FUELS & LUBRICANTS
its specialty methacrylate monomers - the
Applications Monomers Product Line - with its
current oil additives business to become the new
Oil Additives business line within the Resource
Efficiency segment.
Application Monomers were formerly part of
the Methacrylate business of Evonik, which has
been sold to US-based private equity firm Advent
International.
“The integration just made sense since Oil
Additives is the specialist for
Polyalkylmethacrylate (PAMA) based additives
for the lubricant industry. The businesses jointly
have a substantially larger specialty monomer
production set-up. Their innovation capabilities
mesh very well with each other. Together, this
will increase our ability to offer new and
customised solutions to our customers,”
explains Martin Trocha, Head of the Application
Monomers Product Line.
By retaining the specialty methacrylate
monomers business within Evonik and
integrating it into Oil Additives, their similar
business models with a customer solution-
centric approach will allow them to focus on
developing and producing specialty and high-
performing products and technologies.
“Combining both businesses will lead to
broader production capabilities and a more
comprehensive innovation landscape. Lubricant
and oil & gas customers will continue to benefit
from our most advanced flow efficiency
solutions, developed by our Oil Additives
specialists. Additionally, we stay fully committed
to our customers in the coatings, and other
specialty markets by providing tailor-made
solutions from our specialty monomers group,”
adds Doris Schmidt, Head of the Oil Additives
Business Line.
The international headquarters and research
centres of the new Oil Additives business line are
located in Darmstadt, Germany, in addition to
technical centres located in Shanghai, Singapore,
Tsukuba (Japan) and Horsham (USA). The joint
business uses production facilities in Mobile
(USA), Houston (USA) and Morrisburg, Ontario
(Canada), as well as in Worms, Darmstadt, and
Weiterstadt (Germany), Lauterbourg (France),
Shanghai (China) and Singapore.
Banlaw ups productivity at Evolution
Cowal
Australian gold mining major Evolution Mining is
committed to outstanding levels of
environmental performance, as well as reducing
the safety risks to which its 520 employees and
contractors are exposed at the Cowal site located
350 km west of Sydney and its largest operation.
A number of challenges related to the
refuelling of two 992 Caterpillar wheel loaders
which were exhibiting similar issues. Cowal is a
24 hour operation and these loaders were
refuelled by a service truck, which was scheduled
to fill them twice a day. These particular
machines have three fuel tanks. They are
refuelled from a single high volume (HV) fill point
at around 400 lpm (106 gpm). Diesel pumped
into tank 1 then needs to make its way into tanks
2 and 3 via a 4 in balance pipe.
During refuelling, the near-side fuel tank
would become full, pressurise, and then spill
diesel from the tank vent onto the vehicle and
onto the ground, increasing the probability of
machine damage from tank over-pressurisation
or fire. The spilled diesel was also a significant
environmental concern for teams on site, a
situation that needed to be resolved proactively.
Because the dry break fuel systems were not
filling the Cat 992G wheel loaders with a
sufficient amount of diesel, operators either
needed to fill, wait 15 minutes, and then fill
again, or open the splash fill hatches on the
tanks and visually check the levels as the tanks
filled at high speed. Opening the splash fill
hatches overrides the auto shut-off functionality
of the refuelling system. In the interests of staff
safety, the slower process had to be chosen until
a solution was found.
Refuelling would cease when tank 1 was full,
but tank 2 and tank 3 had still received
insufficient diesel. The wheel loaders did not
have enough fuel onboard to complete another
At Evolution Mining’s Cowal gold mine Banlaw
provided a custom deployment of its FillSafe
Zero tank overfill protection solution which
along with other Banlaw technologies solved
refuelling issues for the mine’s Cat 992 wheel
loaders
shift before the service truck returned. This
caused situations where the service truck would
need to be called back from the other side of the
mine site to refuel a wheel loader again, reducing
the productivity of the loader, and also delaying
refuelling for the hundreds of other fuel-
consuming assets on site.
No refuelling system manufacturer had an off-
the-shelf solution for multi-tank refuelling that
effectively addressed Cowal’s issues around tank
overfill, underfill, pressurisation, and the slow
refuelling of wheel loaders.
Evolution Mining agreed to a three-month field
trial with Banlaw to provide a custom
deployment of its FillSafe Zero tank overfill
protection solution. Banlaw mechanical
engineers identified products from its range,
along with improvements to the tank venting and
pressure equalisation arrangement on the
loaders. Banlaw service team members
performed the upgrade in collaboration with site
maintenance, and then monitored performance
both during and after the trial period. “The
outcome was a permanent and reliable solution,
that delivered outstanding productivity
improvements.”
The previous refuelling time in total was 22
minutes (filling tank 1, waiting for fuel to settle
across all three tanks, filling tank 1 again), but
using the Banlaw system the new Cat 992
loading refuelling time was 6 minutes. That 16
minute improvement equates to 389 productive
JULY 2019 | International Mining