New Cats for Celtic Energy

[Greasemonkey]

Paul, I'm just going from what I see every day, and that's pitting PC2000s, PC5500s and PC8000s against EX1900s, EX2500s, EX3600, EX5500s and EX8000s. The Komatsus don't seem to have the reliability or durability of the Hitachis. As a head to head comparison, one of our contractors has an old EX5500 running in the 95% range, and another has a 3 year old PC5500 running in the low 80% range.

[argie]

Hi Brian,
That's very good availability for the age of the Hitachi and sounds poor for the Komatsu. And as you say you have to take it from personal experiance. The Liebherrs currently working for Scottish Coal, 9350 and 9250, are giving between 98 and 100%. I'm off to Celtic soon and will ask the question about the reliability of their previous Hitachis. Watch this space.....

Thanks very much for the insight into your operations, we'd love to see some photos of the big kit on here. Nothing like it over here anymore!
Paul

[Greasemonkey]

Hi Paul,

That sounds a whole lot better for the Liebherr shovels and hoes than we get out of their trucks. Our fleet is a major disappointment, running at around 70% as an average.

I'd love to post pictures for you guys, but work doesn't allow us to carry cameras, or post any pictures without public affairs looking over each picture and OKing each one. Unfortunately, if I did it without their permission, there's a chance I could lose my job.

Brian

[SRB]

We run PC3000-6's and our availibility is around 98-99%, youngest machine has 12,000 hours and the oldest 23,500 still going strong......

SB

[Greasemonkey]

Hi Stu, it must be nice to have such new machines....LOL. The RH200 I spend most of my time on is running right around 107,000 hours, and she's getting about 86-87% right now.

Brian

[martyn williams]

There seems to be at least four more trucks in Finnings this week ready to go to work.
May pop down for a closer look.
Martyn

[Andy K.A.L.]

Everyone has thier own opinions on these matters, different mine owners calculate availability in different ways, however the major factor is reliability
two factors that influence this:-
1) Is the equipment being used within its application limits (where the equipment is operated, material being mined, climate, load factors, maintenace MTBF, MTBS etc, etc
2) Maintenance culutre.
From my experience as a manager in maintenance contracts for several different mining companies, I have expperienced mine owners that abuse the equipment and dont plan maintenance and are always in breakdown mode hence poor avialability, then there are other companies that are focused on good quality planned maintenance that know that good maintenance systems and procedures leads to reliable equipment, that are more likly to achieve accuracy with thier budgets and forecasts. I am starting to ramble on.

My point is that the best equipment (whoever) if not maintained properly will have a bad name.

One point I would like to make is that the Komatsu large mining excavators have market leading structures in booms and sticks/arms that the likes of all its competitors would love to boast.
Fom my experience all the other OEM'S have thier issues such as some WA Iron Ore mines carry spare Hitachi booms and arms that are frequently rotated.

[martyn williams]

Hello Andy
You make a lot of very interesting points regarding maintenance.
Several years ago I was involved in putting together maintenance procedures to improve locomotive reliability.Every part of the locomotive was investigated in what was called Reliability centered maintenance.We come up with some great ideas which worked.But as the years went by,due to costs,the plammed maintenance programme s stretched.Now we have an ageing fleet that are becoming unreliable,in fact we are fire fighting the problem.
I am involved with callouts and carry out a lot of preventitive maintenance and observations.eg if I see a fault developing that will cause trouble in the near future,I get the loco diagrammed onto a train working that takes it back to its maintenance base.
You are spot on with point 2
Save a penny and spend a pound maintenance.
Martyn

[Greasemonkey]

Hi Andy,

I definitely agree on the maintenance points. I haven't seen any failures on the booms or sticks on the Hitachis we have around here, but I have seen one Komatsu with a broken boom.

I know the contractor with the EX5500 I mentioned is definitely better with their maintenance program than the other contractor I mentioned. On that note, the contractor with the PC5500 I mentioned also has an EX5500 that is a bit older than the PC5500, and gives better service numbers.

Overall, I'm not sold on the Komatsu machines in general, as most of the examples I have personally seen here have been somewhat less than impressive both in terms of reliability and performance. The one exception has been the PC2000 one of our contractors is running. It's been a stellar performer in all aspects.

Brian

[argie]

Hi Brian,
shame about the ban on the photos from your place. I know Keith Haddock has done a couple of features for Earthmovers on the oil sands operations but we havn't seen anything for a while.
Regards
Paul