Atlas Copco will fold its drill rig and loader/truck businesses into one division by transferring production of the latter from Portland, Ore., to its Rock Excavation Technology Center in Sweden.
The transfer will result in layoffs for most of the 215 employees at the Portland plant and is expected to cost about 150 million krona.
“By concentrating all our resources in Sweden, we can more easily respond to customer demands related to rock excavation,” says Bjorn Rosengren, vice-president of the construction and mining division of Atlas Copco.
The plant in Sweden employs 685 people, and the restructuring is expected to create an additional 150 jobs.
A Quebec construction company is using three jumbo drills designed by Sandvik Tamrock to hollow out a 9.8-km channel at a hydroelectric project in the province’s northern region.
The channel will be 11 metres wide and eventually carry water to turbines at a Hydro Quebec generating station, 120 km north of Baie-Comeau. EBC, a Quebec contractor, is building 8.3 km of the channel and ordered the specially built drills to complete the 13-metre-high tunnel.
The drills advance about 10 metres per day, and 600 metres have been drilled thus far.
C-COM posts higher revenue
C-Com Satellite Systems, which services mines in remote areas, posted revenue gains during the third quarter, though the company remains in the red.
Revenue was $665,461 in the third quarter, compared with $226,146 in the corresponding period of 2001, whereas for the first nine months of this year, revenue totalled $2.1 million, compared with $454,121 a year earlier.
Nonetheless, C-Com incurred a 9-month loss of $884,427, compared with a loss of $1.3 million a year earlier.
Dynatec wins Amplats contract
Dynatec will perform tests and engineering studies on material from Anglo American Platinum’s operations in South Africa. The tests will focus on nickel-copper matte that contains platinum group elements.
The studies will be used in a feasibility study aimed at increasing production to 3.5 million oz. platinum per year.
Many South African base metals refineries that process PGE-bearing nickel-copper matte use pressure leaching technology licensed from Dynatec.
Dynatec’s contract in this case is valued at $1.5 million. Work will be carried out at its pilot plant in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta.
Dynatec’s metallurgical technologies division develops and tests hydrometallurgical processes for the extraction and recovery of non-ferrous metals from ores, concentrates and mattes.
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