LOAD & HAUL
F
rom cutlery, surgical equipment, zips and a thousand other uses, chromium is the most modern of chemical elements – opening a world of gleaming, spotless surfaces and rust-free steel.
PROSPECTING FOR SHINY METALS Chromium is also a relatively rare mineral, with South Africa claiming up to 70% of the earth’s reserves. But neighbouring island Madagascar also has considerable deposits, and it was to this, the world’s fourth largest island, that Indian exploration firm APC sent its geologists to scout for suitable mining opportunities. Tey struck lucky, and one day’s drive north of the capital of Antananarivo APC has found and secured the mining concession over a vast 59,000 hectares of chromite-rich land. Tis is APC’s first venture into running
its own mine. New to production the company might be, but its MBA-educated managing director Pari Appusamy knows the value of investing in quality equipment. “Excavators are the soul of the whole project,” says Appusamy. “We need them to strip the overburden, then expose and extract the chrome body. Ten they load haulers with the ore for transporting the 1.5km to the beneficiation plant for crushing and processing. Although we have bought some used equipment for other parts of the process, it’s crucial that the excavators deliver high uptime over their 12-hour workday, and that is why we invested in a new fleet of six Volvo EC480D excavators. We opted against having lots of smaller machines in favour of fewer, but larger general-purpose production machines, which we believed are more suitable for the task. We chose Volvo’s 50 tonne class excavators as the machine quality is high and the support we get from Materauto, the local customer support and sub-dealer, is consistently excellent.”
ABRASION-RESISTANT Te excavators are currently working on an ore body that is 25m wide, 600m long and 80m deep. Te Volvo EC480D is well suited to the task, as it is a heavy-duty crawler excavator that is highly productive and lowers operating costs through reduced fuel consumption and simple maintenance requirements. Powered by a proven D13 Volvo engine, the EC480D
16
www.engineerlive.com
The Volvo EC480D is a heavy-duty excavator that reduces operating costs
PUTTING A SHINE ON CHROME MINING
A team of excavators is the centrepiece of a new mining venture in Madagascar that is extracting thousands of tonnes of chromite ore a day – and helping improve the lives of neighbouring villagers at the same time.
delivers high digging and breakout forces, alongside reduced emissions and good fuel efficiency. Chromite is an extremely abrasive ore, and the rock buckets fitted to the excavators have had additional steel welded to prolong bucket life. Te Volvo EC480D crawler
excavator has been designed not only for ease of operation but also for simple maintenance. Major repairs and servicing are carried out by Materauto, which also provides local customer support, under the direction of its general manager Alexandre Dupré, and a local APC team conducts daily maintenance checks. Tese are quickly and easily carried out, thanks to grouped service points and large opening doors, helping to get the most out of every operating shift. Materauto is in its turn supported by the Volvo Construction Equipment dealer, Leal
Equipements, based in Mauritius, if and when necessary. It’s still early days for the project, with mining sites opening all the time and production output forecast to double in 2019. (Te company has identified 120 potential sites within its concession that have commercially attractive ore bodies.) But APC is also keen for the local community to benefit. “Madagascar remains a poor country, with a large majority of the country’s 21 million people living on less than US$2 a day,” says Appusamy. “We are in a position to help, and 96% of our 250 employees at the mine are local people. Our building and exploration skills can also help the local communities, and so far, we have built 80km of roads, constructed three new schools and bored wells that has brought clean freshwater to 10 villages.”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
