A MacLean EV Series™ carrier fitted with a third-party emulsion charging plant is part of the company’s expanded presence at this year’s edition of the Mining Indaba in Cape Town, South Africa.
MacLean Africa will be showcasing this latest battery-electric mining vehicle (BEV) offering outside the CTICC in front of the Cullinan Hotel during the event, which runs from February 7-10.
The Sudbury-based company has had an established, in-country presence in South Africa since 2001. This was the company’s first ever international branch and, since that time, the local sales and support team has grown in line with the expansion of the MacLean fleet deployment across the continent. The company now supports MacLean mining vehicles at customer operations across South Africa, as well as in Namibia, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Mali.
MacLean Africa General Manager, John-Paul Theunissen, said: “Our message to the African mining community at Indaba is simple and I hope, resonant – MacLean is manufacturing and supporting mining equipment that is custom designed for underground mining on this continent, supported by an in-country team of skilled engineers, product managers, field service technicians, and repair and rebuild mechanics. We are here for the long haul; we have the critical mass of talent and parts and manufacturing capacity and we have your full fleet of production support mining vehicles, ready to get to work.”
MacLean President, Kevin MacLean, added: “I’m excited by what MacLean Africa has already done in terms of building out the MacLean fleet footprint across Africa and I’m even more excited by what the future holds for us in this crucial mining region. We can walk with customers as they explore options for the rollout of a battery-electric, automated, and data-rich mobile fleet that will drive the ‘no boots on the ground’ mining of the 21st century. We have it all – the present and the future of underground mining mobile equipment, technology, and services. We are above ground where your fleet is underground in Africa.”
This year is an important one for MacLean as it marks the company’s 50th year of operations. What started out as a niche, custom equipment solutions provider for the Canadian industry in the 1970s has evolved to what it now claims is now the world’s largest Canada-based manufacturer of underground mining vehicles, with a worldwide staffing contingent that surpasses 1,000 employees across four continents.