TAKING MINESITE TO NEW HEIGHTS
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 06:31AM Minesite's latest addition to the Minesite fleet is a state-of-the-art Liebherr LTM1090 mobile crane that can handle up to 90 tonnes at a time!
Already the first major project has been completed, and its execution was quite a feat!
It was the highly reputed and forward thinking African Barrick Gold that first stepped in to take advantage of this new technology’s presence when they needed to move and ship a 40 tonne motor and components for their Buzwagi flagship mine.
The motor was airlifted into Mwanza on an Antonov AN-124, the world’s second largest operating cargo aircraft with a payload capacity of up to 150 tonnes.
A team of six Minesite technicians and operators worked together as the sun rose to prepare the crane for this lift which required absolute precision and accuracy; with the Antonov due elsewhere there was no room for error and no time to waste.
Within a few hours of the Antonov landing, the 40 tonne motor and its components were safely lifted onto two waiting specialized freight trucks and expedited to the mine, and the Antonov was back in the air onto its next job.
Business Development Manager, Damien Valente, explains: “When African Barrick Gold contacted us we were delighted that the timing was so ideal. We were happy to be able to support ABG with this critical task. Prior to the arrival of this Liebherr crane an operation such as this would have involved costly and time-consuming logistics. As it was we had just what was needed in exactly the right place. This meant these vital component arrived at destination considerably faster than might have previously been possible because it could be flown and offloaded into the closest possible airport to the mine.”
“Now this service is available regionally and makes things much easier for local operators setting up mining and oil & gas exploration projects. We feel this will make it less challenging to operate in Tanzania and will facilitate projects that would otherwise require the hiring of this sort of equipment from other countries – an expensive and slow process.”
