ON SITE
Odendaal says that most of the existing
equipment on site was refurbished and that
the company didn’t procure any new trucks
or equipment. “There were some yellow
equipment and mining tools that we had to
scrap though. These were items damaged
beyond repair. However, to replace these,
we used in-house Afrimat equipment from
other divisions,” he explains.
The previous owners used a fleet
consisting mostly of Caterpillar equipment,
which, Odendaal says made it a bit easier
to refurbish. “It was a good quality fleet
and we could source the spare parts
easily enough to fix these machines,” says
Odendaal. The fleet then consisted of
three excavators (one 90 ton and two 70
ton Caterpillar excavators), nine Caterpillar
Articulated Dump Trucks (ADTs) in the 30
to 40 ton range and two Cat 966 loaders,
a water truck and a number of backhoe
loaders. Odendaal says that the machines
all had about 10 000 hours on the clock,
and that there was a significant neglect
of maintenance. “The company was in
business rescue way before Afrimat arrived
and maintenance came to a grinding halt
almost a year before we took over the
mine. Some of the machines were used
purely for spare parts to keep the other
machines going. There were at most five
machines that could start-up when got
The fleet consists of three excavators (one 90 ton and two 70 ton Caterpillar
excavators), nine Caterpillar Articulated Dump Trucks (ADTs) in the 30 to 40 ton range
and two Cat 966 loaders.
The inherited fleet consisting of Caterpillar
yellow metal was of good quality and
Afrimat could source spare parts easily
enough to fix these machines.
here, but we couldn’t move any of the
other equipment.
Restocking the workshop
Afrimat uses an entire fleet of Caterpillar equipment at the Demaneng mine.
14
MARCH 2020
To add to the growing list of challenges,
Odendaal says that Afrimat had to
restock most of the tools and workshop
equipment as it was stolen while the mine
was in business rescue. That required a
further investment. “We spent close to
R20-million to purchase new workshop
equipment, spare parts and tools just to
do the basic start-up and maintenance
and to employ the mechanical staff. Most
of the mechanical staff were sourced in-
house from Afrimat’s other divisions. They
were used to do most of the repair works
to get the show on the road,” he adds.
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