Source: Mineweb.com                        Date: 15 June, 2011

Oyu Tolgoi LLC has selected the South African company ThoroughTec's latest generation CYBERMINE4 mining simulators to enhance operator skill and safety. Mr. Richard Storrie, the Technical Services Manager at Oyu Tolgoi, has said “there is excellent integration of mining best practices” between Ivanhoe Mines and Rio Tinto “to ensure that the best possible standards are adopted and successfully implemented in the Oyu Tolgoi operation. We see employee safety as the number one priority and simulator based training will be one of the key contributors in achieving our goals in this regard."

Oyu Tolgoi's present development workforce includes local employees and highly skilled expatriates entrusted with training and supervision. “As mine development morphs into full-scale production, more and more experienced local operators will be needed and Oyu Tolgoi is committed to having a minimum of ninety percent of its workforce employed from the local (Mongolian) community. To effectively train and up-skill these local operators for a mega-mine like Oyu Tolgoi will require specialized training equipment and an exceptional training program," said Mr. Storrie.

He added that the choice of equipment was guided by system reliability and maintainability, as Oyu Tolgoi is in a remote area. Although Oyu Tolgoi has purchased underground mining simulator base units, the operation has both underground and surface mining components. The new simulators allow both in the same base unit, making use of a unique cross-platform adaptor kit. Oyu Tolgoi will therefore still be able to purchase surface mining cabs in the future as the need arises, significantly lowering the total cost of ownership.  Student operators of each of the equipment variants will be familiar with Oyu Tolgoi's underground mining environment even before venturing underground.