21 / 60
July 2016
MODERN MINING
19
Petra Diamonds’ Finsch
Diamond Mine in the
Northern Cape.
One of Finsch Diamond
Mine’s new Sandvik DS411
rock bolters in operation.
COVER STORY
dust from the drilling site required some care-
ful engineering with meticulous record keeping
and hundreds of different settings due to the
sheer amount of dust generated,” Pule contin-
ues. “It also requires operational technicians
who had to be trained and stationed on site to
ensure the optimal performance of the system.
This was well managed by contract manager
Stephanus Roodt, as well as the Sandvik team
on site, who took ownership of the dust sup-
pression system and ensured the mine’s four
rigs are able to operate in a safe and dust free
environment.”
Experienced operators
Pule notes that Sandvik has a long-standing
relationship with Finsch Diamond Mine and
that the mine enjoys a full maintenance contract
with a full-time service crew of approximately
117, as well as auxiliary staff employed on the
mine. This arrangement makes it more fea-
sible to deploy new technology on site, as the
OEM has the ability to monitor and apply best
practices from around the world in order to
optimise equipment and operations on site.
This also allowed a more phased approach
with the mine first making use of a Sandvik
DS311 as a prototype unit. Although not con-
figured for dry drilling, it served the purpose of
providing operators with hands-on experience
on a similar machine.
By the time the four machines were