Twistdraai West and Main shafts sign 1-year service contracts
Dust Buster News

Sasol Coal’s Twistdraai West Colliery and Twistdraai Main Shaft have both signed on CDC for one-year service contracts for the dust suppression equipment on their continuous miners – a total of 17 machines.

In addition Twistdraai’s sister mine Bosjesspruit’s Driehoek Shaft, which has just completed its first three-month service contract with CDC, has signed on for a further three months. Driehoek operates seven continuous miners.

The decision by Twistdraai West, which has six continuous miners, to commit itself to a 12-month contract, effective from the beginning of October, comes on the heels of two shorter duration contracts – one of six months and another of three months – to establish the efficacy of the service contract arrangement.

"It is definitely an advantage having a specialist in this field doing the maintenance work in place of our own artisans. In addition it is of tremendous assistance in on-the-job training of our artisans, especially as we are a new mine and many of our artisans don’t have much background and in-depth knowledge," said Dick Wardle, manager engineering services of Twistdraai Export Mine, which comprises Twistdraai West and Twistdraai East shafts.

The improved maintenance of dust suppression equipment resulting from the service contract arrangement has also been a major contributor towards the lower dust counts that have been achieved in the mine this year, he added.

The benefits of the service contract system experienced at Twistdraai West helped to persuade Twistdraai Main Shaft and Driehoek Shaft to go the same route.

Said Driehoek’s chief foreman Andre Britz, "We decided to try it after Twistdraai West told us about the good results they were getting out of it. We haven’t been running with it long enough to measure all the benefits we expect to achieve, such as lower dust counts, but it is certainly a more effective maintenance service than we can provide ourselves."

He said the CDC maintenance technician kept the mine constantly informed through written reports about the state of the equipment on each machine, including recommendations to replace equipment or major components as the need arose.

Early in 1999 CDC completed a R2,6-million contract awarded it by Sasol Coal last year to upgrade the dust suppression systems on continuous miners operating at all of the group’s Secunda mines. This involved installation of CDC’s unique integrated dust suppression system on all continuous miners at the Secunda mines that were not already equipped with it.

CDC general manager Bob Johnstone points out that service contracts include preventative maintenance. "In this way we rectify faults and ensure that worn parts are replaced in good time," he says.

"This is a very important aspect of the service from the customer’s point of view because it represents untold savings in terms of avoiding breakdowns and repair and replacement costs. So in fact the cost of a maintenance contract is recouped many times over from the savings that are achieved through preventing the failures that would otherwise almost inevitably occur."