It is now a full century that mines and industry have been relying on Linatex® rubber products from Weir Minerals to protect equipment from abrasion, impact and corrosion.

“The remarkable qualities of natural rubber in a range of demanding mining and processing applications have made Linatex integral to our customers’ success over the past 100 years,” says Boitumelo Zimba, Rubber Product Manager at Weir Minerals Africa. “The product breakthrough which has differentiated us in the market is our proprietary liquid phase compounding (LPC) process.

This is a gentle process that retains all the valuable qualities of the high quality natural latex which is our central ingredient.” The more common processes, used by competitors in the market, effectively change the molecular structure of the natural rubber, resulting in shearing that undermines the resistant qualities of the final product, she explains. By contrast, Linatex® Premium Rubber exhibits outstanding strength, resilience and resistance to cutting and tearing, giving superior performance in wet abrasion conditions.

“The LPC process gives us a product that is 95% natural latex – and we are the only company producing rubber this way,” she says. The applications are well known, from impact liners in transfer chutes to abrasion resistant lining in pumps and hoses. Over the decades, the applications have broadened as the company applies its research and development to various potential modifications.

Proven value

Over the course of the last century, there have been plenty of success stories in mining. What has become increasingly crucial, however, is the quantification of the benefits that Linatex® Premium Rubber can bring to specific applications, argues Zimba. As mining embraces increasing levels of technology and digital monitoring, it becomes easier to monitor equipment performance and cost of ownership.

“One of our mining customers in central Africa needed to extend the service life of their tailings pipeline,” she explains. “Due to the abrasion resistant qualities of our Linatex Premium Rubber, the customer was able to save over US$110,000 per annum on their tailings pipeline, after ceramic liners were replaced by a 12 mm layer of Linatex Premium Rubber.”

This meant that the pipeline would last 36 months instead of nine months, reducing the cost of liner replacement and downtime. In another successful application, Weir Minerals Africa used a nitrile- based rubber compound in a mining customer’s flotation tanks, which were previously lined with ceramic tiles. The results were again dramatic, increasing the replacement intervals from two months to 36 months. “This ultimately saved that customer almost US$570,000 a year, reducing downtime considerably,” she says.

In another successful application, Linatex® modular panels has solved the challenge of high wear rates on a mine’s hydrocyclones in Kazakhstan. KAZ Minerals’ Bozshakol copper mine was facing difficulty with wear rates on the rubber and ceramic-lined launders in its primary hydrocyclone clusters. This resulted in costly downtime every two to three months, when time consuming rubber patching would have to be carried out by the Bozshakol maintenance team.

After conducting 3D scanning of the cyclone cluster launder, Weir Minerals wear experts proposed the wear resistant 25mm Linatex® steel-backed bolt-down modular panels with high open area. The modularity of these panels allowed KAZ Minerals to replace the worn parts one by one, without the need to patch-repair.

The Linatex® modular anti-abrasion panels were installed in October 2019, and it was an impressive 21 months before some of the panels were finally ready to be replaced. This meant an increase in wear life of 584%, saving on downtime as well as on about 450 labour hours in maintenance. The success achieved at Bozshakol led other KAZ Minerals mines to also order the Linatex® modular antiabrasion panels.

At its copper, gold and silver mine in the Grasberg minerals district, PT Freeport Indonesia was also experiencing the challenge of high wear rates. In this case on its SAG mill discharge box dart valve seat liners. With the incumbent liners lasting only three months, the mine was forced to conduct early shutdowns as the SAG mill maintenance interval was every six months.

The Weir Minerals solution was to introduce superior Linatex® rubber material and mould the product into the existing dart valve seat configuration. The team also re-engineered and introduced a taper shape to give extra impact absorption for the rubber-lined product. This extended its life to up to seven months, allowing the SAG mills to run uninterrupted for the full six months between scheduled shutdowns.

Quality production

The specialised science of processing natural rubber latex has been maintained at the company’s global production facility in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – ensuring the highest levels of quality are consistently delivered in a continuous production process. The progressive manufacturing expansion ensure a reliable supply for the worldwide market, she says. The supply chain for the natural rubber is also based on sustainable principles, ensuring that the trees are not destroyed and that the harvesting process is environmentally responsible.

“As the most significant input to the Linatex products, the latex we use is tested extensively before processing – first at our suppliers’ facility and again at our manufacturing facility,” she explains. “Each batch of rubber produced is sampled and tested, and customers have the option to request a product test certificate.”

Zimba concludes that Weir Minerals will continue to find innovative ways for Linatex® Premium Rubber to add value to customer applications, ensuring that the distinctive quality of this market leading product range finds new and exciting uses.

In survey after survey, businesses say the same thing: They have jobs and want to hire people but cannot find workers. Roughly a third say the problem is so bad they are turning down business. Fixing the so-called skills gap and labor shortage is not going to be easy. It is going to take time, effort, and innovation. In the meantime, companies are doing what they can to lessen their reliance on people. This includes making sure that tools and products are easy to use.

All Hypertherm plasma systems are designed with ease of use in mind. The newest generation of Hypertherm Powermax® systems—Powermax SYNC®—automatically sets the correct amperage, air pressure, and operating mode. In addition, these systems replace the traditional five-piece consumable stack-up with a single-piece cartridge that takes just seconds to install and has an end-of-life detection feature to let you know when your cartridge is completely used up.

Making things even easier, the cartridges are color-coded: yellow for hand cutting, gray for mechanized cutting, green for gouging, and black for specialty applications such as flush cutting. Another advantage is the Powermax SYNC cartridge lasts up to five times as long as a traditional stack-up. All these features help to reduce training time, errors and improve cut quality.

An additional benefit of the Powermax SYNC system is its ability to record usage data and transmit it using a simple RFID reader. It will track things like number of starts and arc-on time, helping you identify patterns and make your operation more efficient.

And here are some other considerations regarding plasma technology:

If you are looking for versatility, Powermax plasma cutters cut through a variety of metals of different thicknesses and types. This makes them the perfect solution for a wide range of applications, which means you won’t need operators that specialize in varied materials.

Plasma cutting is safer than oxyfuel cutting because there is no open flame. This can make it easier to find operators who may not want to work with more hazardous equipment.

The Powermax SYNC system provides several time saving solutions to help address the skilled labor shortage: Time saved training new operators, time saved ordering and managing parts, and time saved searching for and changing consumables. In a world where experienced, trained, laborers are scarce, Powermax SYNC can give you a big advantage.

The global race for critical minerals is on. Driven by recent shifts in geopolitical priorities between the “West” and the “East”, and the global inexorable march towards green industries and renewable energy, the demand for Southern Africa’s critical minerals has reached unprecedented heights.

Historically and for various reasons such as geology, finance, technical expertise, and providing minerals trading platforms, the mining powerhouse nations have been Australia, Canada, China, South Africa, and the United Kingdom for the past few decades,. The European Union nations have mostly chosen to take a backseat in the extraction of raw materials and focused more on the “cleaner” downstream activities of manufacturing and to a lesser extent, processing. In other words, European Union nations have up to now, been more comfortable being buyers rather than miners of raw materials.

The disruption of global supply chains, the Russia – Ukraine war, and the gradual frosting of “East” and “West” diplomatic relations, means that the EU can no longer afford to be over reliant on Southeast Asia for the supply of its critical raw materials. Enter the EU Critical Raw Materials Act that was proposed by the European Commission on 16 March 2023, which is meant to ensure the EU’s access to a secure, diversified, affordable and sustainable supply of critical raw materials.

WEG, as part of its drive to expand the WEG footprint in East African markets, is taking significant steps to increase its presence in Uganda by partnering with company Petrok as its Value-Added Reseller (VAR). Petrok’s local presence and technical expertise, along with the popularity and reliability of WEG products in the market, will likely facilitate this expansion.

Theodul Mwema, WEG’s Regional Sales Manager for East Africa, says the anticipated economic growth from projects like the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), along with the existing strength of sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, utilities, cement and oil and gas in Uganda, offer potential opportunities for WEG to offer their products and solutions.

“This is an exciting step as we look forward to reaching more customers in Uganda with WEG’s range of electric motors as well as medium and high voltage solutions,” he says “We have been supplying customers in Uganda for over a decade, and this appointment builds our support for them and opens new markets for us. Our commitment to delivering efficient, reliable products with a low total cost of ownership, as exemplified by our W22 IE3 motor, shows our customer-centric approach which is appealing to businesses in Uganda.”

Reliability

Mwema highlights that the coffee sector already has a strong reference base, for instance, as many coffee factories used Brazilian processing machines which are fitted with WEG motors, drives and soft starters. With agriculture being the biggest contributor to Uganda’s economy, other significant sectors include manufacturing, utilities, cement and oil and gas, he explains. There has also been considerable investment in power and water projects in East Africa, notably from Asian countries.

BE, a mine ventilation and refrigeration engineering firm, recently released the latest version of its VUMA Live software offering. This solution enables real-time monitoring of mines’ underground ventilation and cooling systems.

According to Christo Visagie, Director at BBE, the latest version of VUMA Live was developed with the assistance of ventilation and refrigeration industry experts to bring its user interface in line with that of traditional Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) tools used by mines.

“It has a similar control interface, alarming, historical trending and enables open communication with various other industrial hardware systems without the need to deploy any other third-party development tools or purchased systems,” he says.

“The VUMA Live interface makes use of a 3D environment that our ventilation clients are familiar with, having used the VUMA ecosystem previously. With the latest version of VUMA Live, we can monitor and control underground ventilation equipment remotely and programme control philosophies using standard Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) that are already being utilised at the mines.”

Multotec has expanded its facilities and capacity of its mill lining factory in Spartan, South Africa, to meet the rising demand, enabling the company to manufacture larger mill liners for clients around the globe.

The expansion consists of the installation of three new presses at the factory that will boost manufacturing capacity by 15-20% to meet the demand for larger mill liners, as well the increasingly demand for Multotec’s new integrated mill liners that are replacing steel liners in the market.

Thando Makhoba, Managing Director – Rubber at Multotec, explains that the installation of one new press has already been completed, while the other two will be installed during  August this year. The new presses enable Multotec to manufacture larger mill liners, that are between 10m and 15m in diameter, whereas previously the company focused on 3m to 7m diameter mill liners.

“Most commonly used for platinum and copper applications, the new presses are more modern and offer greater manufacturing capacity, enabling us to produce integrated mill liners – consisting of lifter bars and shell or grate plates – as one piece. Previously, these components were manufactured separately and then installed at a customer’s site, which involved a considerable amount of time,” says Makhoba.

WearCheck extends its footprint to second India lab

Condition monitoring specialist company, WearCheck, recently opened the doors to its second laboratory in India – this one in Durgapur – after the success of its Chennai-based laboratory, which has operated successfully since 2010.

The South Africa-based company, recognised as a leader in the preventive maintenance sector across the African continent and beyond since 1976, offers an extensive range of world-class condition monitoring services in 16 state-of-the-art laboratories in Africa, the Middle East and India.

Now, plant maintenance in the West Bengal region is set to be revolutionised – speedy analysis and reporting on a wide range of condition monitoring services are provided by the brand new WearCheck laboratory in Durgapur, India.

WearCheck’s fundamental goals are to save time and money for customers by ensuring that industrial machinery operates at peak performance, with reduced maintenance costs.

WearCheck services clients in sectors ranging from power generation and renewable energy to mining, fleet management, aviation, maritime and more.

The company’s core business is the scientific analysis of used oil, fuel and other fluids, whereby samples are analysed in the laboratory for trace particles, which indicate which component is suffering unusual wear patterns. This information is assessed by  highly trained diagnosticians, who make recommendations on the required remedial action for the component in question. WearCheck’s diagnosticians have access to a huge database of information on performance trends for different machinery components – data which has been carefully collected and collated since the company’s inception over 45 years ago.

The new Indian laboratory, strategically located in the major industrial city and mining hub catering to the Eastern Region, West Bengal, addresses the growing demand for top-drawer condition monitoring services in the region.  As a major industrial hub, Durgapur is home to a variety of operations, including manufacturing, power generation and more. The experienced and highly qualified WearCheck team is standing by to provide world-class condition monitoring services to the Bengalese mechanised sector.

WearCheck regional managing director, Sundip More, outlines the concept of proactive maintenance, ‘By monitoring a component’s condition regularly over time, our scientific techniques provide reliable data which enables our diagnosticians to predict accurately whether and when that component will potentially fail.

‘We identify a potential failure before it occurs and recommend a remedy. This way, catastrophic failure is avoided, thereby enhancing machine availability and performance. The repair work to the component can be scheduled for a time that suits the work programme.

‘Unplanned component failure can be extremely costly and preferably avoided. With forewarning about potential component failure, our customers dodge unnecessary maintenance costs and maintain efficiency by upholding optimum production levels.’

WearCheck Durgapur can be contacted on telephone +91 343 2545422, and samples can be delivered to the laboratory: Ground Floor, MNA V21-C, Ambuja, City Centre. Alternatively, contact WearCheck via email on info@wearcheck.co.in.

For more information, please visit www.wearcheck.co.za, email marketing@wearcheck.co.za,  or call WearCheck’s head office in Durban, South Africa on +27 (31) 700-5460.

ENDS [481 words]

E: marketing@wearcheck.co.za

W: www.wearcheck.co.za

T: +27 (31) 700-5460

WearCheck Durgapur opens – South African condition monitoring specialist company, WearCheck, opened its second laboratory in India recently, (the company’s 16^th laboratory), following the successful operation of its laboratory in Chennai, Tamil-Naidu.

Pictured at the launch in Durgapur are WearCheck staffers from three countries, from left: back row: Mr.  Barun, Mr. Panchu Gopal Singh (regional manager).

Middle row: Mr. Bhupendra Yadav (diagnostician), Mr. Sundip More  (managing director – India & Middle East), and from South Africa: Mr. Neil Robinson – managing director and Mr. Scott Sowman  (financial director, South Africa) with Mr. Nissar Ahamed (country manager – India),

Front row Mrs. Nisha Balo (admin) and Mr. Anil Kumar – chemist (Dubai). Kneeling, are Mr. Tanmoy and Mr. Some Das (both lab chemists).

Neil Robinson, WearCheck managing director from the company’s head office in Durban, South Africa, travelled to India to cut the ribbon of the new, world-class WearCheck Durgapur laboratory. Looking on are team members from the Durgapur laboratory.

WearCheck Durgapur is equipped with cutting-edge, high-tech laboratory instruments to provide condition monitoring services for clients in many industries, including mining, renewable energy, power generation, construction, aviation, marine and more.

Released on behalf of WearCheck by Just Write Public Relations

Media queries: Sharon +27 82 823 0539 or sharon@justwritepr.co.za

The Kouroussa mine is expected to have average gold production of 120,000–140,000oz for the first three years of operation.

West African gold producer Hummingbird Resources now has its second mine up and running. The new Kouroussa gold mine in Guinea recently poured its first gold and is now ramping up towards a production which will average 100 koz per annum over the life of mine.

K-based gold mining company Hummingbird Resources has achieved first gold pour at the Kouroussa Gold Mine in the prolific Siguiri Basin, Guinea, ahead of schedule.

The mine is the company’s second operating gold asset in West Africa. It is said to be a high-grade mine with more than four grams per tonne (g/t) in open-pit operations.

Commissioned in early May 2023, Kouroussa is expected to have average gold production of 120,000–140,000oz for the first three years of commercial production.

After that, the mine is expected to have annual production of 100,000oz over an initial seven-year life.

Hummingbird CEO Dan Betts said: “The achievement of first gold pour at our second operating mine, Kouroussa in Guinea, is a major strategic milestone for the company, transforming Hummingbird into a multi-asset, multi-jurisdiction gold producer, that more than doubles our production profile to 200,000-plus ounces per annum.

“Kouroussa is the second mine Hummingbird has built on time and on budget, made up of a construction team of African and predominately (80%) Guinean personnel.”

Hummingbird said it is developing Detailed Kouroussa exploration plans to re-initiate exploration drilling plans in H2 2023/2024 to increase current reserves at the mine.

The company also owns the operational Yanfolila Gold Mine in Mali and a controlling stake in the Dugbe Gold Project in Liberia.

Mining Indaba is honoured to announce that the President of the Republic of Angola, H.E. João Lourenço, will attend Mining Indaba 2024 where he will deliver a keynote address to delegates.