Paul Downey, a mechanic at Wyoming Machinery Company’s Gillette shop, removed the transmission of a Caterpillar 24M motor grader as part of rebuilding the machine. Machine rebuilds can save customers 50% over the cost of a new machiner.
Photo by Don Warfield
Never safer
Solvay exemplifies state emphasis on safety in mining
By Don Warfield
Staff Writer
One year into a mine safety program called “Risk Assessment,” Solvay Chemicals’ Green River resident manager Ron Hughes is a true believer.
And why not? After finishing second in 2006, Solvay’s 426 employees took the gold in 2007, winning the Wyoming Inspector of Mines award as the state’s safest underground operation in the large mine category.
Every company has its own approach to the paramount issue of safety, and as the mine inspector’s reports show, virtually all of them have made safer than ever before.
The Risk Assessment program is based on a simple yet vital concept: Before you start any job, and after you get into it, take the time to ask yourself what hazards could be lurking and how you can avoid them.
A committee of 32 employees headed up by Solvay safety superintendent Rowdy Heiser implemented Risk Assessment more than a year ago, and the employees have taken it to heart.
“We’re really pleased with employee involvement,” Hughes said. “We have procedures, and the employees follow them. That’s essential, but they know that risks are typically not there. The risks are typically slips and falls, being in the wrong place, routine tasks.”
Hughes wants employees to work SMART — Safety Means Assessing Risks Together.
“There’s not a task we can’t do safely if we put our minds to it,” he said.
Solvay employees worked more than 400,000 hours underground and nearly 550,000 on the surface to compile their winning record. Surface operations put up goose eggs across the board, while the underground mining operation recorded six accidents accounting for 168 lost days.
Soda ash, solution and other products totaled more than 3.2 million tons for Solvay last year, but the company is not content to coast. The company will break ground for a 4,000 square-foot addition to its processing facilities as soon as it receives the required permits from the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality.
The plant will generate 125,000 tons per year of a new product called S300. S300 is a sodium bicarbonate product targeted to a niche market — older U.S. electric generating stations in highly-populated areas.
Many such plants face potential closure because they cannot meet the nation’s emission standards, and conventional wet scrubbers are not economical.
S300 can be injected the plant’s flue gas stream as a dry product, where it binds with sulfur and causes it to settle out as particulate. While the product is new, it is also a natural extension of Solvay’s history. The company pioneered the use of trona as a pollution control agent.
Senior project engineer David Hansen expects plant completion and the beginning of production in late 2009 or early 2010. The synergy of the company’s existing operations will probably mean an employment of fewer than 10 workers for the new S300 operation.
Solvay itself knows the value of using coal as an industrial fuel. Natural gas is efficient and easy to handle, and Solvay had converted from coal to gas to heat its calciners a number of years ago for exactly those reasons. But gas prices leapt from $1.69 to $10 per million BTUs in 2001. A year later, Solvay decided a switch back to coal.
“The fundamental technology was invented back in the 1920s,” Hughes said. “Now, we have modern control-burn technologies to keep emissions down. Coal is an excellent fuel for stationary firing.”
Today, about half of the Green River plant’s energy comes from the 320,000 tons of coal it purchases each year from Kemmerer Mine.
‘The biggest ever’
Wyoming Machinery plans $30 million Gillette shop
By Don Warfield
Staff Writer
When he says that Wyoming Machinery Company is keeping service to customers firmly fixed at No. 1 in its priority list, Richard S. Wheeler is backing up his claim with dollars — a lot of them, in fact.
Wheeler and WMC have announced plans to expand the company’s Gillette Caterpillar store by 140,000 square feet, more than tripling its size to 200,000 square feet.
The price tag? At $30 million, “the biggest investment for the biggest facility in our system. It’s the biggest ever,” Wheeler said.
Construction is slated to start this summer and take 18 months to complete. WMC hopes to be using the mammoth facility on Gillette’s Mohan Road by December 2009.
“It’s all about service to the customer,” Wheeler said, and in the Powder River Basin — in fact, throughout Wyoming, mining is by far WMC’s biggest customer.
Because PRB coal mines have made significant investments for the future, WMC is matching that commitment with a 20-plus-year commitment of its own, Wheeler said.
While mining equipment will be a primary focus of the new facility, it will welcome all manner, types and sizes of equipment, from small construction loaders to highway trucks.
What is now the shop area at the existing store will become a greatly expanded warehouse, with better and quicker service to the mines as its primary objective.
Rebuilding equipment of all sizes will be a major focus of the expanded Gillette store. WMC’s Casper Component Rebuild Center currently refurbishes parts for rebuilds and repairs of all types. The Gillette expansion will house a similar shop, albeit on a slightly smaller scale, to handle tasks specific to mining equipment.
Jim Anderson, director of parts and service, points out that rebuilding existing equipment can save customers 50 percent versus new costs.
“Rebuilding has become a huge part of our business,” Anderson said. “The opportunity to rebuild haul trucks, dozers and other large mining equipment is tremendous.”
Besides sheer size, the Gillette center will have some design characteristics specifically targeted to mining’s giants. Some of its work bays, for instance, will be large enough to handle rebuilding operations for Cat’s 400-ton haulage trucks. Beyond the shop, an increased parts inventory and Gillette’s location closer to the center of the PRB will contribute to the goal of better customer service, Anderson said.
Bigger shops at Gillette will have an effect on WMC’s work force, too. Besides requiring the hiring of about 20 new people, especially heavy equipment mechanics, the new space of the new facility will allow WMC to train more workers, Anderson said.
Green mechanics need time to learn before they can be assigned to field service. Gillette will provide that experience.
Work-force recruiting at all levels remains a priority, Anderson said. The company has set of a goal of 500 techs by the end of 2008. It is well on the way to achieving it, with a new crop of techs donning WMC uniforms every two weeks.
The company now has a full-time recruiter seeking qualified candidates in 10 states.
Wyoming employment for WMC stands at just over 750. In addition to Casper and Gillette, the company has two-year old store in Cheyenne and a field service unit in Rock Springs.
By no means will the increased size and work force of the company be dedicated solely to rebuilding existing equipment. Caterpillar began aggressively expanding its product line in 2007, and by 2010, will have 180 new offerings, director of sales Richard Oates Jr. said. The giant manufacturer launched the smaller components of the product line first, Oates said. Now, the firm is moving to upgrade its large equipment lines.
Perhaps most surprising, Caterpillar has announced that it will add A-C electric drive trucks to it existing line of mechanical drive units. The new trucks will be premiered at this year’s MineExpo Sept. 20-25.
A-C drive trucks will be more efficient on coal haul roads in the PRB, Wheeler and Oates said, because those roads are easier to maintain. The company will continue to recommend its mechanical drive units for overburden and spoil uses, Oates said, because haul roads there are unavoidably harder to maintain.
Caterpillar currently has three A-C truck models in field development: a 260 ton 793F, which will share suspension design with the current 793 mechanical version; a 250 ton 793F; and a 360 ton 795F. Horsepower will range from 2,650 to 3,400.
“These trucks will be all Caterpillar, from the ground up,” Wheeler said.
Designing, building and implementing every component will give the trucks a significant advantage in serviceability and service life.
Not to be outdone, Caterpillar’s 797 series mechanical drive 400-tonners are getting a new 4,000 horsepower engine, the C175-20, for the upcoming “F” series. The engine will quite literally replace two: Older 797s used dual engines coupled together. The new engine is a single-block design but still adds nearly 500 horsepower to the truck.
New models of the 24M motor grader will be missing something, too — the steering wheel. Safety officers need not go into cardiac arrest, however. The 24M will use joystick-controlled electronic steering, which will actually be more accurate and ergonomic than traditional steering.
Also new to the 24M this year will be the C18, 533 horsepower engine, which provides better emission control. Other product lines will also feature enhanced emission control, and not by accident or good luck. “Caterpillar has made record investments in emission technology,” Oates said.
It’s not all roses out there, though. The Wyoming surface mining industry primarily runs on two energy sources. The cost of one, electricity, is remaining relatively stable for the present. Not so the cost of diesel fuel, as American drivers can attest. WMC and Caterpillar have been moving aggressively to help the mining industry contain fuel costs.
More efficient engines help, but the single biggest savings probably results from mining practices.
“A 1.5-inch dip in a haul road represents a one percent grade for a haul truck,” Oates said. “Eliminating even the smallest depressions and rough spots is imperative.”
WMC has begun a program to help mining personnel improve haulage and loading practices, and it is offering training to equipment operators that stresses fuel efficiency.
Global demand for everything from steel to tires has increased lead times for components and delivery times for equipment. Fortunately, Wyoming mining companies have had “excellent vision” about their equipment needs and have ordered accordingly, Wheeler said.
The sheer size of the Wyoming mining industry has helped availability as well. Despite what Oates calls “an explosion” in foreign equipment markets, the Wyoming Powder River Basin is the seventh-largest market in the world for “machine opportunities.” That means that Caterpillar pays attention when Wyoming mining speaks.
Contrary to other markets, Wyoming lead times for major mining equipment are less than two years.
With growing service centers, a growing work force of skilled employees, a $30 million investment in Gillette and an aggressive increase in its Caterpillar product line, Wyoming Machinery Company is building for its future.
