Capital Equipment News March 2020

Cummins Zambia commissions new coolant plant in Kitwe Cummins Zambia has completed a coolant plant project in Kitwe on the Copperbelt that received approval from the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) in 2019. The “plug-and-play” plant will produce two types of coolant, namely ES compleat Hybrid (Blue) and ES compleat OAT (Red).

sessment for any project being undertaken. Therefore, the ZEMA approval was necessary to ensure that the coolant plant had no impact on the environment or the surrounding community,” says Kambing’a. This is also in line with Cummins’s PLANET 2050 strategy, focused on ad- dressing climate change and air emissions using natural resources in the most sustainable way, and improving communities. To date, Cummins Zambia’s main coolant customer has been First Quantum Minerals (FQM), a major copper producer in the region. The new plant will allow Cummins Zambia to supply coolant to other customers in different packages. This, says Kambing’a, “will grow our filtration sales in Zambia and allow us to serve other customers. It will also take care of our counter-sales customers. Other Cummins distributors and dealers wanting to take advantage of our cost-competitiveness will also be welcomed”. The main benefits of the new coolant plant are that customers will not be restricted to obtain the products only in totes, but can request different pack- ages according to their specific requirements. Customers will also have the option of bulk supply, which will drastically reduce their storage challenges, as they would have access to sufficient product as and when required. Kambing’a says long lead times will also be eliminated. Switching to in-house coolant production at Cummins Zambia will reduce import costs significantly, allowing the company to pass these savings to customers.

PLC-driven and automated, the plant has the capability to perform batch correction. It has a blending capacity of around 1 600 ℓ over two hours, including quality testing. The system has two 2 500- ℓ tanks for product storage. Cummins aftermarket leader (Zambia) John Kambing’a says that, while the plant was originally scheduled for completion within six months in 2018, it took about a year to complete due to delivery and manufacturing logistics, in addition to stringent ZEMA approval reports. The main contractor was CP Engineering, with a Cummins Filtration team overseeing the project from start to finish. Cummins Filtration built the plant and shipped it to Zam- bia, where it was installed by a local contractor under the supervision of the project team. The Cummins Filtration team from South Africa also played a key role in commissioning the plant. “It is a requirement in Zambia to conduct an impact as-

First autonomous haulage fleet for the gold mining industry Caterpillar has reached an agreement with Newmont to supply and support Cat autonomous trucks and the MineStar Command for hauling system for the Boddington gold mine in Western Australia. The fleet of autonomous Cat 793F mining trucks will be fully operational in 2021 and will be the first autonomous haulage system working in an open pit gold mine.

MineStar Command for hauling, and those trucks have moved more than 1,9-billion tonnes since 2013. b

“We are pleased to work with Newmont in implement- ing autonomous haulage at Boddington,” says Denise Johnson, group president Resource Industries, Caterpil- lar Inc. “Command for hauling has shown its ability to enhance safety, optimise production and lower costs at sites around the world. The Caterpillar team is eager to demonstrate these positive results in gold mining.” Caterpillar will work with WesTrac, the regional Cat dealer, to manage logistics of mining truck delivery and commissioning. WesTrac will also play a key role in implementing technology solutions and will work to leverage its autonomous technology training facility being constructed in Collie, Western Australia. Cat autonomous trucks have proven reliability and du- rability in the autonomous system, which creates higher truck utilisation and increased production rates. There are now 275 mining trucks operating autonomously via

The fleet of autonomous Cat 793F mining trucks will be fully operational in 2021.

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