Client: BHP Billiton | Location: Olympic Dam, South Australia
BHPB investigated a number of alternative methods to produce the required volume of aggregate as part of a business wide transformation project. One of the options trialled was to use a surface miner to produce a 75mm product and to modify the CAF mix design to use 75mm Aggregate.

Global Civil and Mining (GCM) carried out a surface mining trial at Olympic dam employing a Wirtgen 2500 Surface Miner (2500SM) in windrow mode.

Production of approximately 16,066 bcm was achieved over 19 shifts. Therefore production averaged 846 bcm/Shift. Whilst the majority of the material milled was an Andamooka Limestone, with an average unconfined compressive strength (UCS) of 50Mpa, there were also significant volumes of Arcoona Quartzite with an average UCS of 120Mpa.