Taking the express

Mining Online continues to gather information on the concept of railway in the mining context.

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The construction and maintenance of underground railway tracks to safety standard

Railway has always played a vital role in mining, particularly from a logistics point of view. However, in terms of the correlation between mining and railway, what does the future hold? 

In its quest to gain further insight into this mode of transport that is of critical importance to the industry, Mining Online stumbled upon a not-so-recent but fascinating paper by EJ Heyns on The Construction and maintenance of underground railway tracks to safety standard (click here to download).

Port to port

MMPR’s counterpart in travelling trade and technical exhibitions, Mining & Technical Exhibitions (MTE), has seen the strong link between the mining industry and ports/harbour. As such, MTE has already brought a show to world-renowned Richards Bay and will be heading towards Walvis Bay in Namibia later this year. Much can be learned from scrutinising ports or harbours in a mining context: how it began, how the situation fares and where it is going.

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Spares – reporting on aftermarket trends

By Matthew Wood – writer

Although maintenance is a topic discussed vastly in the mining industry, the transport aspect is quite vital for safety, with a focus on the aftermarket aspect.

Digital

Forum

Products

Those in the industry will already know the significance, and would like to hear just a few examples of what is out there in terms of reputation, innovation, and sustainability.

The ‘big boys’

Halfway through November 2014 and on the day of its announcement, a flurry of different media houses reported that Barloworld, the biggest dealer of Caterpillar mining trucks in southern Africa, announced a 7% rise in full-year profit, as after-market sales helped the logistics and heavy equipment firm overcome weakness in the mining industry and a slowdown in Russia.

Barloworld has been hit by slack demand from the mining sector. In Russia, the ongoing Ukraine crisis has also put pressure on demand.

So far, US and EU sanctions against Russia have not targeted its mining sector, which has helped shield Barloworld from the worst of the fall-out from the crisis, said CEO Clive Thomson.

"Should the situation between Russia and Ukraine escalate and should heavier sanctions be imposed, it could have a more significant impact on our business there," he said.

Overall, business was underpinned by strength in after-market sales, which include parts and services for equipment previously purchased by customers.

Click here to read the full feature article on page 20 of the January/February 2015 issue of MMPR ...