Construction and mining equipment manufacturer Caterpillar has launched its new blasthole drill rigs onto the market.

“The rigs are making an impact on the Southern African market, where 12 orders for the drilling machines have been received,” says Caterpillar sales manager for surface mining in Southern Africa Grant Francis.

“The first three rigs, each with a mass of 131 t, were delivered to Anglo American’s Sishen iron-ore mine at Kathu, in the Northern Cape, where the results from drilling into the hard hematite deposits prompted Kolomela mine to place an order for another five. Two of the machines are diesel powered and the third is electric,” he adds.

The machines ordered by Kumba Iron Ore – the MD6540 series – are top of the range blasthole drill rigs produced by Caterpillar. The largest have a bit load of 75 t and the smallest up to 24 t.

The MD6540 series machines produce a bit load of up to 54 t and drill 17 m single-pass blastholes, 311 mm in diameter, in the tough conditions at the Sishen mine.

“The introduction of the Caterpillar blasthole machines to the iron-ore mine at Sishen has been a great success. It was something that we worked hard to achieve through our machine service and support, on-site commissioning and training, as well as ongoing backup.

“From a maintenance perspective, machine availability has met the requirements laid down by the customer. To say that the machines have done well in the extremely hard iron-ore conditions at Sishen is an understatement, thanks largely to the commitment of Caterpillar in the US, which assembled and dispatched special teams to site for a period of ten months to ensure that the assembly and commissioning of the machines, as well as the training of the maintenance and operator crews, were world class. Two Caterpillar service technicians and a dedicated accounts manager are also on site permanently,” he says.

The MD6540’s cab is all-electric and has no hydraulic lines entering into it or the control panels and visibility around the cab is excellent.

The machine is designed with an advanced auto drill, auto level and on-board drill-health and drill-performance monitoring system, which includes diagnostics and a downloadable memory function.

Levelling the jacks, and raising and lowering the mast are achieved by operating electric-over-hydraulic levers located on the control panel.

Rapid pipe changing is achieved with the Cat hydraulically operated break-out wrench and highly effective deck wrench.

“It has been hard work growing the order book for our drills in the past two years, but last year was a phenomenal year for us. It is also good to see customers getting real value from our blasthole drill rigs and value from a supplier such as Caterpillar, which understands the mining process and is capable of supplying the type of equipment that meets the performance criteria that mines set, plus the technical and aftermarket support they can rely on,” concludes Francis.