SmartROC T45 drilling at height in Italy
December 7, 2016
Quarrying 2016 International SmartROC T45 Surface Customer story
A glimpse of the first operational Atlas Copco SmartROC T45 drill rig in Italy at work at the Sibelco quarry in Robilante.
Turnaround in the andes – significant increase in equipment availability
June 28, 2016
The El Sauce mine in Chile, owned by the Las Cenizas Mining Group, is believed to be the first company in the mining industry to renew its entire fleet of rock drills as the pathway to a more profitable future. Located about 170 km north of Santiago, the capital, El Sauce had been suffering for some time from declining productivity, and in mid-2014 an investigation was launched to identify the cause.
After several months, investigators announced they had found the source of the problem; excessive downtime of production drilling equipment due to insufficient service and maintenance of rock drills. As a result, a plan was launched to optimize rock drill availability with the support of experts from Atlas Copco – a cooperation that subsequently led to the renewal of all rock drills and hoses.
"Previously, it took a crew of skilled drillers four minutes to drill 48 holes. Today, with the new rock drills, the same crew does the same number of holes in two and a half minutes. This means we are now drilling a face in about two and half hours, which is fantastic."
Exchange program
Besides this exchange program, the team found that the under-performing rock drills were also affected by the reliability and availability of the fleet’s hydraulic hoses which were being changed too often, adding even more to the cost of maintenance. As a result, all the hoses were also upgraded. These initiatives proved to be the catalyst for a dramatic improvement. Prior to 2014, the availability rating for drilling equipment was 60%. Today, it is 90%.
Raul Fara Engber, Head of Maintenance at El Sauce, says the benefits are easy to see in terms of productivity.
“Previously, it took a crew of skilled drillers four minutes to drill 48 holes,” he says. “Today, with the new rock drills, the same crew does the same number of holes in two and a half minutes. This means we are now drilling a face in about two and half hours, which is fantastic.”
Replacing the rock drill stock also revealed a surprising bonus. Tests conducted with the COP 1838HD+ showed that these models are multipurpose despite being designed for face drilling. Mounted on the fleet’s Simba rigs, they could be used for long hole ring drilling with equal efficiency and zero failures. It was also found that the new COP 1435 was sufficiently powerful and robust to install 2.5 m long rock bolts, a task that could not be achieved before the renewal.
Read the full story at Mining & Construction online.
Epiroc operated under the trademark “Atlas Copco” prior to January 1, 2018.
