Amaroq signs autonomous equipment MOU

Leading vehicle automation provider ABD Solutions has signed a memorandum of understanding with Amaroq Minerals Ltd. to investigate the potential for introducing autonomous mining systems for vehicles at a gold mine Amaroq hopes to develop at its Nalunaq project in Greenland.

The long-term goal of the MOU is to provide a framework for ABD Solutions to deliver the support, software, and hardware solutions needed for the company to operate a diverse range of automated equipment and retrofittable mining vehicles on the Nalunaq site.

"We are delighted to announce our planned partnership with ABD Solutions, a well-regarded automation company with substantial experience working with organisations to accelerate the transition to autonomy," said Amaroq Minerals CEO Eldur Olafsson. "We are focused on ensuring that we seek out and deploy innovative technology across Nalunaq and going forward the rest of the assets within our extensive licence area, as we believe that this will allow us to introduce new skill sets to the workforce in Greenland and to operate safely, efficiently and sustainably."

ABD Solutions offers a modular technology ecosystem to build its various elements required for vehicle automation; including vehicle management, vehicle control actuation, communication, sense and detect, health and diagnostics, and third-party integration.

This functionality provides a flexible autonomy solution that can be tailored to a specific vehicle, environment, or operational scenario and then fully integrated into any existing operational and fleet management system.

For Nalunaq, autonomous vehicles would be operated automatically and supervised from a central control room, therefore, improving safety and streamlining the mining process, both operationally and financially.

"We are looking forward to working with Amaroq Minerals with the aim of bringing automation to a range of mining vehicles and equipment," said ABD Solutions Managing Director Matthew Price. "Our vehicle agnostic, retrofittable autonomy systems provide safety and efficiency improvements rapidly and cost-effectively and we strive to bring autonomy to any fleet, even in the harshest environments."

Nalunaq is home to a past-producing underground gold mine in South Greenland that produced approximately 350,000 ounces of gold between 2004 and 2009. Due to falling gold prices, financial difficulties, and a lack of exploration, however, the mine was partially shuttered in 2014 with a widespread view that the deposit was exhausted.

Despite that outlook, according to a 2020 calculation, Nalunaq hosts 422,700 metric tons of inferred resource averaging 18.5 grams per metric ton (250,970 ounces) gold.

"The team look[s] forward to working closely with ABD Solutions and utilise their considerable knowledge throughout the Nalunaq development process," said Olafsson.

Aside from Nalunaq, Amaroq is advancing several high-grade and highly prospective projects in southern Greenland. These include the Vagar, Tartoq, Nuna Nutaaq, Anoritooq, and Saarloq.