ExxonMobil field engineers helped South African mining company, Stefanutti Stocks (SS), save €19,000 per year on a single dump truck. The team trialled a bespoke lubrication solution that combined Mobil Delvac™ MX 15W-40 heavy-duty diesel engine oil with a used oil analysis programme. This helped increase productivity, reduce costs and enhance SS’s environmental footprint. SS identified lubricants as a potential means to improve operational efficiency. The company called in ExxonMobil’s Field Engineering Services (FES) team, which conducted a three-month oil drain interval study using Mobil Serv^SM Lubricant Analysis, a state-of-the-art used oil analysis service.

Following the trial, the FES team suggested switching SS’s Komatsu HD465 rigid dump truck to Mobil Delvac MX 15W-40, an advanced heavy-duty diesel engine oil. The change-over extended oil drain intervals from 250 to 1,000 operating hours, which cut the amount of time needed by engineers to replace oils by more than 38 hours – on a single truck. This reduced the chance of maintenance-related risks, increasing on-site safety. It also decreased SS’s environmental footprint by cutting oil consumption by more than 1,000 litres per year.

“We know that our expertise, combined with the right lubrication solutions, can deliver great results, even with a single truck, and this trial has once again proved it,” said Colin Henneberry, Field Engineer at ExxonMobil. “The team at Stefanutti Stocks was great to work with and we’re excited to continue helping the company increase productivity and cut costs.”

“We are extremely proud to have been part of this trial,” said Jerome Christian, Engineering Manager at Stefanutti Stocks. “We look forward to exploring new solutions with the teams at ExxonMobil.” Komatsu HD465 rigid dump trucks have a nominal payload of 63 t and a load capacity of 40m³. “Improving operational efficiencies is a priority for Stefanutti Stocks,” says Christian,  “We use approximately 230,000 litres of lubricant across our group operations annually; reducing this consumption would see us decreasing operational costs substantially, while also reducing our environmental footprint. An increase in our equipment availability would of course also increase our productivity on sites.”

The multidisciplinary construction group owns a fleet of over 1 700 pieces of equipment across its operations in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. These are utilised by its Mining Division; Roads, Earthworks & Pipelines division; Stefanutti Stocks’ local general contracting operations in Zambia, Botswana, Nigeria, Mozambique and Swaziland; as well as by its Geotechnical, Civils and Marine construction divisions.

Sixteen of Stefanutti Stocks’ HD465 fleet are now using the new Mobil lubricant. “Based on our assessments during the field test, our conservative estimate is that this particular fleet will work an additional 5.95% (or 44 hours) on the Mobil Delvac MX 15W-40,” says Christian.

In numbers, this translates to the following improvements, per annum:

• Safety: 608 hours (the overall hours of exposure are reduced).
• Environmental care: 17,328 litres (fewer litres of oil used).
• Productivity: ZAR4,749,591 (revenue saving, considering both direct and indirect saving)