HF Sinclair

Unplanned downtime in a mine is a significant cost and stress for operators – with equipment expected to perform 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Lubricants play an often-overlooked key role in mining equipment's efficiency, reliability, and lifespan.

Here, I explore the advantages of partnering with a lubricant technical advisor to enhance your mining equipment's efficiency, output, and performance.

Improving Equipment Performance with a Technical Services Advisor

Mines strive to optimize uptime, increase reliability, and save costs where possible. There are various means of improving efficiency and cost-effectiveness, including preventing unplanned downtime, optimizing oil drain intervals, and extending the service life of equipment. With years of experience and industry insight, collaboration with a lubricant technical expert can help you achieve these goals.

Optimizing oil drains, for example, requires the use of highperformance products as well as collaboration with a lubricant expert and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to check that equipment protection and reliability are not compromised and warranties are not affected. When done correctly, this can reduce maintenance and labor costs the volume of waste oil produced, and keep equipment operational for longer between maintenance schedules.

Transitioning to lower-viscosity engine oil can also save fuel without sacrificing engine protection, especially for equipment that idles frequently. Switching from an SAE 15W-40 to a 5W- 40 oil can allow equipment to start up in colder temperatures and protect against engine wear, providing efficiencies for those working in extreme environments. However, seeking advice and insight from a technical advisor and checking the OEM manual before transitioning to the lower viscosity oils is key. Technical experts can also help with your workshop setup, advising on storage upgrades and space-saving solutions.

Contributing toward Your Sustainability Goals

Optimizing your operation can contribute toward improving fuel economy and reducing carbon emissions and, in turn, the sustainability efforts of a mine.

By extending oil drain intervals, the amount of waste oil generated per year can be reduced. Using high-performance, lowviscosity lubricants can reduce the frequency of oil changes and improve cold start-up for mines in extreme conditions, which means less oil is wasted.

"Optimizing your operation can contribute toward improving fuel economy and reducing carbon emissions, and in turn, the sustainability efforts of a mine"

Additionally, when oil is drained, removing filters containing liters of oil leads to an increase in other waste products. Extending oil drain intervals can reduce the amount of waste that needs to be disposed of, including extra oil and filters, as well as packaging waste from the lubricants and filters.

Combined, all these elements can help contribute toward the sustainability ambitions of a mining operation.

Getting Started with a Technical Services Advisor: A Step-by-Step Process

When looking to build a new relationship with customers, Petro-Canada Lubricants starts at the beginning by assessing the customers' equipment, needs, and goals to create an executive plan.

A key part of this process is a comprehensive onboarding program that outlines clear objectives, defines roles and responsibilities, and timelines to facilitate a successful partnership. Together with the sales manager, this should include all setup activities.

During this crucial stage, all questions about existing lubricant challenges or needs should be answered, and the appropriate training delivered. This allows site personnel to speak directly about any concerns or questions they may have ahead of any changes and provides expert support.

The next step should be a holistic lubricants survey of all equipment and a review of OEM requirements to assess that the correct lubricants are being used in the right places. The lubricant technical expert may also find that a mine can consolidate the number of lubricants used on-site, which can provide a number of benefits to an operation, contributing to the ease of inventory control and simplifying billing and ordering processes.

Based on agreed initiatives, a detailed executive plan should then be drawn up with clear goals. For example, this could include increasing equipment uptime, achieving cost savings, or extending oil drain intervals. Once the plan is put into action, the advisor can begin to identify opportunities to safely extend oil drain intervals through filtration and oil analysis and optimize equipment performance.

Leveraging Expertise to Deliver Impact

Collaborating with a lubricant technical expert can provide significant benefits for mining operators, including improved efficiency, cost savings, and extended equipment life, which can help contribute toward a mine's sustainability goals. By undertaking a step-by-step onboarding process, lubricant technical experts can work with mine operators to realize their goals and optimize equipment performance – allowing them to operate at their highest potential.