TAKRAF
TAKRAF Group, through its established and well-known brands, TAKRAF and DELKOR, provides innovative technological solutions to the mining and associated industries. With experience acquired over more than a century, the group is well positioned to provide equipment, systems and services that best satisfy its clients’ mining, comminution, material handling, liquid/solid separation and beneficiation requirements. Servicing owners and operators around the world, TAKRAF Group‘s engineered solutions are customised to the unique project requirements and are aimed at lowering the total cost of ownership and reducing environmental impact by improving efficiency with safe and reliable equipment.
Technology-led solutions: Creating an enabling mining environment
The mining industry is at a turning point marked by increasingly complex challenges and rising demand. Projects across the globe demonstrate how technology-led solutions are assisting the mining industry in taking advantage of the opportunities presented, as well as overcoming the obstacles posed by this new era in mining.
While the mining industry is experiencing a surge in demand for minerals, it is also facing more complex mining scenarios and the pressure to adopt enhanced environmentally and socially responsible practices – challenges which TAKRAF Group, with its sustainable, technology-enabled approach, is ideally positioned to resolve.
With its roots reaching back nearly three centuries to the foundation of an iron hammer mill in Lauchhammer, Germany, TAKRAF owes its longevity in the dynamic mining environment to its strategic development of advanced technologies and its comprehensive portfolio. As a result, as it approaches its 300th anniversary in 2025, TAKRAF is enhancing its focus on providing clients with innovative and sustainable, low environmental impact solutions across the value chain, from overburden removal and raw material extraction through processing to ship loading.
Global solutions provider
TAKRAF is today headquartered in Leipzig, Germany, and operates from 13 countries across 22 locations worldwide. With such a network of offices across the globe, TAKRAF carries out work on all continents, delivering technology-driven solutions customised to the client’s requirements.
For example, in South Africa, TAKRAF delivered, in a fast-track contract, a custom-designed solution for stockpiling crushed platinum ore. Awarded by Ivanplats (Pty.) Ltd. as an EPS project, the radial stacker was completed in under eight months from contract award to delivery of the equipment to Phase 1 of the two-phase Platreef Project, a greenfields platinum mine. The project comprises development of a 4.4 Mt/y underground mine, with two concentrators built in modules of 2.2 Mt/y each. The radial stacker has a capacity of 1,993 t/h and features a 44.6 m long fixed boom with dual walkway and boom inclination of 13°, and a pneumatic heavy-duty rubber tyre. It was engineered with a modular approach for ease of transport and site installation.
In southerm Mexico, a 6,000 t/h rail-mounted stacker was also completed within the client’s tight deadline. Disassembly of the existing stacker took just 2.5 days. Since the operation was in production 24/7, the new machine, designed to operate in the hot, humid and corrosive environment, and in high-velocity winds, was constructed on an operating conveyor, feeding into an operating plant. Other challenges included construction of the new stacker being carried out at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (with all safety protocols in place) and during challenging climatic conditions, including a hurricane. In a previous project for the same client, TAKRAF replaced a ship loader within the same very tight time period.
In Japan, four portal scraper reclaimers supplied to a new multi-commodity power plant are some of the largest of their type built. As two reclaimers are required to work on the same rail in the same warehouse, a dedicated safety and anti-collision system was implemented.
A rail-mounted stacker for a bulk terminal in Australia is also one of the largest ever delivered and one of the most technically advanced with its 62 m long curved boom. The new stacker boasts an initial stacking capacity of 6,300 t/h and was designed from the outset to accommodate a peak volumetric rate of up to 10,700 cu.m/h (equal to 9,600 t/h) for a scheduled future upgrade.
In another important development in Australia, TAKRAF’s network has been expanded with the opening of a second warehouse, located in Perth, and an increase in its footprint in the services business with the addition of more specialists. With this new development, the group now provides services to Australia through sales and execution offices based in Brisbane, Perth and Sydney, and warehouses in Sydney and now Perth.
Projects in progress
Recent major awards include a contract for an integrated In Pit Crushing & Conveying (IPCC) and material handling system for the Simandou iron ore complex in Guinea, Africa, one of the world’s largest unexploited high-grade iron ore deposits. The 13,200 t/h system comprises two primary IPCC systems, incorporating two TAKRAF X-TREME Class Sizers to crush extracted ore received by truck; and an In Pit Secondary Crushing & Conveying (IPSCC) system, incorporating four TAKRAF Sizers for further ore processing. In order to achieve the desired annual production rate, the crushing system has been sized with a design capacity of up to 13,200 t/h. All stockyard equipment, which includes rail-mounted stackers, rail-mounted reclaimers and wagon loading stations with buffer silos, was designed with scalability for future expansion. A complex conveyor system with transfer stations includes a technically sophisticated long downhill conveyor between the secondary IPSCC system and the stockyard.
Also in West Africa, a project awarded by a long-standing client, Societe Nationale Industrielle et Miniére (SNIM), in 2023, covers the supply of a complete crushing, screening and material handling system, along with a train loading station, for the F’Derick project. With current production of approximately 12 Mt/y, SNIM aims to increase this to 18 Mt/y. TAKRAF’s scope of supply includes a primary crushing plant with apron feeder; secondary crushing plant with pre-screening; train loading (loadout) station, with the capacity to load 100 wagons per hour; and associated belt conveyors, transfer tower and auxiliary systems and accessories. Delivery of the equipment to the port of Nouadhibou, in Mauritania, is expected to be completed in approximately two years, with the project drawing on TAKRAF’s global strength in delivering complex bulk handling systems.
These projects build on a track record in West Africa, which includes the successfully completed EPC contract for Phase 1 of Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée (CBG) bauxite expansion project in Guinea. The contract included delivery of a greenfield wagon unloading and primary crushing station, as well as a secondary crushing station and a complex brownfields conveyor system. An order for a further two conveyors was subsequently brought forward and fast-tracked from Phase 2.
In South America, a 13,200 t/h conveying system is due for completion in 2024 for a copper miner. The belt conveyor system consists of a sacrificial conveyor and an overland conveyor. The latter features a negative lift of around 150 m, as well as including various horizontal and vertical belt curves along its length. Furthermore, a new loading module for an existing belt conveyor is also being supplied. Earlier completed work in South America includes the supply of a 7,200 t/h bucket-wheel reclaimer for iron ore.
Intelligent maintenance solutions
In addition to supporting its clients worldwide with highly experienced service and maintenance teams, TAKRAF engineers its technologies to incorporate intelligent solutions for optimal safety and efficiency of maintenance activities. TAKRAF is committed to the principle that any improved maintenance solution must have a safety upside to it and that there is no need for increased safety to be at the expense of maintenance efficiency.
Intelligent solutions developed by TAKRAF include a maintenance cart to access any location along a conveyor belt, be it a tunnel, steep slope or elevated structure, in the shortest possible time and in the safest manner. The replacement of worn or damaged conveyor idlers is a global conveyor problem. A TAKRAF maintenance cart services the steep, 26% decline, 1,250 m section of an overland conveyor, which boasts more than 3,700 idlers, at a major copper mine in North America.
Another intelligent solution developed by TAKRAF to maximise safety and efficiency includes rotable chutes and external chute access for the replacement of chute liners. The sizer hot change method for crushing plants enables a hot swap between an operational machine and spare sizer on the platform.
Harnessing the power of Industry 4.0 for more efficient and safer maintenance, TAKRAF is making the benefits of data, connectivity and automation available to its customers. TAKRAF’s Automatic Belt Training System (ABTS) provides a solution to belt twisting (rotation), a critical failure mode of tube conveyors. Already fitted to a variety of global TAKRAF tube conveyor installations, the ABTS automatically determines the belt overlap position via ultrasonic sensors. If the overlap exceeds the tolerance limit, servomotors are activated that rotate the tube profile through individual idlers into the desired position via targeted tilting adjustments.
Other applications include provision of remote support through, for example, the use of smart glasses to connect TAKRAF Group experts in the office with client’s maintenance staff on site, and use of intelligent augmented reality based tools for maintenance support.