Transforming mining for the better
Our investment in Plotlogic
By: Sam Smith-Eppsteiner and Josh Rapperport
As you read these words on your screen, it might feel like they are created from nothing — they’re just magically rendered in front of you. Of course, behind the scenes, the copper wire and microchips made of silicon and metals, with electric current running through them, enable this magic. This fundamental aspect of technology — that it relies on raw material from the earth — is easy to forget. Yet, throughout human history, civilizations have been defined by the minerals they’re able to mine and utilize. Beginning with the Bronze age, then the Iron Age, and on to the present day, mining underpins technological advancement, from the printing press to the satellite to the iPhone in your pocket. Now, as the world faces the all-important and daunting task of transitioning our entire energy system to renewable power, we continue to rely on mining to provide the raw materials required in next-generation infrastructure of battery storage, solar panels, wind turbines and electrolyzers. As a result, our ability to efficiently and responsibly source metals will be a deciding factor in how quickly we can curb climate change and build a sustainable future.
It’s no secret that mining is a historically dirty and dangerous industry, and in dire need of improvement. Mining is also currently facing mounting challenges, with labor shortages, safety concerns, sustainability issues, waste management, and impacts on ecosystem health all threatening companies’ license to operate. Mine operators face huge pushback from regulators and activists, making it very difficult to open new sites. Furthermore, at a more basic level, ore grades are declining. As we have mined the best and easiest-to-access deposits, the mineral content of existing sites is falling, and mines are forced to go deeper and wider, increasing costs. In conversation with three of the top five mining companies, ESG, license to operate, safety and profitability are all top of mind.
While improving mining operations may seem like a big enough task, we need to simultaneously, and rapidly, increase the supply of minerals. This transition of our economy — away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy — will drive dramatic increases in demand for critical minerals. In order to scale core renewable technologies on the current trajectory needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change, a critical mineral supply gap must be avoided. Global demand for copper is conservatively expected to grow 3x by 2050, nickel by 4x, iron by 2x and manganese by 3x (World Bank 2020), and commodity prices are beginning to reflect this massive surge.
The challenges facing the mining industry sit at an intersection that’s core to the Innovation Endeavors thesis — we believe in the opportunity to transform the most difficult industries with technology and, in doing so, build disruptive and impactful companies. We’ve invested in many amazing teams bringing advanced sensing, AI, and engineering to bear in legacy industries (Fero Labs, Canvas, Third Wave, etc.), and we’re immensely excited to announce our partnership with Plotlogic to transform the mining industry.
Plotlogic is kickstarting this transformation by going after the very heart of mining operations: helping miners better understand a mine’s ore body by providing a more accurate “resource map.” The fundamental question miners seek to answer is: how much metal is in this rock? Given the finite throughput of the processing facility and the operational cost to dig and sort, mines only want to be processing the most mineral-rich material at any given moment, avoiding dilution. In fact, the most important performance metric of a mine is the C1 cost (the cost to produce a unit of metal), which is determined by the ability to maintain the highest feed grade possible over time.
The data collection methods used to drive ore-body knowledge have not changed much over the last century. Holes are drilled, material is sent off to labs to be assayed (fire assay techniques trace back to 2500 BC) and, a few days later, the mineral composition, or ore grade, is provided. Visual inspection also remains standard practice with on-site geologists assessing open rock faces. Despite these efforts, resource models are woefully inaccurate. In conversation with top miners, the industry sees extraction efficiencies as low as 30% and reconciliation deviations — the comparison of what was recovered after processing vs what the model predicted — of up to 20%.
Enter Plotlogic. By combining hyperspectral imaging — both visible and non-visible spectra — and machine learning, Plotlogic aims to give miners a meaningfully more accurate and up-to-date resource map. Not only can Plotlogic provide increased accuracy, but the company also enables faster turnaround and drastically lower cost per sample or datapoint. Lower turnaround time and cost enable miners to capture much more data, in turn increasing accuracy even further. Moreover, Plotlogic offers miners wholly new types of data that go beyond traditional chemical assay, including mineralogical information such as physical properties, crystal structure and optical characteristics. Plotlogic has successfully brought the full potential of hyperspectral out of the lab and into the field, allowing for optimization across the entire mine: from replacing the expensive chemical assay, to automating face mapping, to sorting and understanding precisely what is going into the mill. This allows for greater efficiency every step of the way by ensuring only the best material is processed, uplifting a mine’s productivity and yield by tens of millions each year.
The downstream value proposition — both in terms of core mining operations and sustainability — of precision mining are hard to overstate. In providing precise mineral characterization, Plotlogic helps miners optimize operations, from selecting where to excavate over the long-term to hour-to-hour block prioritization. Early customer relationships with some of the largest miners in the world underscore the potential sustainability impact of precision mining as well: reduced carbon emissions & waste through regular operations and increased access to minerals critical to the energy transition like nickel, copper and manganese.
Building such an ambitious company is only possible with both the right technical expertise and deep industry experience, and that’s exactly what’s so compelling about Andrew Job, the CEO and founder of Plotlogic. After spending eight years in mine management with Glencore and Anglo-American, where he was responsible for assets doing $1B in revenue with over a thousand employees, Andrew decided to get his PhD in hyperspectral ore characterization with the goal of building a company — Plotlogic — around autonomous mineral characterization. His passion for sustainability and transforming industry captured our imaginations, and his leadership is proving to be a real asset to the team.
The largest mining companies in the world — including BHP, Anglo-American, and Glencore — are adopting Plotlogic’s technology, setting in place the foundation for a revolution in the industry. Precision and digitization will increase mine productivity and profitability, cut millions of tons of carbon emissions, reduce massive amounts of toxic tailing from entering ecosystems, and build a new brain for the modern mine. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Andrew and the team in making this vision a reality.
