Capital Equipment News April 2017

JOBSITE REPORT

LOADING BEYOND EXPECTATIONS

A fleet of LiuGong wheel loaders working round-the-clock on a taxing coal mining project has surpassed the expectations of both the manufacturer and the equipment owner, writes Munesu Shoko .

F or any contract miner, equipment availability and reliability is the basis at which its success on a project is determined. Any minute lost through machine downtime is money down the drain. This is even more so for a 24-hour operation where every minute and second are so carefully balanced between working time and planned standing time, with any unplanned stoppage absolutely out of question. Maintaining optimal mine site produc- tivity ensures continuity in achieving tar- gets of production and sustainability. To achieve this, the scope of work targets must always be met – hence reliable and consistent equipment is required. This is exactly what a fleet of LiuGong wheel loaders is offering to a contractor working

at a 24/7 coal mining operation in Mpuma- langa, South Africa. Balele Contractors, a contract miner that specialises in coal mining and processing, has deployed a fleet of nine LiuGong CLG856 wheel loader models on a round- the-clock operation at Elandsfontein Colliery. The fleet comprises both the older CLG856 and newer CLG856H models. Balele Contractors trialled its first LiuGong loader back in 2009, and never looked back. To date, the mining contractor owns a strong 25-unit fleet of LiuGong front-end loaders, and counting. At the time of its first purchase, there was general sentiment in the local market that Chinese- made construction gear would not stand the tough African working conditions, yet alone a 24/7 mining application. But, eight

years down the line, Balele Contractors is proving this to be a baseless myth with an enlarged fleet of loaders that are proving their worth. “We run a 24/7 operation, of which 22 of the 24 hours, the machines are physically working,” says Edmund Johnstone, operations manager at Balele Contractors, who tells Capital Equipment News that the loaders have even surpassed the expectations of both the manufacturer and the equipment owner. Local dealer, Burgers Equipment & Spares, at some point brought over LiuGong engineers from China to witness the working environment in which these loaders are subjected to. “On one of the first visits by the engineers, they were surprised to see that these loaders were actually working in excess of 20 hours a

CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS APRIL 2017 6