Market Analysis: Underground-Mining Mobile Equipment Report Summary

Around 1,000Mt of ore was extracted from underground hard-rock mines last year. While conventional, non-mechanised, methods are still employed to a large extent; mobile mining equipment is the mainstay for the majority of the largest underground operations.

A new report by Sweden's Raw Materials Group (RMG) and The Parker Bay Co of the US ('Market Analysis: Underground-Mining Mobile Equipment') examines this sector of the equipment market. The report, which follows a two-year study, concludes that Atlas Copco and Sandvik are the clear market leaders, each with over a one-third share of the sector. Caterpillar has a significant share of the LHD and truck markets, making it the most viable competitor to the two leaders, with the other equipment suppliers being mostly regional and niche players.

Wheel loaders comprise the largest single product group (with almost 12,000 units in operation), followed by mining trucks (with an estimated 7,500 units) and development drills (around 7,200 units). Both production drills and bolters have far smaller installed bases (in the vicinity of 2,000 units each). Sandvik is the leader "by a narrow margin" in underground loading and haulage equipment, while trailing Atlas Copco in development drill rigs. The two are "on somewhat equal footing for both production drills and bolters".

The report by RMG and Parker Bay is based on a jointly-developed Underground Mining Equipment Database (UGDb) that covers over 950 of the world's largest underground hard-rock mines. The machine data in the report comes from approximately 40% of the mines in the UGDb (and these operations account for over half of global ore production), and this information has been used to predict the global installed base for each product line.

The UGDb identifies approximately one-third of the total population of more than 30,000 underground trucks, LHDs, drills and bolters. There is a variation in this coverage by product line that ranges from an estimated 19% to 38%. The report cautions; "while the nearly 10,000 identified machines is a notable subset of data from which to draw conclusions about the population as a whole, it may not be statistically representative due to greater availability of sources of data for certain manufacturers, regions, models, etc".

Product Analysis

In the report, RMG and Parker Bay examine five sets of mobile equipment:

• Wheel Loaders/LHDs – Atlas Copco's Wagner Scooptram, Caterpillar's R-series (Elphinstone), GHH Fahrzeuge's LF series, Sandvik's LH/Toros and EJCs, Zanam Legmet's LKP series, and various other manufacturers (including MTI, AARD, Fadroma, Paus, Schopf and Aramine).
• Mining Trucks – Atlas Copco's Wagner MT series and Kiruna (GIA), Caterpillar's AD/AE series (Elphinstone), GHH Fahrzeuge's MK-series, Sandvik's TH/EJC/Toro 40-50, Volvo's A25-40 series and the FM 440, Zanam Legmet's CB4 PCK and P24K, plus units from DUX, Bell, Maclean, Getman and MOAZ.
• Development Drills – Atlas Copco's Boomer Jumbos, Mine Master's Face Master series, Sandvik's DD-series (Axera/Quasar) and H-series Jumbos, and units from MTI, AARD, RDH, Rham, Zanam and Oldenburg.
• Production Drills – Atlas Copco's Simba tophammer and ITH, Sandvik's DL (Solo, Quasar) tophammer, and units from Cubex, Boart Longyear, MTI and RDH.
• Bolters – Atlas Copco's Boltec series, Mine Master's Roof Master series, Sandvik's DS/Robolt and Cabolt series, and units from Maclean, JH Fletcher, RDH and AARD.

In terms of active units, load-haul-dumpers (LHDs) are the most common type of mobile mining equipment utilised in underground hard-rock mines. The UGDb identifies around 38% of the 11,750 LHDs believed to be in operation worldwide. There are nearly 200 different models among the 4,500 LHDs in the UGDb, from just a few for some manufacturers up to Sandvik's 70 models.

Extrapolating the known data to the population as a whole shows Sandvik having the greatest number of wheel loaders, with over 4,000 units in operation, followed by Atlas Copco and Caterpillar with 3,900 and 2,400 units, respectively. Based on the UGDb, these three manufacturers appear to account for a combined 88% of the known population of wheel loaders/LHDs. However, this calculation may overstate their combined market share, with other manufacturers, such as GHH Fahrzeuge, Zanam Legmet and MTI, probably having closer to a quarter of the market. The report goes on to compare these LHD market shares by payload capacity (in five classes), and examines the factors that influence choice of equipment size and manufacturer.

The report analyses the underground truck market by size, in five classes, ranging from payloads of less than 10t up to Sandvik's 80t TH680. The average payload, according to the database, is 35t. The most popular model is Sandvik's TH550 (formerly Toro 50+), with 186 known units in the field, ahead of Caterpillar's AD55 with 157 units.

The report separates drills into development and production units; with these two types accounting for around 90% of the drills identified by the UGDb (the remainder comprise mainly exploration and raise-boring drills). Development drills are by far the largest category of underground drilling equipment, with an estimated population of 7,200. The database identifies about a quarter of these operating units (the UGDb containing 65 different models), with Atlas Copco and Sandvik controlling the lion's share of the market. There are an estimated 1,900 production drills in operation underground (both tophammer and in-the-hole), and the database identifies over one-third of these units. Atlas Copco and Sandvik account for a massive 47% and 42%, respectively, of this market.

Compared with the other product categories, the RMG/Parker Bay database contains far less information on the use of bolting rigs in underground mining. The market for bolters, however, is assumed to be around the same total size as for production drills. The UGDb identifies 346 bolting units (35 different models), which represents an estimated 19% of the total market. According to the known data, Sandvik has slightly more bolters in operation than Atlas Copco, with 40% and 37% of the market, respectively.

Detailed Analysis

The report also analyses the mobile underground-mining equipment market by region and by commodity.

In terms of the regional analysis, the report notes that Asia has the largest mineral production from underground operations, with China far and away the biggest source. Underground mining also plays an important part in South African output, accounting for more than half of the country's mineral production. The reverse is true in the US, Peru and Brazil, where most production comes from open-pit mines.

While the clear leader in underground mineral production, Asia has the smallest mobile equipment population in the UGDb. It accounts for more than one quarter of the global underground ore production but less than 10% of the surveyed mobile underground-mining equipment. The report notes that, to some extent, this is the result of a large number of non-mechanised mines in the region (with the opposite being the case in developed markets like the US and Australia).

It is also thought, however, that the UGDb accounts for a lower percentage of the equipment population in Asia than in other regions. In Oceania and North America, for example, the UGDb includes equipment details for around two-thirds of the underground mines. In contrast, the UGDb has details from less than 20% of the mines in Asia. Many of these undocumented mines are likely utilising equipment from indigenous suppliers, for whom the UGDb has few details.

www.rmg.se

Based on Raw Materials Group information