RNMC, a division of Quadra Mining Ltd., turned to Timken to provide condition monitoring and bearing maintenance training as well as bearing repair services for its Robinson open pit copper and gold mine near Ely, Nevada, USA. Since the inception of Timken’s training, RNMC technicians have been able to collect data on some of the mine’s most critical bearing applications and identify problems before equipment has failed.

“Within two months of initiating our program, Timken helped us find impairments in two bearings that undetected could have caused catastrophic results,” said Cary Brunson, mill maintenance general superintendent at Robinson. “Without Timken’s training and reliability services support, these two events alone could have cost us in excess of an estimated $3 million each in unscheduled downtime, labor and parts.” According to Timken, in both cases identified by RNMC, early detection of problems allowed maintenance planners to schedule repairs and order parts to prevent subsequent unplanned shutdown of the equipment.

Timken offers a portfolio of condition monitoring solutions, including portable handheld devices, continuous monitoring devices, online systems and field reliability support services. Those support services range from vibration, infrared thermography and oil analysis to fan balancing, ultrasonic analysis and video-scope inspections.

Quadra Mining’s principal mining assets, in addition to Robinson, include the Carlota copper leach project under construction in Arizona; the Sierra Gorda advanced exploration copper-molybdenum project in Chile; and the Malmbjerg molybdenum development project in Greenland.

The Sierra Gorda project is located in northern Chile, situated in the Atacama desert, 140 km northeast of the port city of Antofagasta. The project comprises eight contiguous properties that cover an area of approximately 23 km2 in a region that has hosted a number of other significant copper mines and resources including BHP Billiton’s Spence project 10 km to the northeast, Antofagasta Holdings’ El Tesoro mine 15 km to the southeast and the Lomas Bayas and Mantos Blancos mines to the southwest.

The Malmbjerg project on the east coast of Greenland is one of the highest grade molybdenum deposits amenable to open pit mining that is currently being considered for development. Studies have proposed a conventional open-pit operation with a production rate of approximately 23 million lb/y of molybdenum commencing in 2011. Quadra acquired the property following its takeover of International Molybdenum plc earlier this year.