Capital Equipment News October 2016

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ELECTRA MINING NEWS IN BRIEF

Winder build for Zambian mine Specialist manufacturer DCD Heavy Engineering is nearing completion on a two-year project to produce winder drums for a copper mine in Zambia. The contract was for two double-drum winders for hoisting rock and two single- drum winders for hoisting personnel. The order also included related components such as clutches, bearings, brake stands and assembly. The completed man- winder is 6,4 m in diameter and 204 t when assembled. It can transport 141 people at a time to a depth of 1,9 km below surface in just over two minutes. The rock winder – measuring 7,2 m in diameter and weighing 175 t when assembled – collects rock from a depth of up to 2 km; each load weighs up to 27,5 t and can be delivered in less than two minutes. Total wear solution for chute project Chromium Carbide (CrC) liner expert Rio-Carb has provided a total wear solution for a chute project for a major chrome mine in the Rustenburg area in North West Province of South Africa. This represents the first time that the company’s chromium and manganese impact liner plates have been applied to the chrome mining sector. The impact of the ore on the C22 Head Chute resulted in significant wear and abrasion, which meant it had to be refurbished. “This specific chute is critical in the mine’s pro- duction process, as it conveys all of the run-of-mine material. Hence there is a lot of impact,” says Karel Lewis, technical sales consultant at Rio-Carb. The mine had used standard 400 liner plates on this application-critical chute in the past. The traditional liners only lasted 12 to 18 months, whereas the total wear solution from Rio-Carb means that the new liners now have a minimum lifespan of five to six years. Optimising underground mine design With the release of Micromine 2016, the latest version of Micromine’s ex- ploration and 3D mine design solution, features have been implemented and overhauled to assist with underground mine design. These new and improved features have been designed for ease of use and allow users to take advan- tage of the intuitive tools of Micromine for underground mine design. The schedule optimiser is a mathematically proven Mixed Integer Programming (MILP) solver that is able to provide engineers with the optimal extraction sequence. b

20-yeal low for surface mining equipment

The PBCo Mining Equipment Index is a measure of the quarterly evolution of surface mining equipment shipments worldwide. It relies on data from Parker Bay’s Mobile Mining Equipment Database and encompasses the same product range covered by the Database (all products are included except draglines whose low volume, high dollar value, long lead time sales can cause fluctuations that don’t reflect the quarterly changes in the market). The index utilises the value of equipment as opposed to number of units such that one $10 million excavator has the same weight as five $2 million trucks. Values are not based on the price of each unit as sold but instead an approximate value assigned to machines by size class and product expressed in constant dollars. b

In its recent report, The Parker Bay Company finds that the global mining equipment market is near a 20-year low. The company says in its Surface Mining Equipment Index that whether compared to previous reports sequentially or versus the peak levels that were recorded in 2012, the latest reported deliveries are “dismal”. “Annualising the latest numbers would ap- pear to result in 2016 shipments equal to less than one-quarter’s shipments during 2012. And it ranks among the worst quarters in the past 20 years,” says the company. “There are several mining industry measures that ap- pear to indicate an end to the industry-wide contraction, but these are certainly not yet reflected in equipment shipments tracked by Parker Bay.”

New report suggests that global surface mining equipment sales are at a 20- year low.

DCD AND SOUTHWEST GIVE STANDALONE MUSCLE TO GRAVICO

Following three years of successful col- laboration on Gravico mining aftermarket products, partners DCD Group and South- west Group have consolidated the venture into a standalone business incorporating assets from both stakeholders. The cooperation began in 2013 when DCD Venco became the manufacturing partner for Southwest’s Gravico range in Africa. Based in the Eindhoven, Netherlands, Southwest specialises in the engineering and develop- ment of a wide range of mining aftermarket products around the world. They include backload and front-shovel buckets in capac- ities from 7 m³ to 52 m³, dragline buckets (30-105 m³), dump truck bowls (80-360 t) and dragline rigging. Speaking of the local market conditions, Digby Glover, DCD Group CEO, says the con- tinued decline in surface mining equipment sales since 2012 has resulted in many origi- nal equipment manufacturers (OEMs) taking

much of their production in-house. “This has reduced the demand for product from third-party manufacturers, who now have to re-define their value offering,” says Glover. Glover says mining companies are at the same time looking for sustainable margin improvements through innovation and cost reduction. “Our commitment to Gravico ex- presses DCD’s intent to work closely with mining customers to help improve their productivity with our high-quality, cost-ef- fective solutions,” he says. Louw Kriel, managing director of South- west Group, says Gravico attachments – including dragline buckets, excavator buckets and truck bodies – have been well-received by customers in southern Africa in recent years. This has led to several substantial manufacturing con- tracts being undertaken by DCD Venco in Newcastle, now incorporated into DCD op- erations in Vereeniging. b

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