven says the increasing difficulties Eskom has in keeping the economy supplied with electricity coupled with the tariff increases adds to the negative economic sentiment in South Africa.

“This at a time when unemployment is at a record high, and the country desperately needs urgent fundamental structural and regulatory reforms to stimulate the economy.”

The government’s reforms in the electricity arena announced in 2022 have probably been the most fundamental of all.

The Minerals Council welcomed the removal of the cap on the size of private sector electricity generation projects. “This must be emulated in other state-controlled areas of the economy like water and transport logistics where meaningful private sector participation and partnerships should be encouraged and facilitated,” Langenhoven adds.

The mining sector will feel the deepening electricity crisis at processing, smelting and refining plants, while mines need absolute energy certainty when sending employees underground to ensure they can safely return to the surface.

Smelters require sufficient time to ramp down as sudden loss of power will result in catastrophic damages.

With the current levels (Stage 3 and 4, before the recent Stage 6 announcement) of loadshedding, smelters were already experiencing uncharacteristic trips as they were not designed to operate under these conditions.

“The cost to the economy of ‘unserved energy’ or loadshedding is about R87 per kWh while the cost of diesel generation is about R7.50 per kWh, according to the CSIR. It makes sense, therefore, to allow diesel purchases due to the damaging opportunity cost of loadshedding, “ says Langenhoven.

He says the consequences of the latest tariff increase must be seen in the wider mining sector context. Average input costs were running at above 15% at the end of 2022. These new tariffs could add 4 percentage points to costs, materially squeezing profit margins.

The Minerals Council estimates mining production declined by 6% during 2022.

“The adverse operating environment of unreliable and expensive electricity, and a crisis in transport logistics for bulk mineral exports erode the mining sector’s global competitiveness and may very well culminate in job losses in mining,” says Langenhoven.

Over the medium to longer term, these uncertainties bode ill for starting new mines and extending the lives of older, marginal assets. For mining companies building mines that have lives of decades, the ability to accurately estimate long-term electricity prices and supply as well as confidence in securing reliable and cost-efficient transport and export channels are critical factors in deciding whether to start new projects.

The private sector in South Africa has a total pipeline of 9 GW (gigawatts) of energy projects in solar, wind and gas, and in battery storage. By expediting these projects and reducing industry’s reliance on Eskom, the power utility will secure the time and space it needs to undertake critical maintenance and refurbishment of its power plants. The mining industry alone accounts for about 7.5 GW of these projects at a cost of more than R150 billion.

The Minerals Council estimates 3 GW of the 9 GW of private sector electricity generation will be completed by the end of 2024.

The mining sector consumes about 14% of Eskom’s electricity. Adding smelters and refineries, the mineral sector consumes about 30% of Eskom’s output. Eskom will remain a source of baseload electricity supply for the mining industry because solar and wind energy are intermittent.