Modern Mining July 2015

OFF-HIGHWAY TRUCKS AND EXCAVATORS

Africa in contrast to other regions such as North America where it is widely used on the type of big construction projects that are not too often seen any more in our own part of the world.” On the question of what constitutes an ultra- truck, Duthie points out that definitions are necessarily arbitrary but says that Caterpillar and Barloworld Equipment view anything with a payload of 290 tonnes and above as falling within the ultra-class. “These are the trucks that can work effectively with the big load- ing tools, namely rope shovels and hydraulic shovels, and they are typically owned by mines and stay on a single mine for their entire lives due to the expense and logistical challenges of moving them frommine to mine,” he says. “I’ve yet to see any mining contractors in Southern Africa operating trucks of this size.” Projects such as Husab and Sentinel were planned when the resources boom was still going strong but the current weakness in commodity prices has resulted in mining com- panies cutting back sharply on investment in new mines (and, for that matter, on expan- sions at existing operations). Duthie, however, is confident that the demand for ultra-sized equipment can only grow. “It’s only a question of time before the resources sector recovers,” he says. “Eventually new mines will have to be

developed and many of them will very likely be of considerable size, as the long-term trend is towards high volume operations able to exploit economies of scale. So I think it is safe to say that prospects for ultra-sized shovels and trucks over the medium- to long-term are extremely positive, both globally and in the Southern African region.” Photos (unless otherwise acknowledged) courtesy of Barlo- world Equipment

One of three Cat 7495 elec- tric rope shovels supplied to the Husab uraniummine, with – in the background – one of two Cat C175 diesel engine motivators also supplied for the project.

Fleet Production and Cost Analysis The huge investment in ultra-machines means that mines need to get maximum productivity, utilisation and efficiency out of them and Caterpil- lar and Barloworld have just the tool to assist in achieving this in the form of Caterpillar’s Fleet Production and Cost Analysis (FPC) software, which pro- vides estimates of the productivity and costs associated with owning and operating equipment. In continuous development over many years and now in Version 5, the FPC software was the subject of a presentation by Ian Duthie at the recent two-day conference on mechanised mining, held at the Birchwood Confer- ence Centre in Boksburg, which was organised by theWits School of Mining Engineering in conjunction with Barloworld Equipment. Duthie looked in detail at the inputs needed by the FPC software and discussed some of the mistakes that users of the software tend to make. He concluded that – provided it was used correctly – it was a superb modelling tool able to assist with equipment selection and mine planning and deliver realistic and accurate simulations of mining operations. 

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July 2015  MODERN MINING  45