¡VAMOS! - Viable and Alternative Mine Operating System

¡VAMOS! will provide a new safe, clean, low-visibility mining technique and prove the economic viability for extracting currently unreachable mineral deposits. This will encourage investment and help put the EU back on a level playing field in terms of access to strategically important minerals.

Derived from successful deep-sea mining techniques, the ¡VAMOS! mining solution aspires to result in the reopening of abandoned mines; extensions to open-pit mines limited by stripping ratio, hydrological or geotechnical problems; and the opening of new mines in the EU.

¡VAMOS! will design and manufacture innovative automated excavation equipment and environmental impact monitoring tools to perform field tests at four mine sites across Europe with a range of rock hardness and pit morphology.

¡VAMOS! will:

• develop a prototype underwater, remotely controlled, mining machine with associated launch and recovery equipment,

• enhance currently available underwater sensing, spatial awareness, navigational and positioning technology,

• provide an integrated solution for efficient real-time monitoring of environmental impacts,

• conduct field trials with the prototype equipment in abandoned and inactive mine sites with a range of rock types and at a range of submerged depths,

• evaluate productivity and operating costs to enable mineability and economic reassessment of the EU's mineral resources,

• maximise impact and enable the market uptake of proposed solutions by defining and overcoming the practicalities of the concept, proving operational feasibility and economic viability,

• contribute to the social acceptance of the new extraction technique via public demonstrations in EU regions.

Partners

• Group Ltd (United Kingdom)

• Soil Machine Dynamics Ltd. (United Kingdom)

• Damen Shipyards Group (Netherlands)

• Instituto de Engenharia Sistemas e Computadores (Portugal)

• Fugro EMU Limited (United Kingdom)

• ZfT Zentrum für Telematik e.V. (Germany) =

• MUL Montanuniversität Leoben (Austria)

• MIN MINERÁLIA, LDA (Portugal)

• MML Marine Minerals Ltd (United Kingdom)

• EDM Empresa de Desenvolvimento Mineiro SA (Portugal)

• SAND Sandvik Mining and Construction GmbH (Austria)

• GeoZS Geological survey of Slovenia (Slovenia)

• CF La Palma Research Centre for Future Studies (Spain)

• EFG European Federation of Geologists (Belgium)

• TRE Trelleborg Ede Bv (Netherlands)

• FZG Federalni zavod za Geologijo (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

• FORRV Fonadacija za obnovu i razvoj regije Vareš (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Website: http://vamos-project.eu/
Fugro Contact: Ian Stewart (i.stewart@fugro.com)