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All Aspects of Opencast Mining Systems VDMA A Kleemann mobile crushing and screening plant. offers a well-matched product range for mining and processing minerals. Mining and processing mineral raw materials impose high demands on man and machine, so durable, high-performance equipment is essential, the company adds, pointing out that it continuously channels experience gained in practical applications into further technological advances. Wirtgen offers three models of its surface miners, which can be customized to meet the needs of each project: the 2200 SM, 2500 SM and 4200 SM. More than two dozen cutting drum designs are available as standard, the company says, and further designs can be developed and built for specific applications. More than 420 surface miners are now in use around the world, selectively extracting coal, limestone, gypsum, bauxite, phosphate and iron ore, as well as in special applications in salt, granite, kimberlite and oil-shale mining. The company recently introduced Wirtgen Pick Inspection (WPI), a system that measures the wear of surface-miner cutting tools. Consisting of eight very rapid measuring sensors integrated into the miner's cutting-drum compartment, the system takes just a minute to measure pick wear, so it can be used while changing trucks without incurring downtime. Specific applications where Wirtgen surface miners are at work include the Paragominas bauxite mine in Brazil and Fortescue Metals Group's (FMG) iron ore operations in Western Australia. In Brazil, a 2500 SM has been extracting bauxite since 2011, cutting and loading around 800 mt/h directly into trucks. FMG now has a 43-strong fleet of surface miners, including 28 4200 SMs. In the middle of 2012, general overhauling of the surface miners in Perth was added as a new product in Wirtgen's service program. A member of the Tenova group, Takraf GmbH is a major supplier of equipment to the opencast mining and bulk materials-handling industries around the world. Headquartered in Leipzig, the company has branches in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, India, Italy, South Africa and the U.S., as well as representative offices on all continents. Takraf supplies systems for the complete process chain in open-pit mining, from overburden removal, raw materials extraction, processing, homogenizing and storage to onward transport or shipment. The company reports that it has recently seen an upturn in business in particular in Latin America, as well as in the CIS countries, China and India. Takraf provides the full range of EPCM services, including development, planning, engineering and design, fabrication, supply, erection and commissioning, technical assistance, service and aftersales service for plants, systems and equipment. Its equipment has proved robust and reliable in adverse geological conditions, the company says, in extreme climates with temperatures down to -45°C, in dust, wind or extreme humidity, as well as in seismic zones at altitudes of 5,000 m above sea level. During 2012, Quadra FNX Mining (now KGHM International) awarded Takraf a contract to supply a 6,550 mt/h semi-mobile crushing plant, overland and in-plant conveyor system, and a package of stockpile discharge belt feeders, for its new Sierra Gorda copper-moly mine in northern Chile. Fine ore can be bypassed into a bin beneath the 60-in. gyratory crusher, with an apron feeder used to return this to the undersize rock flow. Takraf has also recently signed a contract for two 1400L bucketwheel excavators for Neyveli Lignite Corp. in India, with commissioning scheduled for 2015. The theoretical capacity of the excavators is 5,460 m3/h. The scope includes the design, supply, erection, commissioning and maintenance of the BWEs. Critical tasks in basic engineering and the manufacture of several key components will be undertaken at Takraf's Lauchhammer works. In the last few months, Takraf has been awarded two major orders from CPI Mengdong Energy Group for a spreader and a conveyor system for its operations in Inner Mongolia, China. The 7,900 m3/hcapacity ARs-B 7900.55 spreader will operate in the Zhahanaoer opencast mine, where Takraf is currently erecting a SRs 2000 bucketwheel excavator. The company notes that this overburden-handling system, which includes 9 km of belt conveyors, will be the largest of its kind in this part of Asia when it is commissioned in 2013/14. It is also supplying an 18.7 km-long belt system for the Bayinhua coal mine. Comprising both shiftable and relocatable structures, it will be capable of handling up to 6,600 t/h of overburden, Takraf reports. Dortmund: More Than 2,000 Mining Excavators Delivered A Wirtgen surface miner loading directly into a haul truck. Inset: the operator's screen. VDMA 24 Caterpillar's facility in Dortmund produces some of the world's largest hydraulic mining shovels. Originally incorporated in 1876 as Orenstein & Koppel (O&K;), the company got its start manufacturing products for the railway, dredging and mining/heavy construction industries, with the first hydraulic mining shovel, the RH 5, launched in 1962. Since 1980, the plant has delivered more than 2,000 hydraulic shovels to the mining and heavy construction industries, more than 40% of which have been in the "large" category—with an operating weight of more than 200 mt. The Dortmund plant currently produces Caterpillar's small and mid-range size hydraulic mining shovels, referred to as the "Versatility" and "Productivity" classes respectively. These are, however, somewhat relative terms, as the smallest Versatility Class excavator, the 6015/6015 FS, weighs in at 106 mt with a 13-mt bucket payload. On the other hand, the largest in the Productivity Class, the VDMA MINING SUPPLEMENT • 2013