That’s the dilemma major manufacturers of bucketwheel stacker-reclaimers find themselves in after a two-year siesta where many major projects were kept on hold. Now, there’s a frenzy of mine expansion which directly leads to a rush of port expansion to handle the increased capacity generated at the mines, whether its coal or iron ore. It’s a serious challenge and it has the industry scrambling. Countries tackled the global recession in different ways – Europe went quiet, North America largely went to sleep for two years, while Australia kept its projects rolling along in a more progressive approach. Now, worldwide demand is ramping up for such items as bucketwheel stacker-reclaimers with their routine price tag of around USD25 million apiece. To add to the pressure, many of the major manufacturers of the big machines find them part of a bulk handling systems package to open a new bulk port or upgrade an existing one. They need conveyors, shiploaders and other stockyard and port equipment and the rush is on. “It’s hard to find a terminal that’s not doing something or planning something,” says Milan Sjaus, General Manager Projects & Systems North America, for Sandvik Mining & Construction of Sweden. To add to the challenge, ships sizes have increased in the bulk sector and many ports can show fewer ship calls but higher total bulk volumes. Somehow the industry has to feed the growing demand.
Rapid delivery
“Some clients are demanding delivery in 10 months and that’s never been done,” adds Sjaus. Usual stacker-reclaimer delivery is more like 12 to 20 months. In fact there was a delivery wait of up to 24 months in 2006-2007 because of a lack of availability of components. Many industries were going full bore before the recession kicked in and the component crunch quickly dampened some aspirations. Slew bearings were as rare as diamonds back then and the wait time often stretched to the 28 to 36 month range, seriously delaying some projects. Thankfully, even though mining equipment makers have been under intense pressure for the past six months as the sleeping giant awakes, the slew bearing situation has improved dramatically as vendors increased capacity for it and most other vital components. Which is just as well with so many projects in their procurement phase, according to Sjaus: “We have so many projects on the map through 2015. If there is no significant change in supply and demand we are going to be busy for the next three or four years . . . and Sandvik is planning on that.”
In fact, Sjaus says Sandvik had a record order intake in the last quarter of 2010 and into the 1st Quarter of 2011. “Business has never been this good for us,” he adds. As well, Sandvik has been doing numerous refurbishment projects on bulk handling equipment across North America. Another of the Big Four manufacturers of bucketwheel stacker-reclaimers, Metso Minerals, Inc of Finland, simply chose to pursue more lucrative aspects of bulk materials handling and stockyard equipment rather than sweating over slow stacker-reclaimers orders. Metso Vice President of Global Sales, Dave Hicken, says the company saw “plenty of inquiries in 2010, particularly in India, but no significant orders were taken as we found our efforts focussed on other bulk products where the activity is extremely high.” But, the global company did complete several successful stacker-reclaimer commissionings in India and at the Drax Power Station in the United Kingdom (Drax awarded Metso a site safety award for its installation and commissioning of this machine). Into 2011, activity is high again in India and Metso is pursuing several opportunities there.
Package deals
For Korean manufacturer, Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co, Ltd, there were no sales of stacker-reclaimers alone in 2010. Instead, the big machines were packaged with other bulk equipment such as conveyors, silos, ship loaders and unloaders and the associated construction works. And that’s not to mention calls for stackers or reclaimers as separate machines. Doosan’s Overseas Marketing Manager, Eric Kim, says the company has seen a brighter market trend in 2011, particularly for power plant projects in Korea and overseas. The massive earthquake and resulting tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan in March has also had an impact, according to Kim, as customers shy away from nuclear power plants and stay with the proven coal fired electricity generating plants. So far, Doosan manufactures its stacker-reclaimers only in Korea for worldwide buyers, but Kim says a new factory in Vietnam also has the capability and may well do so in the mid to long-term plan. Another major manufacturer frequently involved in materials handling packages, FL Smidth, has been busy in Mega Power Projects in India, including the recently commissioned 4,000 megawatt plant at Mundra Port, Gujurat. The project includes what FL Smidth calls “the world’s largest bucketwheel stacker-reclaimer for coal.” The German manufacturer of bulk handling equipment also won a contract to engineer, supply and construct a complete coal handling system, including bucketwheel stacker-reclaimers, for the National Thermal Power Corporation Limited Rihand power plant expansion in Uttar Pradesh in northern India.
Big projects
Other bucketwheel stacker-reclaimer makers with major deals underway include Spanish Taim Weser, and Germany’s ThyssenKrupp and FAM (Forderanlagen Magdeburg). Taim Weser, with factories in 60 countries and over 100 years of experience, was chosen by LLX, the logistics company of the EBX Group, to supply four stacker-reclaimers to handle iron ore at the new Superporto Sudeste in the city of Itaguai, some 80 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The machines each have 60 meter long booms and ride on 12 meter wide rails as they work two iron ore stockyards at the port. They have a stacking capacity of 10,000 tonnes per hour and a reclaim capacity of 12,000 tph. As well, Taim Weser is supplying a complete conveyor belt system to serve the two stockyards at the port, which covers 52 hectares in total and is expected to open in 2012. FAM has supplied four bucketwheel st
acker-reclaimers to the Queensland, Australia, Abbot Point Coal Terminal as part of an expansion, which included the addition of a second deep-sea berth that will take it to a capacity of 50 million tonnes per year. The final of the four stacker-reclaimers will be commissioned in July, 2011. Future plans will see Abbot Point eventually emerge as the country’s largest coal export facility if they win approval. The Queensland Government recently granted a 99 year lease to Mundra Port Pty Ltd, of India, for AUD1.829 billion lease for the port, which is operated by Xstrata. The latest Abbot Point expansion will allow coal to be loaded at a peak rate of 7,200 tph. FAM has also supplied a stacker-reclaimer to the Terminal de Carvao de Matola in Maputo, in Mozambique as part of an upgrade to lift the facility’s capacity to 6 million tonnes per year.
Largest
And ThyssenKrupp has successfully installed a new bucketwheel stacker-reclaimer at EMO Terminal in Holland, which feeds the nearby Electrabel coal-fired power station. This brings to seven the number of stacker-reclaimers at the terminal and the latest is described as one of the largest of its kind in Europe. The big machines, which can handle both coal and iron ore, can either transport material to the terminal or the power station thanks to conveyors with reversible drive units. In Canada, Sandvik commissioned two bucketwheel stacker-reclaimers in early 2010. The first, a 60 meter boom machine gave Westshore Terminals greater nominal throughput capacity at the Port Metro Vancouver Roberts Bank facility from 24 to 29 million tonnes a year. And the second commissioned last April, was for Consolidated Thompson Iron Mines of Quebec, recently taken over by Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. In a more recent order, Sandvik is supplying a bucketwheel stacker-reclaimer to the expanding Ridley Terminals in the Port of Prince Rupert, in British Columbia, Canada. The new machine is expected to be commissioned in December 2012. In other orders, Sandvik is supplying two bucketwheel stacker-reclaimers as part of the expansion the general cargo berth at Visakhapatnam in India. Commissioning is expected in April 2012. Two similar stacker-reclaimers have also been sold to a port in Columbia and should be commissioned in March 2013. And in Russia, Italy’s Tenova TAKRAK has signed a contract to expand the Vanino coal export terminal, a deal which includes expansion of the storage capacity for owners Siberian Coal Energy, Russia’s largest coal exporter. Details of the new stockyard equipment have not yet been released for a deal signed last February.
Automation
The trend to automation of stacker-reclaimers around the world has also picked up steam over the past couple of years. All four of the bucketwheel stacker-reclaimers at Westshore Terminals in Vancouver, for example, can now be operated by one person from a remote control station. As well as labour savings, automation of major bulk handling equipment also improves efficiency, consistently getting more out of machines than possible manually. Last year, ThyssenKrupp was awarded a contract to automate a bucketwheel stacker-reclaimer at the ILVA Steelworks in Taranto, Italy. Working with the German specialist in stockyard automation, iSAM-imma GmbH, the project follows the completion of similar work on two other stacker-reclaimers at the plant in 2008. Using a 3-D scanner and a GPS device, the stacker-reclaimers are run from a remote control and monitoring station at the port. According to ThyssenKrupp, not only are the operational costs reduced to a minimum, but the automation also ensures that the capital investment cost will be amortised in a shorter time.
Innovations
Bucketwheel stacker-reclaimers are a mature design and have looked much the same for decades. However, changes have been happening slowly. For example Doosan’s design is lighter bringing costs savings. It also has a reverse type stacker-reclaimer which allows materials in two directions depending on need. Metso notes its stacker-reclaimers have recent advances in control system design and incorporate the use of GPS and 3-D imaging for stockpile management. ThyssenKrupp has updated its machines with lightweight bucket design over the past few years. At Sandvik, high focus is on dust reduction as well as automation using programmable logic controllers and human-machine interfaces, which give the operator a wide range of settings and options. Bucketwheel and chute modeling optimization using 3D design in the engineering phase has also been a major step forward.