Sishen plans mega maintenance facility for mega trucks

Kumba Iron Ore’s Sishen mine near Kathu in the Northern Cape, the largest iron ore mine in the country, will see significant growth over the next eight years. This requires the injection of cash into the mine’s on-site infrastructure to support its development.

The growth of the current 12 km x 4 km open cast pit negold mining equipment for sale zimbabwecessitates additional haul trucks for overburden waste handling.

With this in mind, engineering project house TWP was contracted to develop a ‘Bucket and Bowl’ workshop facility, which will cater to the maintenance and service requirements of the expanded haul truck fleet’s buckets, and bowls.

Although enormous in size and just launched, the workshop’s purpose is only temporary. A permanent facility (Life of Mine workshop) is already under construction, and is due to be completed in September 2013.

The workshop, measuring 50 m x 40 m, with a height of 27 m, has four under-cover bays and six apron bays outside has been fitted with two 80 t overhead cranes, and a 450 t tyre press, which will be moved to the Life of Mine workshop when it starts operating.

The scope of work for the ‘Bucket and Bowl’ workshop also incorporated a tyre yard for storing up to 280 tyres for the mega-trucks, an adjacent administration building, compressor room, nitrogen tank storage slab, sewer pump station and 11 kV sub-station.

Mindful of the impact of the mine on the neighboring district within the pristine Kalahari landscape, the workshop was positioned close to the existing waste dump within a controlled environment isolated from the mine operations, with polluted wash water and contaminated storm water run-off leading to a new pollution dam complex.

A total of 4 600 m³ of concrete, 560 t of structural steel and 93 000 bricks were used. At peak, a total of 455 employees were on site. The project achieved a zero lost time injury over 700 885 man-hours and 326 days worked (462 calendar days).

The successful completion of the ‘Bucket and Bowl’ workshop is regarded as a major achievement in that numerous challenges were overcome both prior to commencement of the project during the study phase, and during the construction phase. These included the remoteness of the location, environmental considerations, adaptation of the facility for an alternative purpose before the permanent maintenance facility is completed, and the size of the building required to service the mega-trucks.