The acquisition of the Dash continuous miner product line from
Eimco LLC late last year is translating into the development of a
DBT continuous-miner range which will be appropriate for South
African mining conditions. South African coal is more diffi-cult to
cut than US coal, and it was with this in mind that the company
embarked upon an extensive pro-gramme which has seen the begin-ning
of the implementation of an extensive support infrastructure as
well as the development of this continuous miner, Paul Bracher,
managing director of DBT Africa, tells Mining Weekly.
“The launch of the new range, coupled with product support,
is part and parcel ofsmall jaw crusher design our strategy to form partnerships in the
industry rather than just be a supplier of equipment,” says
Bracher.
He explains that, in line with the partnership approach,
maintenance contracts will be recommended with the purchase of
continuous miners.
This strategy will not only ensure good preventive and corrective
action, but will sused jaw crusher portableignificantly extend the life of the continuous
miner and ensure high machine availability. “The most
important factor when it comes to the operation of con- tinuous
miners is the machine avail- ability, which is directly affected by
the service backup,” service man-ager Paul Brandrick
explains. DBT Africa has more than 109 years experience among its
serviceacceptable noise levels for crusher technicians, which Brandrick is confident will enable
adequate care of the machines.
There are currently 200 DBT continuous miners operational
worldwide. The DBT range includes units capable of mining seams as
low as 800 mm, and this is a significant development, as previously
only fixed-drum continuous miners were able to cut seams this
lused crushing and screening plantsow.
“There are many good-quality low-seam coal reserves in South
Africa and the low overall dimen- sions of the DBT range of
con-tinuous miners will allow the machines to operate in these ex-
tremely low seams,” explains Bracher.
This is important in brownfields expansion projects where existing
equipment is too large to be accommodated. In some cases mining
these low seams could extend mine life by as much as 20
years.
“We do not plan to flood the South African market with the
equipment but rather encourage the opportunity for us to supply a
whole suite, which could, for example, include a continuous miner
with haulage, roofbolting equipment and a service contract,”
Bracher says.
Another factor taken into con-sideration during development of the
range was that, because of the difficult cutting conditions found
in South Africa, higher power ratings are required. The units in
the DBT range include continuous power ratings from 425 kW to
almost 900 kW to facilitate efficient cutting at the face.
If required, a higher voltage of up to 3 300 V can be used to
facilitate lighter trailing cable being used.
In addition, on average, the company has spent 11% of payroll on
staff training, fit-ting in with the company principle of adding
value without compromising quality or cost.
The decision to manu- facture the initial mach-ines in the US forms
part of the company’s stra- tegy to use its existing
experienced manufac-turing facility. The company is cur- rently
looking into new research, including activated hard-rock cutting
for the platinum industry and real-time roof map-ping.