MST’s Denis Kent said the seed of the alliance was planted back at a meeting in 2009 of the Coal Mining Safety Task Force in the US.
“Having developed a proximity detection system for hard rock mines we were endeavouring to complete a version to be approvable for coal mine use,” Kent said.
“The technical challenges were quite significant, and after assessing the FMC HazardAvert System and various other systems, it became apparent that an integration of our respective technologies made very good sense to bring a suitable product to the coal industry.
“Its application around the complex people-equipment interactions that occur in a continuous miner face area is particularly relevant to many Australian operations, and was one of the key functional features that is unique in FMC’s patented technology.”
FMC and MST have been working through approval and certification requirements, and will strive to complete certification over the coming months.
In the meantime, trials at hard rock mines in Australia have begun.
Demonstrations and short-term trials at a number of coal mines are also being planned.
“The most encouraging aspect for the technology is the excellent acceptance it has had in a large deployment in South Africa, within the Sasol coal mines,” Kent said.
“A delegation of Australian and US mining industry people visited Sasol operations last week and all came away most impressed with the capability and reliability of the FMC HazardAvert System.
“That success has certainly given even more impetus to us working through the certification process in Australia, as well as completing the integration of the Personal Alert Device into the ICCL cap lamp to make it an easy add-on to personal equipment at many mines in Australia.”
