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March 2015
MODERN MINING
47
SURFACE MINING
CONTRACTING
Liviero
moves into drill and blast
M
ulti-disciplinary construction group Liviero has add-
ed a new service offering to its capabilities. Liviero
Drill & Blast (Pty) Ltd is a new company that has been
launched to enable Liviero to offer its clients drilling and blast-
ing services that meet the group’s high standards in safety and
quality, says Group CEO Neil Cloete. It rounds off Liviero Min-
ing’s opencast business and will add exceptional value for cli-
ents, he notes.
Johan Pieterse is the director at the helm of Liviero Drill &
Blast. He has a career in drilling and blasting that spans more
than 20 years and was previously CEO of JEF Drill and Blast.
Liviero’s opencast mining business (see also page 16) has
grown substantially since it was launched five years ago. Today,
the operation moves more than 35 million m
3
of material a year.
“All blasting was previously contracted out of the Liviero Group,
so the next logical step was to investigate the feasibility of start-
ing a Liviero company to undertake the drilling and blasting
in-house,” explains Cloete. “This investigation turned out to be
very positive, and prompted Liviero to embark on the new ven-
ture as soon as possible.”
Liviero Drill & Blast’s short-term strategy is to manage the
drilling and blasting operations on all Liviero Mining’s current
contracts, and those in the pipeline. The company will expand
this customer base in the future, Pieterse says.
Liviero Drill & Blast is based in Middelburg. “We will develop
the company into a sustainable, respected and proud brand that
will add a new value proposition to the Liviero Group’s existing
expertise,” Cloete concludes.
Light tower
selected by mining
contractor after ‘shoot-out’
C
hicago Pneumatic’s CPLT M10 light tower has been cho-
sen by opencast mining contractor Diesel Power Open
Cast Mining following a live demonstration in which the
unit reportedly outperformed models from other suppliers.
Chicago Pneumatic, represented by its authorised South
African distributor, United Sales & Service (USS), demonstrated
the features, effectiveness and benefits of the CPLT M10 through
a day-night demonstration with the results closely monitored by
Diesel Power’s technical staff.
Each manufacturer was required to demonstrate the ease of
assembly and stability of the light tower. With safety being a pri-
ority in all mining environments, Diesel Power required the light
tower to be safe, stable and easy to position. With its quick and
simple-to-deploy manually winched mast, safe locking mech-
anism and robust 819 kg base stabilised by its wide outrigger
footprint of 3,4 x 2,8 m, the CPLT M10 met these requirements.
The night demonstration included Diesel Power indepen-
dently measuring the lux results. The CPLT M10 outshone its
rivals with 110 lux at 50 m, 21 lux at 100 m and 3 lux at 150 m.
All 10 CPLT M10 light towers purchased by Diesel Power
are currently in place at one of its copper mine operations
in Botswana.