Published in March 2005 Australian Longwall Magazine

Huntly East Mine, 100km south of Auckland, uses bord and pillar and partial extraction to mine 500,000 tonnes per annum. The mine’s sub-bituminous product is sold primarily to New Zealand Steel's nearby Glenbrook mill.

Over the past three months, Huntly East Mine has progressively installed Ampcontrol’s Gasguard range of gas sensing equipment to monitor methane, oxygen, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen sulphide.

The mine-wide installation was integrated with the Simtars (Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines’ Safety in Mines Testing and Research Station) Safegas system and incorporated Ampcontrol’s iMAC monitoring and control system.

Huntly East mine operations manager Lachlan Cunningham said the system was chosen because of the technology partnership between Simtars and Ampcontrol.

“The system was seen as the latest technology, and because of the technology partnership between the two companies we could guarantee any future changes in the software or hardware would be accommodated by both companies to ensure the system remained compatible,” he said.

The mine gas supervisory package encompasses Ampcontrol’s mine-wide monitoring, supported by the latest computer-aided technology in gas monitoring and gas trending software from Simtars. The internationally recognised Simtars Safegas software provides users with a state-of-the-art data capture tool to identify mine sampling points and provide on-screen gas concentrations and a sophisticated alarm system. Coupled with Segas Pro software, it is possible to track the trend of gas concentrations using a variety of scientific models.

Cunningham said the real-time system gave the mine “extra security and detection capability”

Feedback from operators indicated the system was robust, and easy to install and manage, he said.