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Rio Tinto Coal Australia Hunter Valley Operations Together With Matrikon Inc. Win "Minerals Process Plant of the Year" Award

Posted on: Friday, 3 November 2006, 12:00 CST

EDMONTON, Nov. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Rio Tinto Coal Australia Hunter Valley Operations together with Matrikon Inc. (TSX: MTK) won the "Minerals Process Plant of the Year" Award at the Australian Mining Prospect Awards for Innovation in Coal Prep Plant Control Optimization.

Rio Tinto's Hunter Valley Coal Preparation Plant processes 15 million tons of coal per year. Such high throughput means there is potential for significant economic and environmental gains by optimizing the major control loops and reducing variation. However, high throughput is a double-edged sword. It also means any downtime required to make such plant modifications will incur significant costs in lost production.

Rio Tinto improved coal yield and reduced water use in their Hunter Valley Coal Prep Plant using Matrikon's ProcessACT(TM). Matrikon enabled Rio Tinto to simulate, test, prototype, and implement an advanced control strategy without any plant downtime.

"The technique we used for prototyping, then implementing the plant modifications removed almost all the risk that this kind of work normally entails. Without Matrikon's novel approach we would have had to think twice about whether to go ahead at all with these modifications to our critical plant." Luke Dimech - Rio Tinto

Australian Mining launched the Australian Mining Prospect Awards in 2006. These awards highlight companies that have shown innovation, excellent mine management skills and superior performance in a range of mining categories. Rio Tinto and Matrikon won the Minerals Processing Plant of the Year award, sponsored by ABB Australia PTY LTD.

"It is an honor to receive this prestigious award together with our client of some 20 years standing, Rio Tinto Hunter Valley Operations. These pragmatic advanced control strategies based on Matrikon software and technology have resulted in significant improvements to the coal preparation plant's performance, which is an excellent example of what can be achieved by working smarter and not harder. We look forward to a continued relationship with Rio Tinto Hunter Valley Operations so that we can continue to deliver business value through our solutions." Sam Crisafulli, Managing Director, Matrikon Pty Ltd

About Rio Tinto

Rio Tinto is a world leader in finding, mining and processing the earth's mineral resources. The Group's worldwide operations supply essential minerals and metals that help to meet global needs and contribute to improvements in living standards. Rio Tinto encourages strong local identities and has a devolved management philosophy, entrusting responsibility with accountability to the workplace.

About Matrikon

Matrikon is a leading provider of industrial intelligence solutions that enable manufacturing plants to achieve operational excellence by transforming production data into knowledge to predict and prevent problems and optimize operations. Matrikon's customers achieve agile operations through the combination of external market and plant data to make informed, intelligent decisions in real-time. With offices in major cities throughout North America, Australia, Europe and the Middle East and a global client base including industry leaders in a wide range of process industries, Matrikon's reach is global. Visit http://www.matrikon.com/.

Matrikon Inc.

CONTACT: Gord Freiter, Marketing Communications Manager, Matrikon Inc.,Suite 1800, 10405 Jasper Ave., Edmonton, AB, T5J 3N4, p: (780) 448-1010 x4928,f: (780) 448-9191, e: gord.freiter@matrikon.com, w: http://www.matrikon.com/

Source: PRNewswire-FirstCall

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