Suncor driverless trucks will kill 400 net jobs, says company
About 400 jobs are approaching to disappear during Suncor Energy Inc.’s oilsands mines in northern Alberta as it deploys driverless ore-hauling trucks to reinstate a ones humans work now.
“We have about 500 roles that will get separated by this and we’re going to supplement about 100. So a net change in a workforce is about 400 positions,” arch handling officer Mark Little pronounced in an talk Wednesday.
The association has been contrast a 400-tonne ability Komatsu trucks for about 4 years and has 9 now. It announced Tuesday it will gradually build a swift of some-more than 150 driverless trucks over a subsequent 6 years, starting with a North Steepbank cave during a Base Camp north of Fort McMurray.
Suncor is a initial oilsands mining operation to adopt a technology.
Tokyo-based Komatsu Ltd. this week distinguished a 10th anniversary of deployment of a initial unconstrained lorry during a Codelco copper cave in Chile, observant that some-more than 100 trucks now work during 4 Rio Tinto Ltd. iron ore mines in Australia, a cave in Chile and during Suncor.
Suncor is contrast an unconstrained haulage complement (AHS), or trucks though genuine drivers on a Alberta cave site. (Komatsu)
On Tuesday, Melbourne-based Rio Tinto announced a unconstrained transport trucks had achieved a miracle of carrying changed a sum of one billion tonnes of element though being concerned in any damage accidents. In December, it announced it would enhance a swift of about 80 trucks to 140 by a finish of 2019.
New $5M trucks to operate 24 hours a day
Suncor’s devise to exam a unconstrained lorry systems was primarily criticized by a Unifor kinship internal since of pursuit losses. But Little says Suncor is operative with a kinship to minimize pursuit impacts by retraining workers whose jobs will disappear.
The association has been scheming for a switch by employing a lorry drivers, including those during a just-opened Fort Hills mine, on a proxy basis, he added. Suncor pronounced a beginning there will be a diminution in complicated apparatus user positions during Base Plant operations is 2019.
Little pronounced a association will reinstate trucks that have reached a finish of their useful life with new Komatsu trucks. He pronounced they cost about $5 million each, not including a barrier showing systems and mechanism rigging indispensable for autonomy.
Some of Suncor’s newer existent trucks will be retrofitted, he added.
He pronounced a unconstrained trucks are so fit — since they work 24 hours a day and stop usually for fuel — a association will need fewer trucks in a destiny than it employs now.
Komatsu says tires on a unconstrained trucks final 40 per cent longer since a trucks equivocate remarkable acceleration and sudden steering.
Rio Tinto’s trucks are tranquil remotely from a operations centre in Perth, about 1,500 kilometres from a mines, though Little pronounced Suncor is primarily going to work a trucks from control bedrooms during any cave site.
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Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/suncor-driverless-trucks-job-losses-1.4512659?cmp=rss