Mining’s old guard needs strong medicine
A new report details subpar investor returns in the mining industry over the last decade, particularly big cap diversified companies which have not adapted to new realities.
Powerscreen recently sold its first dual powered screening machine into Oman. Oman has an abundance of river bed gravel that is widely used for construction material after due processing.
Alisco Strong Plant, one of the leading road contractors in Oman, operates a crushing and screening facility in Barka that uses available river bed gravel to produce aggregates for asphalt and other materials, including granular sub-base (GSB) and aggregate base course. The Barka deposits, with their high quantities of silt and clay, produces sand that is prone to rejection due to inherent impurities in the feed material. The feed material is 0-300mm with more than 50% of the material below 65mm.
Due to scarcity of water in Oman, a washing plant was considered to be the option of last resort. Shaikh Ali Al Busaidi, Chairman of Alisco Strong Plant, said that he was in a difficult situation to cope with the need of crushed aggregate both from his various construction sites and for the asphalt plant which was at many times underutilized.
An established customer of Powerscreen’s local distributor Genserv, Alisco Strong Plant consulted the Genserv sales team to come up with a solution. Alisco Strong Plant was already using a Powerscreen® 1412 Trackpactor crusher and a Powerscreen® Chieftain 2100X screen. Genserv’s crushing and screening team visited Alisco’s Barka site and came up with a simple solution: to use a Warrior 1800 scalping screen. To address the concerns of Alisco’s requirement to use electricity as an option, Genserv’s team proposed the Warrior 1800 with dual power option. The idea was to screen the deposit material into 0-50mm, 50-150mm and +150mm, which can be used as GSB material and feed rock material for additional crushing. Convinced with Genserv’s recommendations, Alisco immediately placed an order for two Warrior 1800 units with the dual power option.
Both machines were commissioned at the Barka site and the plants are comfortably producing 400 metric tonnes per hour of different size material.
The Powerscreen dual power system provides flexibility to address a number of challenges and opportunities, where electricity is cheaper than diesel fuel or where only electricity is permitted on sites. The mobile dual power screens also offer quick and easy setup.
Once positioned onsite and connected to an external electricity source, the unit can be switched to operate on electricity, meaning it will have zero emissions, while retaining all the benefits of a mobile machine. By having the option to operate on diesel fuel oil or electricity, the Powerscreen dual power mobile screens can reduce diesel fuel oil consumption, operating costs and depending on set up, may also reduce machine downtime due to reduced refuelling and engine servicing.
Dual Power is ideal for sites where:
Only electricity is permitted
Electricity is freely available or generated on site
Complete crushing spreads run using a stationary genset
Electricity is preferred over diesel fuel
Electricity is cheaper than diesel fuel
Diesel fumes are not permitted, e.g. underground
Environmental, legislative and/or noise constraints are present
Either electricity or diesel fuel oil supply is inconsistent
