Modern Mining August 2015

COVER STORY

goals are met, and scheduled maintenance stays within budget. SPH deploys a Cat 980H wheel loader to handle any oversize. Cat 320D L excavators equipped with hydraulic hammers then break up larger ‘boulders’ for subsequent feeding into the Metso Mobile jaw crushers. Cat 966H units are utilised for general pre- and post-crushed materials handling stockpile management. The Cat 980H has recorded close to 22 000 hours from new since being on site with only minor interventions, and SPH plans to run the machine to 25 000 hours before reviewing component rebuild requirements. Meanwhile, SPH’s Cat 966H units on site have each achieved around 12 000 hours; a new Cat 966H joined the fleet in July 2015 bringing the total to four. The new unit comes equipped with a larger counterweight and a 4 m³ bucket. On the critical path to the crusher, mate- rial loading is carried out by 40 and 50 tonne class hydraulic excavators. These include a Cat 340D L, which is one of the key loading tools, and comfortably keeps pace with the LT120’s volume throughput. This typically averages

Michaël Fourie, SPH project manager at Pilanesberg Platinum Mines, has been on site since 2011 and has seen a steady ramp up in their earthmoving and allied machine fleet to keep pace with increasing mine throughput. Rising production has also led to a progressive up-sizing of the capacities on individual earth- moving units. At the ROM stockpile, SPH’s Cat fleet of hydraulic excavators and wheel loaders works in conjunction with three Metso Mobile LT120 jaw crushers. All blasted in-pit material is transported to a ROM stockpile area by a sepa- rate load and haul contractor. A total of around 300 000 tonnes of ore (Merensky Footwall Pseudo Reef (Silicate) and UG2) is processed and hauled for the client, Pilanesberg Platinum Mines, on average per month. “Two thirds of our tonnage is Silicate ore,” Fourie explains. Allied materials handling chiefly comprises UG2 reef. These are relatively high Specific Gravity (SG) materials. With these SGs all machines work physically hard and need to be optimally configured for their assigned tasks to ensure predicted availability

Above: The Cat 340D2 L is manufactured at Caterpil- lar’s Xuzhou factory in China for worldwide distribution. Above left: In the fore- ground, a Cat 320D L hy- draulic excavator, equipped with a hydraulic hammer, breaks up oversize material, which will then be fed into one of SPH’s Metso LT120 mobile jaw crushers.

August 2015  MODERN MINING  21