Oil condition monitoring company WearCheck will launch its LubriGard lubrication management programme, which is being trialled at several coal mines in the Middelburg–Steelpoort area, in Mpumalanga, in the second half of this year.

A member of Torre Industries, the company aims to drive market awareness of this combined lubrication management programme this year.

WearCheck MD Neil Robinson tells Mining Weekly that the LubriGard programme is a service- and product-related combination, comprising oil sampling and the supply of products such as breathers and filters, as well as auto-lubrication and lubrication-dispensing products. The company will actively manage these components as part of an oil sampling management programme.

The programme is suited to the mining industry, as well as any industry requiring a lubrication management programme.

Robinson first noticed the need for such a programme about three years ago, when the company started an underground mining sampling service. “Mining operations or mining companies also required additional lubrication management in combination with oil sampling,” he points out.

WearCheck will also launch a gas engine-specific analysis kit this year, which has been guided by customers and their expectations of different testing profiles available in the kit. The kit has been designed to provide the best analysis profile, test methods and diagnostic interpretation for gas engines, using sour or natural gas.

The company will exhibit at this year’s Investing in African Mining Indaba, which will take place from February 8 to 11 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. This will be the company’s fifth exhibition at the event, where it will showcase a range of reliability and analysis solutions.

Progressing Service
In line with expanding its African network, WearCheck aims to launch two new laboratories on the continent in the first quarter of this year. The first will be the launch of WearCheck Zimbabwe. The laboratory will be located in Harare and will provide a full range of services, including transformer oil analysis. The other laboratory is destined for gold producer Randgold Resources’ Kibali gold mine, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and will be available to other customers in the area.

Capital expenditure on the two laboratories is expected to exceed several million rand.

Mining Weekly reported in June 2015 that construction of the Kibali laboratory, which was approved in October 2014, started in March last year. The laboratory, including its benching, electrics, computer networking, satellite communication, fume extraction and make-up air systems (air taken from an additional source for an interior space) and generator, was built and assembled in a shipping container.

The laboratory will further offer a range of condition-monitoring services for the mining sector, including oil analysis and coolant and diesel testing, as well as a fast sample turnaround time. It will also have a new X-ray spectrophotometer, imported from Japan, to determine the sulphur content of diesel.

WearCheck’s laboratory services in Africa include a laboratory in Ghana, which services the West African mining sites, while its laboratories in Mozambique and Dubai service the East African mining industry. In addition, WearCheck also has two laboratories in Zambia and one in India.

“It remains a key strategy of WearCheck to expand from South Africa into Africa as well as further afield,” Robinson avers, believing that this strategy has been boosted recently by diversified industrial equipment group Torre Industries’ May 2015 acquisition of the Setpoint Group, of which WearCheck is a member. The integration process will be phased in over several months.

Torre is an integral business in sectors such as mining, industrial, automotive and construction, and has shown steady growth since its listing on the JSE in 2012. Its business divisions include lifting technologies, parts and components for heavy moving machinery and crane rental.

“Since Torre has offices in West Africa, WearCheck will benefit from having access to these offices and, therefore, countries throughout the region, such as Liberia, Guinea, Gabon and Côte d’Ivoire, and those in the Southern African Development Community, such as Botswana, Zimbabwe and Swaziland,” Robinson says.

He also expects that WearCheck will be provided with greater access to capital and the ability to pursue business in these areas.
Although Robinson acknowledges that the mining industry faces several pressures in cost-cutting and efficiency in productivity, he highlights that, since the company’s product offering and customer base covers a significant geographical spread, it enables the company “to survive hiccups” in the industry.

“WearCheck receives and manages samples from more than 60 countries worldwide. While sample volumes from South Africa may have decreased, the company’s other laboratories and their services . . . are performing well.”