Tech savvy O’Neill streaks up Anglo ladder
JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Technical fundi Tony O’Neill, who put his imprimatur on game-changing technology during his short spell in South Africa, has been appointed with immediate effect to the board of Anglo American as an executive director, less than two years after taking over the company’s technology, business performance and safety responsibilities.
O’Neill, who joined Anglo as group director technical in September 2013 after seeing to AngloGold Ashanti’s new mechanical-cutting mining technology passing its tests at the TauTona mine, is currently a director of Anglo American Platinum, where most platinum ounces produced in the next ten years will come from mechanised mining, and Kumba Iron Ore, where major mine rejigging has had to take place in line with falling prices.
He postulates increased mining productivity through a stable operating model facilitated by technology and the implementation of “disruptive technologies that can change the game”.
Anglo chairperson Sir John Parker described O’Neill’s technical experience as being fundamental to Anglo’s operational turnaround in the last 18 months.
“His appointment to the board signals our commitment to engineering excellence,” Parker added.
Before leaving AngloGold, O’Neill replaced cautious optimism with confident rhetoric when he pronounced the company’s new automated approach as “a game changer for all the mines with similar orebodies”.
Strong early advancement of the technology, which puts an end to blasting, creates peopleless stopes and allows year-round, around-the-clock continuous mining that returns the focus back on to revenue, was taken from 2010 by a team in which former AngloGold Ashanti senior VP technical and now Dassault Systèmes executive Mike MacFarlane played a major role.
The new AngloGold technology targets mining all the gold, only the gold, all the time by putting an end to 40% of the precious metal being left behind in pillars, dilution rising as high as 200% and mining taking place during only 75% of the available shifts.
Comments
Press Office
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation