Unplanned downtime on crushers, long conveyor trains and heavy mobile equipment can quickly cascade into lost production, costly emergency repairs and potential safety risks. In this exclusive Q&A, Jeremy Sheldon, Director of Asset Management and Analytics at Poseidon Systems, and Bugra Kilincer, Global Partnership Advisor at ExxonMobil, reveal how real-time wear and oil quality sensing paired with expert interpretation, can help transform early detection and decision‑making in mining reliability programs.
Jeremy, for Mining Technology readers who may not know Poseidon, can you briefly explain what your sensors do in the context of mining equipment?
Jeremy Sheldon: We have two primary sensing technologies. First, mechanical wear debris sensors that offer best in class detection capabilities or indicators of mechanical wear of components. Second, our oil quality sensor offers world class sensitivity to changes in lubricants and other fluids that are indicative of either machinery health state changes or lubricant health change.
How do Poseidon’s EIS sensors compare to traditional monitoring technologies and what are the key markers that your sensors monitor to detect fluid degradation and contamination in mining equipment?
JS: Using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), the oil quality sensor continuously measures the electrical characteristics of the lubricant at multiple frequencies and tracks how these values change over time. Those changing electrical signatures are used to indicate the oil’s natural degradation (ageing, oxidation, additive depletion) and to flag when the oil’s condition is drifting away from what has been learned as “normal” for that specific application and fluid.
On heavy mobile mining equipment, the sensors are used to track coolant ingress, fuel dilution and soot levels in real time. All of these are indicators of contamination or combustion-related issues that will degrade the lubricant and, if left unchecked, accelerate wear and failure. Particularly in engines, soot loading in the oil is monitored as a sign of combustion quality and potential overloading of the lubricant’s dispersant capacity.
The system also monitors water content in the lubricant via relative humidity measurements. Beyond liquid water, Poseidon looks at both humidity and other signs of environmental ingress that can threaten oil condition and the integrity of the lubricant film, especially in harsh mining environments and remote, exposed installations.
Importantly, all these markers are viewed as trends over time rather than one‑off readings. The system first learns what healthy behaviour looks like for a given fluid and application, then uses deviations in these markers – oil health, water content, coolant/fuel dilution, soot and humidity-related signals – to flag emerging cases of fluid degradation and contamination before they turn into failures.
Oil analysis has been the backbone of condition monitoring in mining for decades. How is your approach different from traditional lab-based programmes?
JS: We offer increased sensitivity to both small and large particles, where particles are generated when a system or a mechanical component degrades. So, we can detect smaller particles than other sensors. We can also differentiate between ferrous and non-ferrous materials, which allow us to help identify what specific component might be faulty within the gearbox. For miners running large crusher gearboxes and long conveyor trains, that early visibility of wear metals and particle types can be the first reliable indication that something inside the drivetrain is going wrong, well before a traditional inspection or used oil sample would pick it up.
Can you share an example where online sensing caught a problem in time to avoid serious damage?
JS: Yes – for example, a large amount of water had made its way into the lubrication system of a haul truck, but we were able to detect that very quickly and get the customer to take action to rectify. If they have only been monitoring with, let’s say, used oil analysis, taking manual samples, they may have missed that for days, or even weeks, over which time the water would have degraded the lubricant quality and caused mechanical damage to the gearbox.
How do mining customers access and use this data in their maintenance workflows?
JS: Poseidon Live is our cloud-based data portal that gives customers and analysts browser-based access to sensor data, analysis and clear summaries of asset health in one place.
For workflows, customers receive automatic notifications if there are anomalies in the data that require immediate action, so that those would integrate directly into what they typically would see from their other monitoring systems. Alongside those urgent alerts, Poseidon Live also provides longer-term reviews. We provide periodic reports that give a strategic overview of asset health. For example, for fixed plant assets such as crushers, this information can be used to schedule change-outs in planned shutdown windows instead of reacting to failures.
As mining shifts toward more digital and automated operations, how do you see the role of real-time fluid monitoring evolving over the next five years?
JS: I think it will become more commonplace. The analysis will be more focused on providing direct actionable information. The customer doesn’t just want to know that the data is anomalous – they want to know what to do to fix it. I think we’ll see trends in the analysis moving away from the human loop altogether. In the fullness of time, it may be AI looking at the data and saying: ‘go do this.’
Bugra, can you outline the relationship that ExxonMobil has with Poseidon Systems and the benefits this brings to your customers?
BK: “At ExxonMobil, we see reliability as a team effort. Our customers are experts in their operations and equipment. Mobil™ experts bring deep expertise in lubrication engineering and application knowledge, and Poseidon adds a leading capability in real‑time, sensor‑based condition monitoring. When these areas of expertise come together, we can help customers address some of their biggest pain points around productivity, safety and environmental care.
Our relationship with Poseidon is deliberate, we selected them because their sensing technology complements the strengths Mobil already brings through our products, our engineering support and our understanding of equipment failure modes. By combining Mobil expert’s ability to interpret lubrication‑related signals with Poseidon’s real‑time data, customers gain a clearer view of what is happening inside critical assets and how developing issues may evolve.
Although full integration of data sources and AI is something we continue to explore for the future, the foundation we are building today already supports better, faster decision‑making.
Ultimately, this collaboration is about enabling smarter, safer, more predictable operations. By bringing together experts in operations, lubrication science and sensor technology, we’re helping customers move toward a more informed and proactive approach to equipment reliability.”
For more information on how your mining operations can benefit from lubrication solutions from the experts, download the free paper below.
