APPLICATION REPORT | MINING
ABB’S HIGH-CAPACITY HOIST FOR OZ
ABB has won a large order for its highest payload Koepe production hoist and safety systems from Australian mining company Oz Minerals. The contract is part of an AU$400 million expansion at the Prominent Hill mine in South Australia.
The hoist has a capacity of 39,400kg and the strongest drivetrain that ABB has ever installed in Australia. Oz Minerals’ gold, silver and copper mine began operations in 2009 as an open pit
mine, but it is now an underground mine producing 4.5 million tons per annum. The new hoisting shaft provides access to mineral resources outside the current mine plan that would otherwise have become uneconomical. The shaft will increase the underground mining rate, extend the mine life, reduce operating costs, lower emissions intensity, and reduce overall operational risk. When operational, the installation at Prominent Hill will have ABB Ability Safety
Plus for hoists, a suite of mine hoist safety products that brings the highest level of personnel and equipment safety available to the mining industry.
independent global functional safety certifying body, and strictly developed in accordance with the International “Safety of Machinery” standard IEC62061.
gypsum wallboard in North America operates the world’s largest gypsum quarry. The quarry processes up to 20,000 tons of rock per day, which is extremely hard on material handling equipment. The mine uses a fleet of 10t overhead
cranes to maintain the huge transfer trucks and other mining equipment, but they had frequent problems with crane breakdowns. Operators were pulling the ropes off the drums because the loads were too heavy for the cranes, only some of which had load limiters installed. Buying higher-capacity equipment was not an economical option.
The mine began looking at outsourcing
crane inspections and maintenance and chose Konecranes. After seeing recurring damage caused
by operators attempting to lift overweight loads Konecranes recommended that they implement a required crane operator safety training program. Going back to the equipment manuals,
Konecranes showed operators how to break down the trucks into elements, weighing 10 tons or less, that the equipment could properly handle. Training showed them basic methods of calculating the weight of identified
sections. Every crane operator now has to complete the crane operator safety course in order to operate a crane at the facility. According to the maintenance planner, the training has made all the difference. The success of the operator training
program in reducing equipment damage led to Konecranes gaining contracts for virtually all of the company’s crane maintenance. The mine also began purchasing new-generation Konecranes CXT cranes with variable speed bridge and trolley motions and built-in load limiting devices to replace older cranes. ●
www.hoistmagazine.com | July 2022 | 37
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