Capital Equipment News October 2020

COVER STORY

Liebherr PR 776 gains a strong global foothold

Having made its global debut in April 2016, Liebherr’s PR 776 – which set a new benchmark four years ago by being the first dozer in the 70 t class to be hydrostatically driven – has established itself as the most efficient mining dozer in its size class. The machine has enjoyed a fast growing global population, with 100 units commissioned to date, eight of which are operating in South Africa, writes Munesu Shoko .

W hen Liebherr launched its PR 776 dozer at bauma Munich 2016, not only did the machine allow the company to compete in the 70 t crawler dozer league for the first time, but also set a new standard with a hydrostatic transmission for a machine in this size class. Four years on, the machine has established itself as the most efficient mining dozer in the 70 t class, an attribute that is substantiated by a fast growing population of 100 units commissioned across global sites to date, amassing a combined total of 760 000 operating hours in the process. The majority of these units are operating in coal, with all the eight in South Africa deployed at coal mines. The first prototype unit to arrive in South Africa was put through its paces by multi-disciplinary contractor Liviero at Vanggatfontein Colliery, some 16 km south-east of Delmas in the Mpumalanga region, where Liviero Mining was at the time working in partnership with Keaton Energy. Capital Equipment News attended the official handover of the machine in March 2016. At this particular site, coal had to be dozed accessibly for the backhoe excavators which fed the haul trucks supplying two coal washing plants. The 100 t washing plant produced duff, peas and nuts. Duff is used for producing charcoal, whereas coal peas and nuts are used for generating thermal energy. The 500 tph plant produced thermal coal for Eskom.

The Liviero management was approached by Liebherr-Africa with regards to having the first Liebherr PR 776 in the country on its mining site, where it was measured against a large fleet of competitor machines. Since then, this particular unit has amassed in excess of 12 000 operating hours, with no issues, at an average rate of 4 500 to 5 000 hours a year. Fuel consumption figures collected to date indicate that the PR 776 is averaging fuel consumption of around 38 ℓ per hour across global sites, achieved through the infinitely variable hydrostatic travel drive, along with continuous technical upgrades in recent years. This is a huge improvement on the initial consumption figures recorded on the first prototype machine to arrive in South Africa back in 2016, which, according to LiDAT, the comprehensive data collection and

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CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS OCTOBER 2020