WINNING
With a 30-year lifespan left, winning has scarcely commenced in the pit.
jaw crusher to produce fill material from
overburden.
In the secondary crushing set-up, it
upgraded its equipment from the initial
Chinese plant, replacing the jaw with a new
Metso C120 jaw crusher that can handle
900mm rock. The Chinese cone crusher was
replaced by a Metso GP220 cone crusher.
“The Chinese equipment served its purpose
of enabling us to get into the market and
build a customer base, but we have now
opted for premium equipment. The 220 will
move into a tertiary crushing role when the
new GP300 is installed,” says Botha.
Van Waveren explains that Alpha Sand
has its own on-site workshop for all regular
maintenance of plant and equipment, such
as bucket repairs. “We have a competent
team for any other repairs on the plant,
with Thursdays being reserved for general
20_QUARRY SA | MAY/JUNE 2019
maintenance. Maintenance is vital, and in
fact we were surprised at the amount of
maintenance that a crushing plant takes.
Other maintenance includes grading the haul
roads periodically; doing continuous dust
suppression; and putting blinding material
(a thin layer of the mine’s own crushed sand
on top of the raw granite) on the benches to
prevent damage to tyres.”
“We don’t get any cut tyres,” confirms
Botha. The mine has exemption on the
PDS systems until 2020, having done its
risk assessment and having a proper traffic
management plan in place. Botha explains
that when it upgrades any of its TMMs, it
ensures that the machine is able to take any
PDS system.
“Like most other quarries we are very
concerned about the practical and financial
implications of the PDS systems. Ultimately
the cost burden of implementing PDS
systems will be carried over to all aggregate
users such as infrastructure and housing,”
says Van Waveren.
“As a philosophy, we always strive to
do everything as efficiently as possible on
every step. We aim to instil in our staff a
consciousness of efficiency, as well as safety,
to ask themselves, ‘What will be the impact
of a decision down the line’, and to question
everything to find ways to do it more
efficiently. Our plant was carefully designed
for maximum efficiency to achieve what we
wanted done. For instance, washing of the
aggregate is integrated into the crushing
process requiring no extra handling,” says
Van Waveren.
“We train our operators to be as efficient
as possible. [Refer to the feature: Training
& Skills Development on p 22.] Our
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