For the second year in a row, a company from Newfoundland and Labrador is a finalist for the US$1 million #DisruptMining competition.

Mining giant Goldcorp Inc. said this week that Anaconda Mining of St. John’s is one of three finalists in the competition for mining technology startups, which will be decided Sunday. The winner will win the opportunity to negotiate a C$1 million investment from GoldCorp.

Last year, the competition was won by Acoustic Zoom, a Newfoundland company that provides seismic solutions for miners. The prize last year was an investment worth US$1 million, and Acoustic Zoom also undertook a US$150,000 pilot program at a Goldcorp mine.

“#DisruptMining continues to represent the best of innovation in the mining industry,” said Goldcorp Chief Operating Officer Todd White in a statement. “These finalists demonstrate break-through thinking and help build digital momentum in mining. The industry needs to help accelerate the development of these kinds of technologies.”

Listed on the TSX, Anaconda Mining has developed an innovative, two-stage drilling method that enables economic mining of narrow-vein deposits. The company developed the technology, known as Sustainable Mining by Drilling, or SMD, in collaboration with Memorial University of Newfoundland.

SMD has the potential to unlock value in existing deposits that were previously thought to be uneconomic to mine using traditional underground or surface mining methods. The developers also expect this technology could extend the life of current operations by allowing safe excavation to occur beyond the limits of current designs.

The other finalists are: Andritz, which makes training artificial intelligence to autonomously operate a mineral processing facility; and Voith Turbo, which has developed an IoT application that increases the intelligence of belt conveyors.

The finalists will present their technologies to a panel of judges and gala dinner at the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention in Toronto on Sunday.

Based in Paradise, NL, just west of St. John’s, Acoustic Zoom is a geophysics company that uses high-frequency three- and four-dimensional imaging to map complex geological formations beneath the Earth's surface. The company intends to provide exploration teams with better information so they can drill smarter and improve the chances of finding ore deposits.