Modern Mining March 2018

COVER STORY

Cat 789D trucks under the spotlight at Foskor

The new fleet of 190-tonne Cat 789D off-highway trucks ready for duty at Foskor’s opencast phosphate mine in Phalaborwa.

First in 30 years The new trucks are maintained by Foskor, assisted by the Barloworld Equipment field service team in Phalaborwa. Cat trucks are an unusual sight at the mine, even more so once they have been rebranded to Foskor green. Barloworld Equipment Limpopo Sales Manager Bradley Page says these are the first Cat off-highway trucks to haul ore on the site in 30 years. Foskor was looking for a partner with a sound reputation in the mining industry and the Cat 789D matched the mine’s production targets. Caterpillar entered the off-highway truck market in 1963 and its 100 per cent in-house designed mining trucks became the market leader due to their reputation for quality, long life and unmatched support. Caterpillar built its 50 000th mining truck in 2009. Cat large mining trucks today move more than half of the material – rock and ore, coal and oil sands – at mines around the world. Lowest cost per tonne The Cat 789 model was first launched back in 1986 and the D series appeared, with several refinements, in 2011. The longevity of this model testifies to its productivity, durability

For the past 67 years Foskor’s Mining Division has mined phosphate rock (foskorite and pyroxenite) at its opencast mine in Phalaborwa, Limpopo Province. The ore is processed into phosphate rock concentrate on site and then railed to Foskor’s Acid Division in Richards Bay, KwaZulu-Natal, where it is used to produce phosphoric acid and phosphate-based granular fertilisers for local and international markets.

A drilling and blasting operation extracts ore deposits from the igneous complex, with hydrau- lic shovels and front-end load- ers used to load the ore onto Foskor’s fleet of 180-tonne trucks for transport- ing to the crushers. This is where Barloworld Equipment, the Southern African dealer for Caterpillar earthmoving equipment, has re- cently taken up a new role. Foskor awarded Barloworld Equipment the tender for four Cat ® 789D off-highway trucks in November 2016. The 190-tonne trucks were assembled close to the mine by the Barloworld Equipment Polokwane field service team. The first two trucks were delivered in July 2017 and the final two on 29 August 2017.

20  MODERN MINING  March 2018