UTILITY & ANCILLARY
LEDs, this system can be used in any situation,
regardless of light conditions.
Underground, Manitou also offers its mining
platform, a rugged attachment developed for
underground mining applications with maximal
structural resistance to withstand the harshest
working conditions & shocks (3 t impact). It has a
1,200 kg/three people capacity and is aimed at
applications for lifting mining workers & materials.
It is also EN280 compliant meaning it reaches the
most stringent safety standards.
Enter KOVATERA
As part of a strategy to grow domestic and
international sales, Industrial Fabrication Inc (IFI)
of Lively, Ontario, Canada, last year launched a
new brand for its line of underground mine utility
vehicles. Formerly marketed under the MINECAT
brand, the company has undertaken an extensive
rebranding exercise to better reflect the
company’s business strategy and entry into new
markets, it said.
Moving forward the company and its product
lines will be marketed under the brand name
KOVATERA™, with this name continuing to reflect
IFI’s expertise in manufacturing purpose-built
utility vehicles made for the rigours of
underground mining, it said.
Will Gove, Kovatera’s General Manager, said:
“We have had great success in developing and
marketing our product lines domestically here in
Canada. The MINECAT brand has developed into a
very respectable brand for our space in the
Canadian underground mining industry. Additional
to providing ongoing support to our domestic
customer base, we are now focusing on expanding
our footprint into new markets such as Australia,
Mexico, South America, Europe and Eurasia. Given
our global expansion strategy, new product
development and the starting of a new lean
manufacturing production line…our management
team felt it was time to refresh our brand to reflect
these initiatives.”
He continued: “Our rebranding process and
research confirmed that our engineering and
manufacturing point-of-difference since the
company’s founding, is that we have just one
mission: engineer and manufacture small footprint
mine utility vehicles from the ground up, purpose-
built to be the toughest, most reliable and lowest
total cost of ownership machines in the category.”
Kovatera is a coined word made up of two roots,
according to Gove, with ‘Kova’ being a derivative of
the Finnish word for tough – “reflecting both the
ownership’s ethnic background and our mission to
be the most reliable machine in the marketplace”
– and ‘Tera’ being an abbreviated form of the Latin
word for ‘Earth’ (terra). “Combined, the name
Kovatera reflects both our mission and the
extreme environments we operate in,” he said.
The company’s plans for expansion don’t end
52 International Mining | MARCH 2020
there, with a new line of electric-powered vehicles
based on the existing diesel-powered line in the
final engineering and testing phase. Gove said:
“An important part of our future growth will be in
the supply of alternate energy powered equipment
to a marketplace that is increasingly interested in
the benefits that these new power
sources bring. Currently electric-
battery powered vehicles are
servicing this demand. In the
future there may be other forms
of energy that come into play. It is
Kovatera’s mission to meet this
market demand. We will not,
however, ever compromise our
promise to customers that our machines will be
purpose-built to meet the heavy-duty cycle and
tough operating environment of underground
mines, while at the same time offering versatility,
low cost of ownership and maximise machine
uptime.”
GHH strengthens ties with Turkey’s
Titan
GHH, the German manufacturer of mining and
tunnelling machines, is significantly expanding its
presence on the utility machines market thanks to
a tie-up with Turkey’s Titan Ltd, the result of which
is that 18 more machine types will be included in
the GHH product range. GHH can thus be regarded
as a new full-range supplier in the mining utility
business, supplying its customers with “almost
everything, almost everywhere,” it said.
“It is a strategic move that opens up a new
chapter in the company’s history” said the
statement. Thanks to the cooperation with the
mechanical engineering company Titan based in
Ankara, GHH now also offers concrete spraying
machines, transmixers and pumps. In addition, the
product range now also includes utility vehicles
such as passenger transporters, light cranes,
scissor lifts, mini dumpers, boom trucks as well as
ANFO charge trucks in rigid
or articulated design. GHH
believes it thus supplies
(almost) every type of
machine on wheels required
for underground mining.
“We are delighted to
have Titan as an
experienced partner for
additional equipment that
ideally complements our
core range,” says GHH
Managing Director Dr Jan
Olaf Petzold. For Titan
Business Development
Director Ergun Sokulluoglu,
the cooperation is also a great step forward: “With
GHH, we are growing in markets in which we have
not previously been represented.”
As part of a strategy to grow domestic and
international sales, Industrial Fabrication Inc
(IFI) of Lively, Ontario, Canada, last year
launched a new KOVATERA brand for its line of
underground mine utility vehicles
In fact, the companies
say the new overall program is
useful for many companies in
construction, civil engineering and underground
mining. They cover practically all major fields of
work and benefit in logistics, maintenance and
training. “The fact that there are also advantages
in terms of rent, financing and used equipment
makes it even more interesting.”
“Construction companies and mine operators
have already done well with the Schmidt Kranz
Group, to which GHH belongs. The company is one
of the world’s leading manufacturers of load haul
dumpers, underground dump trucks, drilling and
bolting rigs as well as scalers for the mining
industry. The machines are also used for road,
railway and power plant construction. The offer
even includes processing plants and automation
technology. Another well-known brand of the
group is Mine Master.”
GHH supplies the new product range under its
own brand name. Titan itself remains independently
active in the market. The cooperation covers large
areas. GHH will offer the machines (exclusively) in
many parts of the world, for example in key
markets of North, Central and South America, in
large parts of Africa, in Australia and India as well
as in numerous European countries.
GHH, the German manufacturer of mining and
tunnelling machines, is significantly expanding
its presence on the utility machines market
thanks to a tie-up with Turkey’s Titan