The Beeshoek Iron Ore mine is situated approximately 65 km south of Assmang’s flagship Khumani Iron Ore mine, near the town of Postmasburg in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. Composed of five open-cast pits, Beeshoek’s production output is around 3.4 mt/a. The mine is jointly managed by ARM Ferrous – a subsidiary of African Rainbow Minerals – and Assore, through Assmang. Beeshoek undertakes its own mining but also contracts out a smaller proportion of its mining requirement through a plant and hire contract, attributed to South Africa based company, Basil Read. This company is active in opencast mining, civil engineering projects, road construction, building, mixed integrated housing developments, property development and related services, and is among Liebherr’s major customers. As of 2015, Basil Read holds a fleet of twenty Liebherr mining excavators, including five units operated at Beeshoek mine. To sustain Assmang’s ambitious stripping target and initially as part of a pre-serie agreement with Liebherr – Mining Equipment Colmar SAS, Colmar/France, Basil Read was the very first operator of the new R 9200 since February 2015. As this machine demonstrated high performances and has successfully passed the field test period, not Basil Read but Beeshoek decided to purchase it.
During the field tests, the observed availability on the R 9200 working at Beeshoek exceeded 90 %. The machine has been developed to promote easy and fast maintenance: its service flap is accessible from the ground level and offers direct access to fuel, engine oil, grease, hydraulic oil refilling points. Fitted with Wiggins quick couplings for all fluids as a standard feature, the required time to refill each fluid is consistently reduced to minimize machine downtime. In addition, all major service points are centralized for easy access from the unique central service platform, with all systems and design solutions simplified to facilitate maintenance. All of these features promote fast service enabling to reduce the average service time to minimum. The R 9200’s high uptime is also possible thanks to its 30 h of fuel autonomy in standard configuration and its fuel burn efficiency.
R 9200 has been designed to fully answer requirements of the mining industry. In addition to the integration of components designed in-house by Liebherr, the R 9200 design is inspired from larger, proven Liebherr mining shovels and new technologies of the new generation excavators. Undercarriage employs the “Hook & Key” system with horizontal bolting to link between its side frame and central piece for highest torsion resistance and is equipped with heavy duty rock protections preventing accidental component damage. To promote hydraulic components and diesel engine continuous efficiency, the R 9200 includes numerous advanced features to support cooling efficiency of sub-systems avoiding overheating. This is particularly appreciated in such conditions like Beeshoek, where temperatures frequently reach up to 50 °C.
The R 9200 is powered by a single Cummins QSK38 diesel engine, delivering a gross power output of 810 kW. Ensuring the optimal balance of energy consumption and power output, the R 9200 maximizes net power which is available for the working process. Fitted with the Liebherr-patented Litronic Plus system for intelligent power management and using a closed-loop swing circuit – unique in 200 t class – the R 9200 achieves super-fast cycle times as measured at 23 s at Beeshoek. Fitted with a 10 m3 XHD bucket to load material with a loose density of 2.3 t/m3, Basil Read’s R 9200 efficiently loads 100 t dump trucks in five passes (Figure 1). A performance study conducted at Beeshoek demonstrated the R 9200 able to achieve an average production of 1,850 t/h.
Further informations/Weitere Informationen:
Liebherr – Mining Equipment Colmar SAS
www.liebherr.com
