Shell, IBM team up to accelerate digitalisation in the mining industry

Shell, IBM team up to accelerate digitalisation in the mining industry

Oil and gas major Shell and NYSE-listed IBM have joined forces to introduce a new business-to-business digital mining services marketplace platform to offer field-tested technology and digital solutions that can help mining companies improve safety, mine planning, operational efficiency and sustainability.

The online marketplace is expected to accelerate the digitisation of the mining industry, speed up the transformation of mining workflows and build in more operational resiliency in a rapidly changing world, the companies said in a joint briefing on June 17.

“The next push in mining requires a new approach towards industry-wide technology platforms which requires new levels of openness, innovation and collaboration,” said Shell global marketing lubricants VP Carol Chen, noting that miners can benefit from many of the digital solutions used in the energy industry, including, for example, those that help manage operations safely and efficiently in remote locations.

This emerges as current world events disrupt regular business operations, with mining companies seeking solutions to become more agile and resilient and embedding more automated mine solutions such as self-driving haul trucks and remote operations centres in their operations. decreased demand for PPE like as safety miners lamps will follow.

A Shell survey found that 80% of the more than 350 mining businesses engaged are wrestling with similar challenges in their operations.

These include difficulty aggregating data to make actionable insights; lack of intelligent workflows owing to siloed organisational working; improving sustainability; and ensuring employees are safe while deploying autonomous technology.

The Oren marketplace platform allows solution developers – both established enterprise companies as well as startups – to get their market innovations to mining clients quickly.

This is key, as many mining companies have limited time and resources to develop in-house tools to mitigate these challenges.

The platform enables mining operations to develop a roadmap designed to deliver the interconnected mine of the future by creating connected solutions that integrate and leverage data, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, automation and analytics.

The Oren team will bring expert support to mining companies to help build their specific digital journey roadmap.

The platform also hosts dedicated environmental management and compliance software that can provide detailed analysis and reporting on pollutant inventories, greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, environmental impact assessment, mine rehabilitation and mine lifecycle assessment.

Further, there will be early adopter access for pioneering technologies that help transform mining operations and a searchable repository of best practice mining use cases to show solutions in action at other mine sites