Modern Mining June 2016

COVER STORY

mobility for tracked machines significantly reduced, while fuel costs are also lowered.” He adds that the Sleipner system itself requires little maintenance, as it consists of only about 100 parts and incorporates no high-tech systems to go wrong. in Botswana, Katanga Mines in the DRC and Assmang’s Khumani and Beeshoek iron ore mines in South Africa. Open-pit mining con- tractors have also embraced the technology, among them Diesel Power in South Africa, U&M in Zambia, and African Mining Services in Ghana.

Since the late 1990s, Sleipner has consider- ably broadened the range of what it calls its E-series (the ‘E’ standing for ‘excavator’) and now offers units able to handle excavators rang- ing from 30 tonnes through to 565 tonnes. Two new models – the 600-tonne and 800‑tonne class Sleipners – are in development and will be released to the market in due course. There are a multitude of excavator-truck combina- tions possible for each E-series model. For example, the top-of-the-line Sleipner E550 can accommodate excavators such as the 533-t Hitachi EX5600 or the 565-t Cat 6060 with the trucks used for towing typically being ‘ultra’ size machines such as the Komatsu 960E or the Cat 797 (which have 327-t and 363-t payloads respectively). In the African region, many mines use the E-series system including First Quantum’s Kansanshi and Sentinel copper mines in Zambia, AngloGold Ashanti’s Geita mine in Tanzania, Debswana’s Orapa diamond mine

While the success of Sleipner has been founded on the E-series, the company in 2014 added another major product to its line- up. “The E-series caters only for excavators,” explains Hollins. “Customers were delighted with the way the E-series models performed but also wanted a system that would allow tracked bulldozers and drill rigs to be transported con- veniently. In response to this request, Sleipner’s engineers in Finland came up with the DB120 transport system. The ‘DB” stands for ‘drill and bulldozer’ while the ‘120’ in the designation

The DB120 with a tracked drill rig ‘on board’.

Loading a dozer onto a DB120 takes just minutes.

June 2016  MODERN MINING  17