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Dasut - beyond blended fuel conversions CAT have just ran a FULL battery demonstration of a 793F truck at their demo centre in Tinaja Hills - Tucson AZ, again as you have mentioned a battery big enough for shift operation, interchangeable?, fast charging? Etc but clearly CAT and other OEMs are giving this a lot of attention - again public info google 793F battery… on the smaller end of town there are battery options for UG smaller boggers are available CAT R1700 XE (Google) UG no emission, reduced heat generation etc, Sandvik have mid last year taken an order for battery UG fleet - Foran Mining copper in Canada, Epiroc have battery options too… Hydrogen as previously mentioned there are manufacturers exploring this option, open pit mining brings scale complexity - large mining trucks with large payloads need large amounts of practical power - therefore a few complexities.. also Canadian miner “Copper mountain” have a Komatsu truck fleet with Trolley Assist in operation, as do CAT in Sweden - Boliden mining, so plenty of options out there either existing, under serious R&D or concepts being explored… obviously life of mine, application, material SG, haul distances and grades, supply chain logistics and all that other great stuff make some of this a bit more complex than it may seem on face value….. hope some of this helps
Dasut - CAT have a conversion kit readily available called DGB, Dynamic Gas Blending - this essentially is a conversion kit that enables a traditional diesel engine to run on BOTH diesel and gas as a mix thus reducing notably the diesel consumption and subsequent emissions, so that is an OEM available solution now, info available on their web site / Google. In addition there are other aftermarket companies doing a fair bit of R&D an example in Australia is Mine Energy Solutions (MES) who are working with some prominent miners and mining contractors with HDCNG - High Density Compressed Natural Gas also a blended fuel system substituting up to 85% of diesel consumption - I know there was a 789 operating in Queensland with this conversion, however an element MES have in their solution is greater consideration to supply chain and leveraging stranded GAS reserves often not in commercially viable quantity to extract and “produce” but can be leveraged in blended fuel options - all available information on their web site - an interesting read and a few. Idea testimonials… trust this expands a little on the gas options - remembering plenty of Gas in Egypt ??
DASUT - my logic (rightly or wrongly) the Law 32 ruling paves the way for the CC challenge to Centamin to be null and a non event… that has not yet actually happened yet… we have been on a solid Northerly trajectory since Nov22
Tibbs - no worries.
Dasut - thank you for your wishes, family all great thanks, mother currently visiting down under from blighty… enjoying some warm weather, hope you and yours are keeping well.
Let’s see what materialised on the 19th and beyond
Happy new year all.
Holder since 2004, early days of military lands - challenges to explosive licenses - Aussie exploration drill contractors and mine staff evicted from site multiple times.. wrote a long post earlier which evaporated… so may not have the patient to rewrite…
Having met the el Raghy family a number times at site, Cairo and Alexandria I hold them in high regard.. exploring, permitting, building and establishing a Gold mine to produce in the region of 500k is No mean feat in any jurisdiction.. let alone Egypt and on such a time of political and social change
My 2023 outlook:
Positive - reducing AISC - full year of power mix utilising solar, acknowledging power mix required - mill etc, full year of optimised payload truck bodies, reducing waste to ore strip ratio, reallocation of additional fleet from pure muck shifting to regular mining and associated more normalised strip ratio’s, consistent leadership approach that so far have resisted the temptations of adrenaline shot type results.
Development of other Centamin Assets - PFS conclusions and ideally BFS completion supporting investment.. at a stretch maybe line of sight to construction or even commence early construction phase very late 2023, visibility of timelines for development of other mines in Egypt - bolstering the hard rock mining industry in Egypt, coupled with an in region refinery should all help ref Court Case etc.
Not so positive - if leadership changes or they are pressured into adrenaline shot results, acquisition at sub £2 in my view short changes everyone apart from the buyer, further geological incident, unplanned wall movements, UG challenges - this mining game is no an exact science and very easy to commentate from the armchair / side lines especially retrospectively…
I am going to post this- before it goes south again.. probably a problem in the seat - ha ha, apologies if I have errors or not wholly explained my view - all the best anyway… we don’t know we are alive unless we are on the edge…. And if we are not on the edge we are taking up too much space - said in jest and to raise a smile - Good Luck all 2023 in my view a very strong year for Centamin - and us
Dasut…. Yes still loitering in the shadows ??, Emissions in mining Mmmm lots of headlines and noise, basically most majors manufacturers have come out with various partnership announcements with most major miners of one form or another, the way I see it in the market currently the majors are hedging their bets - exploring full battery, expanding diesel power - electric drive, expanding hybrid configurations and investing in Hydrogen, but the simple reality is the bigger the equipment the greater the complexity of scale, CAT, Atlas Copco and Sandvik all have full battery smaller UG boggers today deployed, trialling etc, full battery large mining equipment will need dramatic technological advances for shift duration, performance, recharging tech, maybe quick change battery modules etc all of which to replace 1000’s of diesel horse power in large mining equipment - no easy task, that said manufacturers and miners alike are actively pursuing these options to explore the alternatives or be seen to be exploring such tech as part of their ESG expectations and or disruptive investor perception pressure - judge for yourselves. Now wrt Automation this is expanding at a pace, in the early stages specific applications lend themselves to autonomy e.g Large Iron Ore mines in WA where mine plans are quite consistent and it huge volumes of material being moved, hence most early fleets have been deployed in much applications, more recently - last 12 months or so mining truck automation has started to gain momentum in coal fields of Qld, with one of the first fleets being converted and many new machines being specced “autonomous” ready, furthermore applications like strip dozing have seen degrees of automation such as 1 control room and operator operating multiple driverless Dozers, or in more risky applications or tasks line of sight remote control - but this has been around for some time. Often the two topics are linked up Electrification (full / partial) and Autonomy but with no direct interdependency. The bottom line is large scale mining needs to be productive, efficient, effective and demonstrate a commercial return to owners / shareholders, with greater and greater emphasis on ESG - large mining trucks could in theory run on 50 000 AA batteries… but they don’t for all the obvious reasons. Enough of my ramblings hope this gives a few perspectives to current activity related to battery, power alternatives, electrification and Autonomy, take care - look after yourself Dasut.
Cey cohort... “Long time listener / reader - not frequent caller / poster” ha ha. First purchase in 2003 at 7p many in between at varying prices, sold a Small selection recently at 2.08 have to say very seriously contemplated selling all @ 2.30 but did not. Had a few moments in the past few days.. trying to justify in my head to hang on for dividend, then reassess after that.... thoughts... sterling contributions from the eclectic group we have on this board - thank you
Yup Dasut, reading with Interest, as you rightly say - “long haul” distances usually means greater costs and risks. TKPH is usually the governing factor, Tons per Kilometres per hour often governed by tyre life and impactful to power train of the mining trucks and therefore costs and reliability / availability and therefore tons produced, down here us Aus we have a number of 777 Haul config with modified powertain components And pulling bottom dump trailers to Better tolerate longer distances.... larger wheel bearings etc, but typically Relatively flat application but up circa 30km hauls Each way. Great to see share price back in this zone. After first buying 15 years ago with the subsequent highs and lows... when to exit.... decisions. Take Care all.
After many years of holding (first share purchase early 00’s at 7p) encouraging to see this get back to respectable levels, keen to see developments beyond the Egypt domain, but somewhat satisfied with current valuation, @DASUT enjoy your views and perspectives... takes me back to the old days in East and West Africa... good luck all we deserve to enjoy the current flavour and market centamint (he he)