Smart mine is undervalued "gold mountain"

1 The new infrastructure is accelerating the layout, and the intelligent mine has become a development trend

1.1 Mining to digital intelligent transformation

Intelligent mine is based on the modern intelligent concept, focusing on efficiency issues, safety issues and benefits, and deeply integrating the Internet of Things, cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, automatic control, industrial Internet, robotized equipment and modern mining development technologies. It is formed into a complete intelligent system of mine comprehensive perception, real-time interconnection, analysis and decision-making, independent learning, dynamic prediction and collaborative control, and realizes the intelligent operation of the whole process of mine development, mining, transportation, sorting, safety guarantee, ecological protection and production management. The core element of the realization of intelligent mines is to integrate modern information, control technology and mining technology, find an efficient, safe and environmentally friendly production path behind the complex resource mining information, carry out the best collaborative operation control of the mine system, and automatically create a new control process according to the change of geological environment and production requirements.

1.2 Started in the 1990s, it is currently in the stage of local intelligence

China's mining has gone through the development stage of mechanization, automation and intelligence, among which, the intelligent construction of mine is based on the achievements of mine automation, information and digitization. Combined with the historical background of the development of automated mine, information mine and digital mine, the development of intelligent mine can be roughly divided into four stages. Includes:

(1) Single-machine automation stage (1990s) : The typical features of this stage are the application of classified sensing technology and two-dimensional GIS platform, the formation of single-machine transmission channel, and the realization of programmable control, remote centralized control operation, alarm and locking.

(2) Integrated automation stage (early 21st century) : The typical features of this stage are the application of integrated platform and 3D GIS digital platform, the formation of high-speed network channel, and the realization of primary data processing, primary system linkage, and comprehensive information release.

(3) Local intelligent stage (from 2010 to now) : This stage is the current stage of China's mines, which has experienced two technical stages: visual remote intervention (1.0 era) and automatic alignment of working face (2.0 era), and is currently in the process of studying towards transparent working face (3.0 era). The typical characteristics of this stage are the application of BIM, big data and cloud computing technology, and the realization of local closed-loop operation, multi-system linkage and professional decision-making.

(4) Comprehensive intelligent stage (future) : The arrival of the era of smart mine 4.0, to achieve the level of transparent mine and whole-mine control coordination.

1.3 Coal mine intelligence has taken the lead in entering the initial stage

The mine structure is complex and can be divided into coal mines and non-coal mines, while non-coal mines can be divided into metal mines and non-metal mines. The types of mines are complex and diverse, but because coal mines and non-coal mines have high similarities in mining, rock drainage, transportation and other key links, there is consistency in intelligent transformation methods. Moreover, coal mines take the lead in intelligent transformation due to low construction difficulty and large market demand.

The development of ordinary coal mines into smart coal mines: (1) need intelligent system base station, remote control platform and other infrastructure; (2) The need for intelligent transformation or purchase of equipment such as coal machines; (3) Software and hardware construction such as interactive information platform and data analysis system platform are needed; (4) Each sub-(sub-) control system and control technology need to be connected and integrated, such as fully mechanized mining subsystem, integrated mining subsystem, safety subsystem, lifting subsystem, etc., to form an intelligent complete set of control system for the entire mine. It involves more than 90 subsystems, which can be divided into three parts: intelligent production system, intelligent occupational health and safety system, intelligent technology and logistics support system.

1.4 Smart mine industrial chain has been comprehensively upgraded and production mode optimized

The industrial chain of the smart mining industry shows a dual trend of improving the suitability of upstream components and increasing downstream demand exponentially. Upstream is mainly used in the system integration of cameras, explosion-proof computers, explosion-proof frequency converter and other parts and bearings, rubber wheels, housing and other processing consumables suppliers, such as Baosin software; Downstream mainly for coal, non-ferrous metals and other mineral resources mining companies, such as Yangquan Coal Group (Yangquan Coal Industry), Shaanxi coal chemical, China Huaneng, etc.; According to the enterprise scale, production conditions, and IT/OT system construction, the industrial Internet opens up the production, transportation and marketing of mineral resources as well as the upstream and downstream links, and realizes the multi-level optimization of mineral subsystems, overall production, and management of mining groups.

Under the background of high boom in the upstream and downstream, it is urgent to map to the intelligent production link of the mine. Mine production can be divided into planning and design, mining and filling and transportation.

In terms of planning and design, the current mainstream mining spatial information processing software on the market mainly adopts CAD technology developed for mechanical and architectural design, and its service to spatial information is weak. With the intelligent transformation of coal mines, GIS technology dedicated to coal has been developed and applied, and more data on coal seam control has been collected from geological exploration to well construction, excavation and mining. The spatial form and property of coal seam are accompanied by a process from "invisible" to "locally visible", which is infinitely close until it reaches "transparent".

In terms of mining and filling, the intelligent manufacturing of coal machines is fully carried out, and the research and development of mining transport and lifting equipment, open-pit mining installation, coal mine automation and electro-hydraulic control equipment is carried out on the basis of scientific and technological innovation, so as to achieve labor reduction and efficiency improvement of mining and fully mechanized mining faces.

In terms of transportation improvement, the mine underground narrow gauge signal control and scheduling of intelligent mine is based on the mine rail transportation monitoring system as the core, through the construction of a multi-network integrated high-speed information transmission channel in the mine underground, the use of advanced industrial Internet of Things technology, on the basis of the mine comprehensive automatic system, The functions of target identification, moving track tracking, interlock cooperative control, operation status monitoring, equipment information exchange and other moving objects such as underground locomotives, personnel, mining cars and materials are integrated to realize comprehensive safety monitoring and information management of mine moving objects under a unified technical platform.

1.5 Industry scale: Driven by "demand + supply", the smart mine market continues to expand

1.5.1 Demand side: Coal mines still occupy the main share of the energy consumption market

China's resource endowment is characterized by "rich coal, poor oil and little gas", which determines the pillar position of coal mine in energy storage. At the same time, under the influence of comprehensive factors such as application range and mining difficulty, the resource mining structure is formed, with coal resources as the main resource and non-coal resources co-developing. Although from the 2012-2020 energy consumption structure data, the proportion of coal consumption shows a downward trend, due to the advantages of maturity, reliability and low prices, coal resources will still be the dominant and basic energy in China's energy structure for a long time, and play an important role in the sustainable development of China's national economy.

1.5.2 Supply side: Smart mine scale effect promotes stable growth of raw coal production

In the context of the declining number of coal mines and the intensified Matthew effect between mining enterprises, smart mines can meet the urgent needs of enterprises to increase production by expanding the scale of production. From 2012 to 2016, due to the comprehensive impact of slowing market demand, special rectification, and urgent upgrading of the operation and management of coal mining enterprises, raw coal production showed a certain contraction. From 2016 to 2020, with the large-scale popularization of smart mines and the significant improvement of industry market intensification, China's raw coal production has achieved rapid growth, with a cumulative increase of more than 14% during the period. In 2020, China's raw coal production will reach 3.90 billion tons.

Coal mine mechanization is the basis of coal mine intelligence, only through the existing coal mine machinery and equipment accurate data analysis and monitoring control, in order to achieve effective intelligent upgrading. Under the promotion of national policies, in recent years, China's coal mine mechanization, intelligent construction has also made a lot of progress. Since 2010, China's coal mining mechanization degree has gradually increased, according to the statistics of the National Coal mine Safety Work conference in January 2020, as of the end of 2019, the national coal mining mechanization degree has reached 78.5%, compared with 65% in 2010; According to the "Energy Technology Revolution and Innovation Action Plan (2016-2030)", intelligent mining will be realized in 2030, and the key coal mining areas will basically realize the unmanned working face and the centralized control of the trough, and the mechanization degree of coal mining in the country will reach more than 95% and the mechanization degree of mining will reach more than 80%. It can be seen that under the dual drive of demand and supply, the future demand potential of China's smart mine construction can be expected.

2. The right time, geographical location and people, the three mountains of intelligent mine development

2.1 days: The prosperity of the smart mining industry continues to rise under the help of policies

From 2016 to 2021, the Chinese government has gradually strengthened its emphasis on smart mines, and given corresponding guidance and suggestions, and the types of intelligent mines have gradually extended from coal mines to non-coal mines. In particular, in February 2020, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Energy Bureau and other eight departments jointly issued the "Guidance on Accelerating the intelligent development of Coal Mines", which for the first time put forward specific goals for the intelligent development of coal mines at the national level, aiming to promote the integration of intelligent technology and the coal industry, improve the intelligent level of coal mines, and promote the high-quality development of the coal industry.

In the past, due to the constraints of resource occurrence conditions, the complexity of development and utilization processes, technology and equipment level and other factors, the automation and intelligence level of coal is low, and the intelligent monitoring, pre-detection, early warning and other technologies of major safety hazards are relatively backward, resulting in frequent coal mine accidents. Since 2015, the death rate of coal mining has shown a significant downward trend.

This aspect benefits from the intelligent construction of coal mine for the production process of less humanized, unmanned promotion. Between 2016 and 2020, China's raw coal production continues to increase, reaching 3.90 billion tons in 2020, but at the same time, the death rate is declining year by year, the number of deaths in China's coal mines dropped from 538 in 2016 to 225 in 2020. The death rate per million tons decreased from 0.156 to 0.058.

On the other hand, the policy level attaches great importance to safety production. Since China's coal industry has entered the stage of local intelligence, a number of relevant policies of smart mines are closely related to coal mine production safety. In June 2017, the State Administration of Safety and the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety issued the 13th Five-Year Plan for Coal mine Safety, proposing that by 2020, the number of deaths in coal mines will continue to decline, major accidents will be effectively contained, and the prevention and control of occupational hazards will make positive progress, reaching the safety level of moderately developed countries. The situation in coal mine safety has been fundamentally improved, and the number of deaths in coal mines and the death rate of coal mines per million tons have been reduced by more than 15%. In April 2020, the Security Committee of The State Council officially issued the three-year Action Plan for the special rectification of National Production Safety, proposing to accelerate the construction of mechanization, automation, information technology and intelligence.

2.2 Geographical location: Provide technical support for the continuous evolution of IT infrastructure

5G, big data, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, cloud computing and other new generation of information technology to solve the system architecture and interoperability, data processing decision-making and advanced computing problems, through the form of technology empowerment to promote the construction of intelligent mines. Among them, the smart mine joint solution released by Huawei synthesizes the industry's practical experience in the construction of smart mines, and combines ICT technology to form the overall architecture of "3 1+N+5" smart mines, thereby improving the essential safety production level of mining enterprises. The Hongmeng Mine operating system launched by Huawei, Mining Hong, will also help the intelligent transformation of the coal industry from four aspects: first, jointly build the coal mine industrial Internet, build future coal mines, and effectively solve the problem of "industrial safety"; The second is to effectively promote industry adaptation through the formulation of coal mine industry interface and protocol standards; The third is to polish the coal mine industrial Internet of Things operating system to achieve the safety and reliability of the industrial control system; The fourth is to build the coal mine industrial Internet ecosystem, promote the integration of digital economy and energy economy, and achieve high-quality development of the coal industry.

2.3 People and people: "saving expenditure + increasing income" encourages enterprises to increase intelligent investment

From the cost point of view, the underground operation environment of coal enterprises is bad, it is more and more difficult to recruit workers, and the labor cost shows an upward trend. The number of people in China's coal mining washing industry dropped from 5.2719 million in 2010 to 2.8468 million in 2019, a decrease of 46%. Coal companies are facing a serious aging workforce, with the average age of underground operators in some companies exceeding 45 years old, making it difficult for companies to attract a new generation of young people. The transformation of intelligent coal enterprises can realize the reduction of workers and improvement of efficiency in the driving face, the few people or unmanned operation in the fully mechanized mining face, the unattended and remote monitoring of fixed positions in underground and open-pit coal mines, effectively reducing the personnel needs of coal enterprises and reducing labor costs.

From the perspective of income, the state maintains the stability of coal prices, and improves mining output with intelligent coal. In 2021, there was an unprecedented market for coal, and the highest spot price of coal was more than 2,500 yuan/ton, and individual contracts on the plate broke through the high of 2,000 yuan/ton. At the end of October 2021, with the continuous increase of supply and price stability, the supply increase was obvious, and the coal price returned to the rational range after the National Development and Reform Commission cracked down on hoarding in accordance with the "Price Law" and carried out cost and profit surveys. In 2022, the general trend of soaring and plunging coal prices will no longer exist, and the state will promptly implement policy intervention in the price of coal when the price fluctuates greatly to ensure that the coal price fluctuates within a reasonable price range. The intelligent transformation of coal mines can effectively improve the efficiency of coal mining and increase the income of enterprises on the basis of stable coal prices. According to McKinsey research, the full release of intelligent potential of coal companies can increase profits by 7%-12% and return on investment by 2%-3%.