WINNING
Decommissioned Chinese equipment.
“We train our
operators to be as
efficient as possible.”
there to an intermediate stockpile. From
there it is fed by a conveyor belt to a triple-
deck screen. The triple deck screen does the
following splits:
• -8mm stockpiled as scalping sand
• +34mm oversize sent to a cone crusher
coupled in a closed loop circuit
• +8mm to -34mm sent to the Teqroc T8R
VSI.
“Downstream from the VSI there are
various screens stockpiling 22mm, 13.2mm,
6.7mm, and -5mm crusher dust, all being
shaped material,” says Botha. The company
invested in a washing facility in 2017 to
wash crusher sand to meet local demand.
Each stockpile conveyor belt has a wash box
to wash the course aggregate before it falls
on the stockpiles. The aggregate falls on the
shaker and gets washed with high-pressure
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sprays. Water for washing and other needs
comes from two boreholes, with as much as
90% being recycled, as water is scarce in the
region.
Ever growing demand requires
increased production
“We’ve ordered another VSI from about the
middle of this year,” says Van Waveren. “We
are generating an enormous amount of sand,
and overall our production is higher than
our sales (except for at this exact moment
in time) and we are looking to break into
the rooftile industry to sell finer 4mm sand
washed.” Its biggest market by far is the
concrete industry, delivering to customers
such as Corestruc for precast concrete
products (less than 1km away), 3Q readymix,
and Technicrete for paving bricks.
Botha says the mine produces on average
of about 23 000t per month with a single
shift but at the moment demand is peaking
at about 30 000t per month. With that being
higher than production, stockpiles are
running low and the quarry is in need of
the additional equipment. A Metso GP300
cone crusher to slot in-between the jaw and
the intermediate stockpile is on order and a
second eight-hour shift is being planned to
boost production.
The reason for its present underinvestment
in production has been the lack of a mining
licence, which has only in February been
remedied, he explains. “There is never a
guarantee that you get a mining right from
DMR, so it was a bit of a gamble going into
production. We weren’t prepared to invest
more until we received it. So, February is
when we started with our plans to upgrade.”
Botha outlines the equipment: “On the
mining side, we do drilling and blasting
to break the rock as the cheapest means of
doing so — using outsourced contractors.”
Loading and hauling is done with two
Hitachi excavators and three Bell ADTs, and
delivery to clients is done by Alpha Sand
via its fleet of 8x4 tipper trucks. Delivery is
primarily restricted to the Polokwane area.
All the plant and equipment on the quarry
is hired from Alpha Sand. It also has two
hydraulic rock breakers, one water bowser, a
fleet of five front-end loaders, and a mobile
QUARRY SA | MAY/JUNE 2019_19