Post by
15Stanmore on Aug 17, 2021 5:03pm
Mine site to Plant 1 Transportation Logistics
Hello fellow Verde shareholders,
I have been meaning to share this info with you for a while, but with all the Q2 numbers to deal with I was sidetracked. Better late than never.
As you know raw Glauconite Siltstone from the current mine site pit east of Matituna is extracted by back hoe and loaded onto trucks for the approximately 20 km run to the processing plant in Sao Gotardo. Verde makes use of contractors to provide the trucks and drivers for this task, on an as needed basis. The round trip takes each truck about 2 to 2.5 hours to complete, which includes the time to load the empty vehicle, the drive to the Plant, unloading at the plant, and the return trip to the mine to repeat the process.
On a recent sample day, vehicles owned by 4 separate companies were involved and made 43 separate trips between the mine and the processing plant. The largest company had 9 trucks involved which completed a total of 28 trips, with some trucks completing 5 trips while others only ran one or two. The first truck left the mine at 7:09 am, with the last truck departing at 16:35.
A second company utilizing two vehicles completed 9 trips, one truck doing 5 the other 4.
A third company had only 1 vehicle involved, but this vehicle was in use all day and also made 5 separate trips.
The final company had only one vehicle and made one trip at 8:00 am, and was not seen the rest of the day. Perhaps a trial run for a new contractor or they had an unexpected breakdown that made them unavailable for the rest of the day.
Most of the trucks were tractor/trailer combinations (6 axle in total), but none were tandem trailer configurations that we have seen at the Processing Plant before.
Based on the standard loads the trucks involved could carry, I estimated the total tonneage transported to be between 725 and 775 tonnes on that particular count day. Working on the assumption that the processing plant capacity in a month is 50,000 tonnes of finished product, and using a 28 day average monthly production schedule, that would require 1,785 tonnes per day to be delivered from the mine to the plant. A 43 truck delivery day at say an average of 750 tonnes delivered would support a 21,000 tonne production month.
With the Q2 numbers now released we know that 96,223 tonnes were processed and sold, or about 1,145 tonnes in each of the 84 production days. This would have required about 65 truck trips per day. At a maximum of 5 round trips per day on the 7 am to 5 pm schedule, you would need to employ a minimum of 13 trucks. To hit the current 50,000 tonne capacity limit you would need 100 round trips, using 20 trucks each making 5 trips per day.
At peak throughput we saw 11 loaded trucks leave the mine site between 7:09 am and 8:02 am, with the first departing truck back for its second load by 9:07 am. Some hours only saw 3 truck departures, with most averaging 4 to 5 depatures. It would appear logistically possible to accommodate the 100 truck maximum capacity requirement using 20 trucks between 7 am and 5 pm averaging 10 departures an hour. Extending the production/delivery day from 10 to 12 or 16 hours would offer some respite from this pace of operation.
As you can perhaps tell, this one time cost accountant enjoys working with logistical challenges and optimization/cost control objectives. Hope you have found this information interesting and perhaps illuminating.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Cheers,
S.
Comment by
Sugoioi on Aug 17, 2021 6:45pm
That's exciting they can accomodate the 50K!. How are the roads holding up and how's the dust control going?