Job Reports
EX8000: Massive in Scope
The most exciting mining projects in North America are in Alberta. Now that viable technology can extract oil from the region's oil sands at a competitive price, the Fort McMurray region has taken on a gold rushera feel as companies invest in this real alternative to Mideast oil.
One of the newest investments is the Horizon Oil Sands Project. Within two years they expect to produce more than 200,000 barrels of oil a day. To get to the oil below, however, more than 523-million-cubic-yards (400-million-cubic-meters) of soil has to be moved first. This huge task is best met by a huge solution - Hitachi's EX8000 hydraulic shovel.
Spearheading the mine preparation effort at the Horizon site is Alberta-based North American Construction Group, which has a ten-year contract with owner Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) to remove the overburden. According to Bill Koehn, North American's vice president of operations, the EX8000 will be the key piece of equipment throughout the extensive mine preparation phase.
Strength in numbers
The decision to use a machine the size of the EX8000 is predicated on a number of factors, both practical and economic. For Horizon to stay on schedule, overburden must be removed in massive volumes at impressive rates. The EX8000, with its inherent power and 52.3-cubic-yard (40-cubicmeter) bucket, can accomplish that by feeding a dozen 320-metric ton Hitachi EH5000 haul trucks as well as several “smaller” 282-metricton Hitachi EH4500s. “Obviously there are factors which can come into play and impact production numbers,” says John Fitzpatrick, mining sales manager for Wajax Industries, Ltd., North American's Hitachi distributor. “However, generally speaking, the EX8000 fills each EH5000 truck in four passes. “In operations like the ones here in Fort McMurray, it isn't just oil sand being uncovered. To get to oil, as much as 75 feet (22.9 m) of overburden, including include layers of sandstone, limestone, trap rock, and other materials, has to be removed. Even when the oil sand layer is reached, other materials can be mixed in. From an efficiency standpoint, it makes no sense to send that waste along with the processable material. The EX8000 can easily separate out materials, improving the overall efficiency of the operation.”
Fitzpatrick says Hitachi's reputation for reliability also played an integral role in North American's choice for the Horizon project - the company owns more than 100 Hitachi units ranging in size from EX200s on up. “Reliability is key to everything in a project like this,“ he says, ”and we get that from Hitachi. This is a round-the-clock, 365-day-a-year operation and it is highly dependent upon the EX8000 to meet production goals. We at
Wajax work hard to ensure that happens.”
Investing in the future
Despite its huge scope, the current work at the Horizon site is strictly preliminary. Production schedules don't call for the first drop of refined oil to be realized until late 2008. By then, says Fitzpatrick, North American will have ramped up its own production and accompanied that upturn with additional equipment purchases. “North American has already purchased another EX8000 - slated for delivery in the Fall of this year - and will add scores of new haul trucks to handle the added volumes being moved. The Horizon project and the other oil sands sites in the area are of immense importance to Canada and the world. When Horizon goes online in 2008, the whole area's output is expected to be over a million barrels a day. That's impressive, and it's exciting to know Hitachi and the EX8000 will play a key role in making that happen.”
