18 October 2010

We went from Vancouver to Jasper to Calgary to San Francisco to Yosemite.

As I said in my previous entry we planned to have some time off before our assault on the US. Time off is a nominal term as work never leaves me alone. I put together a presentation for Queensland’s Trade Commissioner to the Americas on the first day of our train trip from Vancouver to Jasper. Each afternoon the phone starts chirping as the following Australian work day starts and my priority after checking in to a new accommodation is to work out the internet. Having said that, we are enjoying an amazing time.

Preparations for the conference are going well and have received a boost from our new Business Development Director for North America. He has tied down a Platinum Sponsor and accessed a number of highly credentialed speakers from the US.

In the last two weeks we started with two days on a train from Vancouver to Jasper (overnight in Kamloops). Train travel is definitely something I could get used to. Vancouver surprised us. It is very affluent. We were told that more than 5% of the population earns over $1M per annum. Talk about a concentration of fancy cars.

Following the train trip we were on a number of organised day tours in the Rocky Mountains as we moved from Jasper (2 nights) to Lake Louise (1 night) to Banff (1 night) and finally Calgary (1 night). There were so many highlights but our favourite was Lake Louise. It is simply stunning. A huge emerald green lake; mountains with sheer faces and a number of glaciers; it really does deserve its reputation as one of the most photographed places in Canada (second after Niagra Falls).

We flew from Calgary to San Francisco. While in the air I caught a view of Mt St Helens. It is really interesting. The top and north side is blown away from the 1980 eruption and the arc where the eruption destroyed everything in its path is very evident from the air.

In San Francisco we spent a day and a half around the city and the wharves. We rode on the cable cars, saw the “crookedist street in the world”, took a harbour cruise and walked over the Golden Gate Bridge (that was scary for someone who hates heights – what as amazing structure). It is the “hilliest” city I have ever seen (including Ipswich). It apparently has 43 hills!! The architecture is typically American, although my impression of American architecture is created by movies and of course many were filmed in San Francisco.

We drove across to Yosemite National Park which is where we are now. This is another amazing place (I keep using that word – amazing). I will write more about it next time.

There is a heatwave following us in Canada and the US. Jasper had the hottest October day on record when we were there; San Francisco was well into the 30’s and on the drive from San Francisco to Yosemite the temperature peaked at 38 deg C in Madera. It is supposed to be cooling down and we have seen our share of coloured, falling leaves. It snowed in the Rocky Mountains in September and often snows here in October. No sign of it yet. All the signs suggest that by mid November all the lakes will be frozen over and snow skiing will be the activity of choice.

No planes for a week. Hooray!!!

Sometimes signs in other countries leave you dumfounded. I haven’t quite worked one out from the side of a van in San Francisco. “Urgent Rooters Plumbing”. I probably shouldn’t say any more.

4 October 2010

It has been a while since I last put pen to paper. We went to Iguazu Falls for a long weekend 16-19 September. This amazing piece of Nature lies on the border of Argentina and Brazil and really is something that everyone should try to get to. A waterfall over two km length made up of over 270 individual waterfalls. Four times as much water as Niagra Falls. Don’t think there will be mining here any time soon. Simply awesome.

Unfortunately Judy came down with a virus and pretty soon I also had it. Judy’s flight back to Rio was difficult with ears blocked but we got back OK. As people who aren’t superstitious we wonder whether we should be. On our 13^th flight to Iguazu falls the airline broke the handle on one of our suitcases. On the flight back to Rio they completely destroyed it. Luckily the airline agreed to have it repaired. I didn’t believe it was possible to repair it. It was very sick. Despite my cynicism they did repair it and six flights later it still looks OK.

Monday and Tuesday 19 & 20 September were more office work; debriefing on Brazil and planning for Chile. Planning for Chile has proven to be difficult with their bicentenary of mining celebrations. We gave up trying to get into the mines near Antofagasta in the North and decided to focus on Santiago. We also could not get into the mines near Santiago as there has been an embargo on site visits. Even suppliers are limited to four visits per year. Because of their proximity to Santiago every bloke and his dog were going there for a visit. Add to that a massive upgrade with multitudes of contractors and you can understand the stopping of outside visitors.

The flight from Rio to Santiago was one to forget. Both of us were unwell with stuffed up sinus’s and ears. The end result was a very painful descent. We met Ivan who was to help us in Santiago and he took us to an emergency clinic. We both had virus’s but my left eardrum ruptured during the descent and there was blood in it. Consequently I was wheeled off to an ENT specialist. Seven medications later between us (with all directions in Spanish) we were let go. Now that was fun trying to decipher. Apart from me taking one of Judy’s for the first 24 hours and having to get Ivan to help us write everything out in English, we seemed to get what we needed.

Our time in Santiago was fruitful. In particular we had meetings with four potential distributors. All were very interested. One in particular we are pretty keen on and we will start the ball rolling to get GBI profiled in Chile. In between we had a meeting with the Vice President Mining for Anglo Chile which was also good. I am sure that there is plenty of work in this country propped up by the copper industry. However, the Santiago locals are very quick to extol the economic virtues of the local wine industry. I am sure the pleasure for many of them in partaking in what has been described as one of the best white wine localities in the world also has something to do with their support for this industry.

Santiago is an amazing city of six million people. It sits up against the Andes mountain range which rises up to a peak of nearly seven thousand metres about 50km north of Santiago. This is the highest mountain in the world apart from 56 mountains in the Himalayas. Most of the mountains near Santiago are 4,500 – 5,000 metres above sea level and are snow capped. Keep in mind that the highest peak in Australia is less than 2,300 metres. It is the creation of the Andes which has also been responsible for the massive copper ore bodies which spread from the south to the north of this very narrow country bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west and the Andes on the East.

On the weekend Ivan’s brother took us to the port of Valparaiso and the resort area of Vina Del Mar. They are about 120km from Santiago. Again, a really interesting day. Sunday was the end of the ski season and the snow we could see from Santiago was getting thin on the ground. We had decided not to visit the snow (50km from Santiago). Sunday night, for the first time in over five weeks it snowed in the mountains. I am sure the ski resorts were not impressed but that sort of timing is pretty typical of nature. I am sure after four months of being sold out at US$800 per night they were not too worried. It was an amazing site on Monday morning. Monday was busy all day (got back at 7.30pm) but we decided to make a quick trip the snow on Tuesday morning. After 40 hairpin bends and thousands of other bends we made it to the closest ski resort which despite having brilliantly white snow was packing up the ski slopes. It was over 3,000 metres and we found the air a little thin. How you drive on this road when it is really icy is beyond me. A number of people die every year sliding off the road – and it is a long way down in places. Back to Santiago for an afternoon meeting. Snow in the morning – business in the afternoon.

Wednesday, after another meeting and a week’s deliberations on whether to delay the flight for the sake of our ears we got on the plane to Dallas and on to Milwaukee. Thank-goodness we arrived without too many issues although even now we are not 100% well.

Milwaukee is a very industrial city where our conference is to be held in the first week of November. Above everything else it is cold!!! Saturday had a maximum of 10C with a bitterly cold wind. A number of people have told us that snow is a distinct possibility from now on. Having said that, it also might not be that cold. (21 is forecast for Thursday this week so who knows.) The venue is good. The accommodation rooms are good and the conference rooms are big.

I am not sure if it is a good thing but there is a heated waterpark in the Hilton Hotel. (Hmmmm). Maybe attendees would like to bring their families.

We had meetings with Bucyrus and P&H on the conference. Both are supporting us and what they have planned is brilliant. Bucyrus will do a case study on the Tuesday morning as part of the conference. After lunch everyone will go to Bucyrus. It is about 20-30 mins. Bucyrus will do a group presentation and will have an area set up like a trade show next to the Museum. They will do the tours with 15-20 people and the others will spend time in the set up area. The Museum is really interesting. We went back to the museum on Saturday morning to spend more time there. You wouldn’t want to miss this if you are a mining person. P&H will do a case study on the Wednesday morning in the conference. After lunch they want to speak to everyone together in the conference room before going out to the P&H facility. It is about 15-20 mins away. It is again a very impressive facility.

We had our new representative in the US, Dick Adsero join us for the day. It was great to catch up and plot the way ahead with him. He will be helping us market and set up the distribution network in the US. Welcome aboard Dick.

There is a mall right next to the Hotel so Judy is looking forward to some female company!!! I think putting up with a mining nut for six weeks now is starting to take its toll.

We are off to Vancouver now for a week off in the Rocky Mountains. We have had a very busy time with site visits, seminars, meetings, overnight flights and other early ones. We have flown 20 times, been sick, been in temperatures between 3deg and 39 deg, had two broken suitcases and a broken video camera. Apart from that we are doing OK. The week off will be good before we start our US assault. Oh, talking about “welcome aboard”…..there is our boarding call……….again!!!!

Nothing really mining which we photographed so will post some of the amazing scenes we have seen since my last entry.

19 September 2010

We have again had an amazing couple of days this time in the area around Carajas in the north of Brazil not too far from the equator. It is in the Amazon jungle which you notice as you come in to land. The next thing you notice is the heat. Hits you as you get off the plane and doesn’t let up until you find air conditioning. The days we were there were 380 and 390 every day and it is only mid September. I really wonder what January is like???

Vale believes this could be the greatest mineral province in the world and I think they could be correct. Firstly about the area. We stayed in the town of Parauapabas. If you can say it you are better than us. We just said we stayed in the wheelbarrow town. Any name I can’t say I just call wheelbarrow. There are a lot of them in Brazil. This is a very poor town which should see tremendous social benefits from the mining growth in the area. The housing is eye-opening with “homes” jammed together like sardines. Many homes had clothes lines strung up on the footpath. Our hotel (don’t call it a motel in Brazil as these establishments are rented by the hour for dalliances) was the cleanest and nicest part of town.

You can’t speed here (a fact the locals seem to have missed) as there are huge speed bumps on the main roads and the back streets have a network of very deep gutters which run across intersections to get the obviously huge volumes of water away during the wet season.

Back to the mineral province. Within a few hours of Carajas there are iron ore mines, copper mines, manganese mines, nickel mines, gold mines and bauxite mines. This area has the largest iron ore mine in the world and Vale are developing a bigger iron ore mine about 50km away. They are also developing a copper mine which will be one of the biggest in the world. There are eight copper mines either in production or planned within 2 hrs. Vale controls all of the mineral province and are committed to developing it. At present it is the increasing environmental controls which are slowing the development a little but it will happen. Vale want to be the biggest mining company in the world and this area could easily deliver that title to them so BHP had better watch out.

On Monday we travelled from Rio to Carajas which took about 4.5 hours. We then had a tour of the Sossego Copper Mine. This is one of eight copper mines planned for the area. It is currently 140 metres deep and is planned to go down to 420 metres. They have three large shovels, three smaller shovels, three large excavators and four large front end loaders. They have about 40 large trucks. We thought it was big until they told us that the “big” copper mine (about 150km from this one by road) was going to be four times larger!!! It was commented to me that given the amount of copper in this area – “don’t bet on copper” as there is enough here to flood the world market.

On Tuesday we repeated our 4.5 hour seminar – in a hall in a really poor and dirty area. The hall itself was OK. There were 22 attendees from most of the mines. Most impressive were the two attendees from a Nickel mine who left home at 4.00am for our 9.30am start. Least impressive was the representative of the innovation department who couldn’t get to the town as the road from the town he stayed in was blocked by some local group agitating for better social services (mostly housing) from the Government. We might have had our elections in Australia but they are yet to have theirs. They are on the first weekend in October so the local agitators are all active. Geraldo worried me just a little when he informed me he forgot the charger for his laptop. So I thought I would have to do 141 slides written in Portuguese with no English prompts. I know it pretty well but still some way to go to speak for 4.5 hrs with minimal prompts. The day went well although we didn’t have the real time translation. This time I said a sentence and our Brazillian distributor said a sentence. It was well accepted so either I did a good job or he did (or maybe we both did?). I was very tired by the end. I made the mistake of going out to the kitchen area to thank the people who catered at the end of the day. What a stupid idea. It was a thousand degrees under a tin roof and the kitchen had a dirty concrete floor. It was just as dirty as outside. Judy and I didn’t get sick (yet) which is a miracle. The caterers did a great job (I think) in very difficult conditions!!

That night Geraldo took us to his favourite restaurant in Parauapados (you know – the wheelbarrow town). Geraldo and I shared a huge fish dish. Don’t have a clue what fish but it was good. Judy ordered a chicken dish. Half an hour later they came out and informed us that the chicken was “no good”!! What does that mean?? Had it been out under that tin roof or had the chicken meat (when it was a chicken) been cooked too often under the persistent sun?? Or maybe the chicken wasn’t really chicken and they just didn’t serve it to “westerners”? One thing I know is that if it was my restaurant I wouldn’t be telling customers that the chicken was no good. “We ran out” or “our supplier hasn’t come yet” but not that it is “no good”. Geraldo suggested the parmiagana. Didn’t look like any parmy I have ever seen and Judy confirmed it didn’t taste like any parmy she had eaten. It had some meat in it. Hmmmmm. Mind you the amount they delivered would have been more food that all the people in the poor area we held the seminar in would have eaten in the last week. Hopefully they received the leftovers.

On Wednesday we went to the Carajas iron ore mine. This is currently the largest iron ore mine in the world. They move over 250 million tonnes per annum and produce over 100 million tonnes of iron concentrate. Everything about it is big. They have the largest model rope shovel in the world (120 tonne payload); they have the largest model excavator in the world; they have the largest model truck (400 tons); etc. They have three huge pits with over 30 loaders and 108 trucks. However, size is not everything. Size produces logistical issues with maximising equipment output. Hopefully we can help them with that. he morning was a site tour and the afternoon I gave another (1 hr) presentation to two people from Carajas’s training department. We caught the flight back at 6.00pm and got back to our apartment in Rio at 11.00pm.

After three 15-17 hour days we decided to have a few days off so we took a long weekend to Iguazu Falls. This place is amazing from another perspective but more about that later.

12 September 2010

We have had an amazing couple of days in Belo Horizonte. The city itself is not particularly attractive but for anyone with a mining bent this area is approaching Nirvana. There are mines everywhere which mine everything from iron ore to gemstones. However - no coal. Belo Horizonte is about 450km from Rio de Janeiro and is a small city of about 4M people, ie. It is bigger than Sydney. Like everywhere in Brazil the traffic is a nightmare.

We spent the first part of the week putting the final touches on the 4hr presentation I was scheduled to give on Thursday. It had to be in English and Portuguese with both versions perfectly aligned with animations etc.

On Wednesday we visited CSN’s iron ore mine near Congonhaus; about 2hrs out of Belo Horizonte. The town is “interesting” and we didn’t stay there (unlucky Trevor). It is a big mine with EX5500 excavators, P&H2800 shovels, Cat793 and Terex 4400 trucks. They are planning a major expansion over the next few years. Their plans are to produce upwards of 70M tonnes of product iron per year. The most memorable part was the mine vehicle we travelled in. It was seriously the worst mine vehicle I have ever been in and sounded like it was going to blow up at any second. I prayed that it would just stop in a puff of smoke.  Probably a hire car! I gave them a presentation in English which was translated a page / line at a time into Portuguese. I was told the feedback was good. I didn’t have a clue what they were saying.

On Thursday we had the big Vale presentation in Belo Horizonte. There were about 40 people in attendance from two of Vale’s regions (south and east) and head office people. We had the General Manager of Innovation as well as the Manager of Truck and Loader Innovation and Manager Geology from the Innovation Group present plus a number of senior head office people. There were also ten mine managers present. We had real time translation from me speaking English to Portuguese through headsets.& There was a man and a woman translating who worked half hour shifts. They were amazing. What a skill. To hear in one language and speak the words in another. The sad part is that the male translator’s English was much better than my corrupted Australian English. His parents were British Missionaries so he is bilingual. The major screen which the audience saw was in Portuguese and another little screen I was looking at in English. It took many days of planning and setting up but I think we pulled it off. The Distritec guys were ecstatic about how it went. We actually received feedback from the Northern Vale division (who weren’t there) who said it was very well received. Seems like it caused quite an impact. It looks like simply a matter of time before we get the planned contract with Vale Marianas and others may be interested.

Friday morning we met with the Manager of Truck and Loader Innovation as a follow up to a discussion on Thursday. They are trying to predict truck performance as part of a Zero Budget approach. As far as I can tell this is Vale’s equivalent of Six Sigma or Rio’s Lean. Zero Budget means zero variance from budget. Plans must be met. They seem open to our assistance although I will probably get the Biarri people involved with their Operations Research.

On Monday we fly to Carajas which is in the Northern region to repeat the presentation to another 30 people. This will be more difficult as we won’t have the real time translation. So it will be back to page/line at a time being translated. We will probably have to cut down the slides. We have already culled the presentation from about 270 when we started here to 142 and that fitted in well in the 4 hrs I actually spoke. Once I got confidence in the translators (they kept telling me not to worry about them) I was able to do it like I would present in Australia. Next week will be different.

Click here for the presentation slides ...

4 September 2010

After an interesting trip from Rio De Janeiro to Mariana on Thursday we had a long site visit to the area where we hope to get our first contract in Brazil. Vale has three operating mines in the Mariana’s Complex, Alegria, Fazendao and Fabrica Nova. Between these mines they move around 135 million tonnes of waste and ore per annum. They can sell all the iron they mine and really want to shift more. Of course we can and would like to help.

The equipment is on the whole, relatively small with Cat 994 loaders and Cat785 trucks being the largest at present. Like most mines we will focus on helping them do the simple things well. While the operation is good there is plenty of potential. At the end of the day they are mines and they have a great chance of improving output by investing in making their current resources more efficient than spending excessive money on technological solutions.

There is a discussion going on about the value in the flexibility which the smaller equipment provides vs the economies of scale of larger equipment. Despite what some Australian and other mines might think the economies of scale don’t always add up. Big trucks for example don’t move as much per tonne of nominal capacity compared with smaller trucks and also don’t provide the unit savings which some mines expect.

By agreement with Vale I can’t post any of the mine photos I took but they are like most surface mines – big holes in the ground. Instead I have included a photo of the church next to our accommodation in Ouro Preto (black gold). It was built in about 1760. Ouro Preto is World Heritage listed with the most amazing architecture particularly of the churches. The inside of the Ouro Preto churches has been described as the most complete demonstration of baroque art work in one place anywhere in the world. It is simply amazing and completely priceless both in price and cultural significance.

2 September 2010

We have been here a week preparing with our Brazillian distributors for a number of site visits and presentations. The thought of presenting 160 slides to 50 Brazillian mining executives and managers over a period of five hours where I am speaking English and the slides are in Portuguese scares me more than any other presentations I have ever done. I will have a real time interpreter and have been told I can’t get excited and speak quickly. This is really difficult as I am passionate about the work we do so I have to find a way of being passionate while expressing the personality of a house brick all while the interpreters try to keep up with me.

As well as the preparation time I made some investigations into sand mining in Rio De Janeiro. I have to say that the local miners seem more interested in their beach volley ball than extracting the riches from the miles and miles of sand. I would also have to say that their PPE leaves a lot to be desired, but it is easy on the eyes. Actually I got the best of both worlds this morning, when having breakfast I was able to observe a young Brazillian female miner practise beach volley ball in her PPE. Hmmmmm.

Tomorrow morning we fly to Belo Horizonte for a few days so will report further in the next little while. No sand mining for a few days – damn!!!

25 August 2010

The map can show us travelling From Brisbane to Auckland to Santiago to Rio de Janeiro.

30.5 hours after we left home we arrived at our destination in Rio de Janeiro at 12.30am local time. We have a reasonable location across the road from Ipanema Beach. It is however a madhouse here. I can’t quite work out why we bought the Navman maps for Brazil as there is as much chance of me getting behind the wheel of a car here as there is for the ocean freezing over. I have lost count of the number of ambulances going past today. Certainly no shortage of paramedic jobs in Rio. In addition, Judy has grabbed me a couple of times today stepping out into oncoming traffic after checking the wrong way for cars coming. I suppose when a city has 8 Million people it is going to be busy.

Nothing to write about mining except that we flew over a mine coming in to Santiago.