INDUSTRY INTELLIGENCE
4
OCTOBER 2019
ALE recently transported five Caterpillar 793D mining trucks from the Northern Cape
province to Australia.
Five 167t trucks were transported more than 1 000km across South Africa.
Sewerage cleaning made easy
Sewerage cleaning operations can
become expensive, time consuming
and labour-intensive for operators if
they need to use multiple vehicles
for sucking and jetting. On the back
of its immense experience building
custom, specialist high-pressure jetting
equipment in South Africa, Werner
South Africa Pumps & Equipment is
Five Caterpillar 793D mining trucks with
a payload of 200t each were recently
transported from Kumba Iron Ore’s
Sishen mine in the Northern Cape
province of South Africa to the Port of
Durban and then onwards to Australia.
ALE was chosen to act as the single
point of contact for the transportation of
these trucks over more than 1 000km
across South Africa; an operation
spanning five months. ALE is a
transportation company that specialises
in moving abnormal loads.
The project began in Sishen, where the
first three trucks were loaded onto three
12-axle Goldhofer trailers widened to
4.3m, using the hydraulics of the trailers
themselves. Two prime movers provided
the traction for each mining truck.
The trucks’ laden height of 6.8m was
a major challenge during the project
due to many overhead restrictions along
the route. ALE identified a route that
could accommodate passage at this
height, thus allowing each vehicle to be
transported as a complete unit.
If a suitable route could not have
been found, then the bodies and chassis
would need to have been split. In this
case, time-consuming reconstruction
would have been needed at the Port of
Durban or the final destination.
The travelled route required ALE
to obtain a wide range of permits.
Exemption permits for the transport of
abnormal loads were required from the
local department of transport for each
of the four provinces the convoy passed
through.
This work included the identification
and clearance of the route itself; the
establishment of the structural integrity
of bridges along the route; authorisation
from each municipality the convoy travelled
through; liaising with telecoms providers
to arrange the lifting of telephone lines and
liaising with power companies to lift or de-
energise power lines.
Upon arrival at the Port of Durban,
all three mining trucks were unloaded
by lowering the trailers and were then
driven onto a ro-ro vessel bound for
Australia. The entire journey was then
repeated with a further two mining
trucks, which were then loaded onto a
breakbulk vessel with the ship’s gear. The
trucks are now en route to Australia for
use on a range of mining projects.
1 000t total payload transported over 1 000km
introducing the first bakkie-mounted
vehicle in South Africa that has the
combined ability to perform suction
and jetting.
Werner Pumps has become an
agent in South Africa for French
company Baroclean and is making the
Baroclean Rapid Response Vehicle
available to the local market.
Rapid
Response
Vehicle
operating in
Barcelona.
www.equipmentandhire.co.za