Following a devastating fire that destroyed one of its shovels in May 2012 and impacted on its production, Debswana’s Orapa Letlhakane Damtshaa Mines (OLDM) has procured a monster hydraulic shovel worth P80 million which will help boost the mine’s production.
During the handing over ceremony of the machine last week, the Acting Senior Manager Engineering at OLDM, Columbus Tshuma, told the participants at the event that the monster shovel was procured from Germany through Barloworld Equipment.
He said that the shovel, which is the first of its kind to be procured by the mine, has a 34 cubic metre bucket with a budget productivity of 2 500 tonnes an hour as compared to the biggest machine they initially had which has a 26 cubic metre bucket for a budget productivity of 1600 tonnes per hour.
┬á“We managed to procure this giant machine within five months of order as our partners Barloworld Equipment did everything possible to mitigate the long lead times on our behalf following the desperate production situation we found ourselves in after the fire incident,” he added.
Tshuma said that the machine has a state of the art diagnostics system to assist both the mining operators and engineering technicians to easily interact with its operational needs, complaints and diagnosis of problems. He revealed that the German manufactured machine was delivered in pieces on a total of 18 Lowbeds from the factory through the Durban Port of entry into Africa last year before Christmas.
“The assembly of the pieces was done on this very ground this year and over the 12 days of its assembly, no safety incident was reported. The Debswana and Barloworld Equipment teams worked vigilantly with strict observance of the environment, community, health and safety confines,” he said.
Tshuma said that the machine is expected to serve the operations at the mine for the next 10 to 12 years at an annual utilization budget of over 5 000 hours. He revealed that they have engaged world renowned German trainers to start imparting the operational skills of the machine to their Debswana operators which will take two weeks.
“Once in operation, the Barloworld Equipment Maintenance Team will take charge of the machine’s engineering life cycle management,” Tshuma said.
He thanked the General Manager of OLDM, Dr Adrian Gale, for playing a leading role towards procuring the machine.
“The machine has, therefore, been christened “Adrian” in honour of our General Manager’s leadership in the entire project process of its procurement and commissioning,” he said.
