Major shovel Fail.

Hank R said: I heard last night that the mine has 3 500 ton cranes around shovel so I guess things are happening getting ready to lift shovel off the ground soon. Click to expand... thanks for the update. Going to be fun coming up with the rigging for that, and it may have taken a while to round up the cranes. Did they ever give a weight for the shovel without undercarriage?

Yes it has also word has it that a couple wheels at the mine are now Greeters at Wally world.......

crane operator said: Did they ever give a weight for the shovel without undercarriage? Click to expand... 1200 tons give or take.

I work in a mine in Northern Alberta, but my main house (the place I call home, and go to on my days off) is a little more than 20km directly north of Highland Valley. I'll try to add to some of the comments and info shared so far. Hank R said: I know not much but I am wondering what it will take and how it can be jacked up again and how much shock load damage was done when the fall stopped??? Click to expand... Until a thorough inspection can be done when the shovel is back level, the current belief is that the shovel is a write off, and will be parted out. 92U 3406 said: Normally we did all the undercarriage work without splitting the shovel. Only time we'd split it was if it needed a center pin, swing rollers or carbody hour'd out. Click to expand... I agree, unless the carbody is being swapped out, the jacking and splitting of the shovel with a walk out of the undercarriage would be for center pin replacement and roller path repairs. BI shovels are notorious for center pin problems. We have 4 of them, and they have each broken the center pins several times. DMiller said: Last photo, post 18 Look FAR Left, UC. Appears was removed to REAR. WHY would they do that? Would have to be taken SIGNIFICANTLY Higher to get it out. Click to expand... The design of the BI shovels is such that the bottom of the rev frame is actually the same level as the bottom of the counterweight. It wouldn't actually be any higher to walk the undercarriage out the rear than the front. An advantage of walking it out the rear is that it would be out of the way, instead of being under the boom. The counterweights are actually plates welded to the rear of the rev frame, unlike the P&H design where the counterweights are separate cast steel pieces hung off the rear of the rev frame. To be clear, I am referring to the external counterweights, and not the internal counterweights that are steel punchings inside the rear of the rev frames on both brands of shovels. John C. said: I don't know about front shovels but I was told all the booms in the big drag lines were filled with nitrogen gas. A leak would trigger an alarm. Click to expand... 92U 3406 said: I don't believe the shovel booms are filled with nitrogen. At least the ones at the 2 or 3 mines I went to weren't. Click to expand... I grabbed both quotes purely for context here. The booms on rope shovels are all built out of boxed plate sections. They are open to the elements through inspection ports. So no way to seal or pressurize them. I've spent too many hours gas testing the boom, and all of the other confined spaces on my shovel when it's down for maintenance to ever want to see the insides of them again. But it happens at least once a year, whether I like it or not. Nige said: 1200 tons give or take. Click to expand... I would actually guess the weight of the machine in the pictures would be closer to 1000 tons as it sits. The stick and bucket are off, and everything is gone below the upper roller path, so I think the weight would be a little less than estimated. I have friends who work in shovel maintenance at Highland Valley, and as Hank R mentioned, they are currently recruiting to fill several management positions after the incident. Unofficially, the failure was due to unengineered "field modifications" of the jack system to allow it to mate up to the shovel. I can't say more than that unfortunately. But hopefully this helps to shed some more light onto the situation.

I heard this morning that as of the 19th nothing has happened yet Cranes are on site and the cost keep adding up and there is no plan that my contact has heard of yet.

In my mind just thinking that maybe the mine will use this as a parts machine and order a new shovel. Just thinking .... I have no idea as to how many hrs or????? Since around Nov 12 or 13 is when things went sideways.

I heard that they have started to lift shovel with 3 cranes.

Hi Hank . Any updates on that shovel Lift?

I have been out of town for a fe days and forgot about updates so just sent a text off to my contact as soon as I hear any ting I will let you know.

The mine has raised the shovel and released the 3 large cranes. The shovel is resting on large beams and cribbing. A lot of down time for this shovel as it went down mid November, and now just starting the rebuild. No pictures yet but hoping for some.

I have heard from a very reliable source that shovel repair was to start to replace the large rollers on the car body which the plan was before it came to a sudden stop (fall) now some one in the last several months has open all the crates that the rollers came in and left open for snow/rain dust to ruin RUST the rollers. New ones are on order at a cost of around $260,00.xx

Doesn't shock me in the least.

Ooops. What's a quarter million or so between friends?

Believe me I've seen corporate mining customers dig holes and bury new or almost-new parts rather than try to sell them off to make a few cents on the dollar.

Nige said: Believe me I've seen corporate mining customers dig holes and bury new or almost-new parts rather than try to sell them off to make a few cents on the dollar. Click to expand... Mines waste so much its not even funny.

I heard there are several unhappy employees that they suspect open the crates that rollers came in and left open to the weather. but can not prove.

Hank R said: I heard there are several unhappy employees that they suspect open the crates that rollers came in and left open to the weather. but can not prove. Click to expand... Do some DNA testing on the urine soaked into the bottom boards of the crates.....

Nige said: Believe me I've seen corporate mining customers dig holes and bury new or almost-new parts rather than try to sell them off to make a few cents on the dollar. Click to expand... One day I mentioned to one of our upper managers we were thinking about making a sculpture of a monster out of miss ordered parts on the mill bench. We had corporate coming for a tour in a couple days and they would for sure be curious what this proposed sculpture was. A mid level manager piped up and said we should call it the planer (he had just "voluntarily" retired and never left his office to put eyeballs on anything before he ordered it). The upper manager was not impressed though couldn't deny the fact we've had large amount of money spent of misordered parts. He politely asked us not to build this creation.