Volvo's excavators boost Indonesian gold mine productivity

The Indonesian mining contractor, PT Samudera Mulia Abadi (SMA) chose in 2016 Volvo to be the exclusive construction equipment supplier and the partnership shows positive results on productivity.

SMA, which manages the Toka Tindung gold mine in Manado, North Sulawesi brought the first two units of the EC950E to Indonesia in 2016.

Since then, the Volvo’s excavators have proved their efficiency as they have contributed to increase productivity by up to 30 percent on the site.

The gold mining company, PT Archi Indonesia’s subdivision, PT Meares Soputan Mining (MSM) is the concession owner of the Toka Tindung Project.

Ozgur Zor, mine planning and production manager at PT MSM said: “Since we introduced the EC950E, our fleet productivity has gone up by 25 to 30 percent. We have been quite excited by the EC950E’s performance onsite.”

SMA signed Gold Customer Support Agreement (CSA) with PT Intraco Penta Prima Servis (IPPS), which is Volvo’s distribution partner for the Sulawesi region, to ensure regular scheduled maintenance, inspections and immediate onsite support when needed for the Volvo machines.

Sixty Volvo machines work on the mine among six 75-ton rated EC750D excavators and more than fifty large articulated haulers (A40F and A45G units).

Ozgur Zor noted: “Volvo’s aftermarket is very responsive. The significant number of spare parts onsite really helps us to reduce downtime. After we changed the entire fleet exclusively to Volvo, efficiency has increased and fuel consumption and costs have gone down significantly. That has been a big achievement.”