RICHMOND, BC, CANADA (December 11, 2015) — Wenco was recently awarded a contract to provide a suite of mining systems for Catoca diamond mine in Northeast Angola. One of the largest diamond mines in the world, the open-pit operation at Catoca runs as a joint venture between Angolan state companies and the Russian mining group ALROSA.
The clear advantage of Wenco solutions led the mine to choose Wencomine when replacing its outdated fleet management system from another vendor. Several managers and key specialists at Catoca favour Wenco products they know from use at other ALROSA sites, including Aikhal, Nyurba, and Severalmaz.
As well, Wenco has a legacy of collaborating with ALROSA to implement new products and to provide on-site and remote support that maintains their solutions at a high level.
"It's great to be part of another project with ALROSA, especially here in Africa," said Ruan Knoetze, senior systems support engineer with Wenco Africa. "We're looking forward to giving them the support they need from our offices here in Africa."
The upcoming system at Catoca includes the full Wencomine fleet management system as well as a new communication system based on Motorola-Zebra wireless technologies. Catoca will also benefit from high-precision shovel and drill systems and Dynamic Dispatch, which will control the flow of ore to the mine's two processing plants.
The mine also intends to use the Wenco fuel efficiency system. Wenco will install fuel level sensors on almost all production and auxiliary equipment to monitor fuel consumption. Data from these sensors will then feed into the Wenco Fuel Dispatch service, which automatically sends haul trucks to refuel as their fuel levels fall low.
"We expect that the Wenco system will optimize the mine operation," said Rómulo Mucase from Catoca's mining department. "We need real-time monitoring of production, and technical and mechanical condition monitoring of mining equipment."
The Wencomine system will run in Portuguese, English, and Russian on site. Implementation is set to begin next year, put forth by a joint group from Wenco offices in Africa, Russia, and Canada.
For more information about the Catoca project and Wenco's complete range of mining systems, please contact us:
Iosif Tabakman, Regional Manager, CIS
itabakman@wencomine.com | 604-270-8277
Ruan Knoetze, Senior Systems Support Engineer (Africa)
rknoetze@wencomine.com | +2712-940-1020