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Solid Energy places big order for upgrade of Stockton mining fleet
30 May 2010 - Solid Energy has placed a second large order for mobile plant and equipment for its Stockton opencast coking coal mine near Westport.
Sources: Solid Energy and Lindsay Clark
The $65 million order, to be delivered by the end of 2010, follows a $75 million order made in 2009 that together will update the mine’s core mining fleet. Productivity at the mine will be raised with a smaller mining fleet capable of moving greater amounts of waste rock.
The latest order follows other recent investments at Stockton in infrastructure upgrades and a large coal handling and processing plant, taking Solid Energy’s capital spending at Stockton to just under $280 million in the last 18 months.
Since late last year the mine is operated jointly by Solid Energy and Downer EDI Mining NZ Ltd through the Stockton Alliance.
The latest contracts, for a range of Caterpillar machinery and Haulmax trucks from Gough Gough & Hamer Ltd will complete Stockton’s coal mining fleet, upgrade its primary coal haulage capacity and provide the smaller mobile plant needed for on-site civil engineering work such as mine-site rehabilitation, building and maintaining the mine’s roading and extensive water management infrastructure.
The modernised fleet will be capable of moving 900,000 bank cubic metres of waste rock a month to expose the coal for mining, up from 500,000 bank cubic metres of waste rock a month last October.
Barry Bragg, Solid Energy’s chief operating officer and Stockton Alliance chairman, says the fleet upgrades will mean a reduction in the total fleet number from July this year to 114 from over 200 when the Alliance began in October 2009.
“We will fit a high-precision global positioning technology system to all our main trucks, diggers, bulldozers, loaders and drill rigs and this is expected to further enhance production, safety and accuracy.”
The GPS system will improve mining accuracy and enable more precise recording of coal and overburden movement from pits to stockpiles and dumps, as well as alerting maintenance crews when preventative servicing is required.
Karl Smith, group chief executive officer of Gough Group, said this second order for Stockton, and is a “huge vote of confidence in Goughs and its staff and also the Caterpillar product.”
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