Sheffield heavy engineering firm DavyMarkham is set to showcase its Latin American success story to business leaders at an international networking event later this month. Sales director Gordon Scott has been invited to present at the ‘Journey through Latin America’ conference at the Royal York Hotel in North Yorkshire on 23 February 2012. The event is part of a five-day road show organised by UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) which includes panel discussions, presentations and one-to-one meetings. He will highlight the success of DavyMarkham’s groundbreaking $5.4 million mining sector project in Peru. The company secured the contract in 2011 to provide Volcan Compañia Minera, the fourth largest producer of zinc and silver worldwide, with two heavy duty mine hoists.

BEML, India’s leading earthmoving equipment manufacturing company, recently showcased the latest version of its 100 t BH100 mining haul truck with an Allison H8610A transmission at the 4th International Mining, Exploration, Mineral Processing Technology & Machinery Exhibition; held at Salt Lake Stadium Ground, Kolkata from 28-31 January 2012. BH100 is the largest mining truck in the BEML range. The new Allison automatic-equipped vehicle is designed “to deliver outstanding productivity, reliability and durability, along with an increased level of manoeuvrability, comfort and safety.” Allison states that its fully automatic power shifting transmissions combine all the benefits of proven, hydraulic torque converter technology with advanced closed-loop adaptive control.

GE Energy has announced the introduction of a new alternating current (AC) excavator solution which consists of drives, controls and motors designed specifically for challenging surface mine applications and environments. GE already has a long history of designing, installing and maintaining direct current (DC) excavator systems worldwide. “Mining owners and operators are migrating to AC systems in general,” said Nimesh Sharan, GE’s senior product manager for motors. “AC excavator systems are more energy efficient, and because they utilise less mechanical parts, AC systems tend to require less personal care and maintenance.”

Gavin Halse, Managing Director of South Africa’s ApplyIT says the “medium-term outlook for the world’s mining sector remains positive. Global demand for resources driven from the emerging economies has over the past 12 months led to unprecedented levels of investment in certain regions, notably in Australia. These new projects are placing a strain on resources as companies compete for scarce skills and expertise in the labour markets. Mining companies are increasingly looking to technology solutions to standardise processes and to help manage increasing complexity, in this regard the sector is no different from any other global operation. It should come as no surprise that the information technology challenges experienced by mining companies have much in common with companies in other sectors such as petrochemicals, energy and process manufacturing. However, there are unique and specialised aspects of mining that do not necessarily apply to these other sectors. These include the fixed location of raw materials, finite tenement resources, asset and energy intensive plants, inherently hazardous operations, relatively small volumes of very high value products (eg, gold and platinum) and large volumes of relatively low value commodity products (eg, iron ore and coal).

Two large Hitachi excavators are bringing advanced technology to an ancient copper mine in Cyprus. The ZX870LCR-3 and ZX470LCH-3 have been working at the site, which dates back more than 4,000 years, since early 2011. Cyprus was the main source for the metal during Roman times and the first written reference to the production of copper was on this site at Skouriotissa, near the village of Katydata. Today the 3 km² mine is run by Hellenic Copper Mines (HCM). It extracts 30,000 t/d of ore and rock using the Hitachi ZX870LCR-3 large excavator loading a fleet of rigid dump trucks.

The National Mining Association (NMA) reports “China’s voracious consumption of minerals and its determination to secure global supplies of them to feed its growing economy worries policymakers in the US David Menzie, Chief of the US Geological Survey’s (USGS) global minerals analysis division.” He told a federal commission last week that the lack of a responsive US resource policy “keeps him up at night.” Contrasting US and China’s mineral policies, Menzie said the unfocused US policy for securing minerals and other resources is worrisome in the face of China’s aggressive efforts to stockpile and produce the minerals for its own use. “If you don’t have secure supplies…then you have vulnerabilities,” he said in testimony before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. “I think that’s an indication of a problem at the front end of the supply chain.”