Mineral resources dot the landscape from east to west, north to south. In East Africa, tanzanite and gold dominate the mining sector, with Tanzania as a major gold producer. In West Africa, iron ore exploration and mining are on the rise while North Africa is home to about 85 percent of the worlds phosphate reserves.

In its Mining in Africa Towards 2020 report, KPMG International noted that Africa contributed 6.5 percent of the worlds mineral exports during 2011. Of the total, countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) produced two-thirds of Africas mineral exports, with South Africa as the continents dominant player.

However, mining activities in South Africa have been unsettled of late because of widespread labor unrest. We have been in a crisis, and we are probably starting to come out of it, so we have to rebuild confidence, David Gamble, AngloAmericans senior tribologist, global fuels and lubricants, told LubesnGreases at the 2nd ICIS African Base Oils & Lubricants Conference in Cape Town.

Constant Lubrication

With huge mineral deposits, Africa is home to many mining operations, operated by both local and global corporations, and all of them need a wide variety of lubricants. Mining is highly mechanized and involves heavy equipment that needs constant lubrication to maintain efficiency and ensure long life.

In his ICIS presentation last November, Gamble, who is based in Johannesburg, listed the myriad equipment required for mining activities, including drills, draglines, excavators, loaders, trucks, bulldozers, crushers and cranes to name just a few. According to Gamble, lubricants are at the core of mining operations because they impact machine efficiency and maintenance costs. Therefore, reliable lubrication is essential for machines to attain maximum performance and last their useful life.

Patrick Swan of Aswan Consulting, a Cape Town tribology and failure analysis firm, concurred that mining equipment requires special lubrication such as open gear and heavy gear dressing for massive drag line units, some fire resistant fluids and possibly water-based fluids. He added that mining operators require lubricants that meet the latest specifications for higher-performance lubricants such as API CI-4.

Hydraulic fluids, mostly mineral oil, are used by the coal mines as fire resistant fluids, and gold mines may still use a 98 percent water-based fluid, Swan said. Drag lines are special, massive machines that use a lot of heavy gear oils and fluids.

Daniel Nunoo, managing director of Ghana-based Finnexx Energy (Gh) Ltd., said, Mining equipment requires heavy-duty diesel engine oils, transmission fluids (gearbox, final drives, etc.), hydraulic fluids, heavy-duty greases and industrial gear lubricants to thrive. Although he acknowledged that there are challenges in servicing the mining industry, he said it is also rewarding.

Gamble emphasized that the main advantage of adopting good lubricant and fuel practices for mining operations is reduced total cost of ownership. Saving 30 large engines from premature or catastrophic failure could conservatively save U.S. $10 million, Gamble said.

Multinationals Dominate

There is a consensus of opinion that multinational companies or majors dominate the supply of lubricants in Africas mining sector. The suppliers are generally large multinationals that rely on volume to make their blend plants more cost-effective, Swan said. There is not much profit in this business, and service is very important because of the size and cost of the equipment. New suppliers would typically be multinationals who have a large global supply network and that provide an effective product portfolio and technical service.

According to Gamble, major mining companies tend to have group or regional contracts with the major suppliers for generic lubricants such as diesel engine oils, hydraulic oils, transmission oils, gears oils and general purpose greases. Special lubricants are often purchased from specialty suppliers for open gears, pin and bushing applications, draglines, etc. These volumes are significant and normally require high levels of service and backup from suppliers, he said.

Despite the huge volume of lubricants required for mining operations in Africa, independent and indigenous manufacturers on the continent insist that original equipment manufacturer certification is a barrier to entry in the mining sector. Independents consider OEM certification a strategy employed by the major lube manufacturers to secure their share of the business.

Finnexxs Nunoo described the frustration felt by independents and indigenous blenders regarding OEM certification as they try to compete. We lose major business opportunities every year because of OEM insistence on major brands in Africa, Nunoo told LubesnGreases in an email. The specifications are not difficult to meet, but the bureaucracy [involved in] getting approvals from OEMs is just impossible.

Nunoo elaborated with an example where Finnexx lubricants were rejected by an end user even though they met OEM requirements. We market branded lubricants blended at the Tema Lube Oil Co., a blending facility used by Shell, Total and other oil companies. Base oil is procured jointly to a standard of quality acceptable to Shell and Total, and our additive suppliers are Chevron Oronite and Lubrizol.

Along with the additive supply come guidelines on treat rates and typical specifications they meet. In addition, our team is made up of personnel from the downstream industry with many years experience in developing lubricant products. In 2013, Finnexx delivered against an order to supply railway lubricants to be used in General Motors engines owned by ArcelorMittal, an iron ore mining company in Liberia. Our lubricants met all the requirement for use in GM engines, Nunoo said. However, when our customer contacted GM, they [GM] supplied a list of approved lubricants that excluded the Finnexx brand. Consequently, Finnexx lubricants were rejected and banned from the plant site by the customer.

Nunoo continued, We proceeded to contact GM South Africa for guidance on the companys approval procedure, and we provided information on our blending controls for the product, additive used and treat rates, technical datasheet and material safety datasheet. And we offered to send any samples for testing. The company also provided information on the blending plant, a testimonial about its experience in blending Shell and Total grades for over 20 years, and quality and environmental management status.

All this was to no avail, Nunoo said. Eventually, we tried to approach Chevron Oronite who had an approval for the additives we used, but again the will was just not there to go that far with Finnexx. He concluded by saying, This is just one example of the numerous frustrations we face with OEM recommendations, and unwillingness to support or provide equal opportunities for minor players in the industry.

Irfan Khan, general manager of General Petroleum Tanzania, agreed. We have the same range of products that are used in lubricating the mining sector, but the equipment manufacturers recommend [only] a group of 11 plus products. We also blend [these same products] in Tanzania, but we dont have OEM certification yet, which is their primary requirement. However, he added that General Petroleum is seeking OEM certification for most of its Tanzanian-produced products.

Although Gamble agreed that the majors dominate the lubricants business in Africas mining sector, he added that the situation is fluid. In many African countries, the majors have divested their downstream marketing companies to agents and distributors, he said. Also, he noted, African governments are increasing pressure on mining companies to patronize local manufacturers.

Gamble said that another factor is that some countries are not favorably disposed to lubricants suppliers from North America, U.K. and Europe because of the way companies from these countries run their mining operations. This has given birth to joint ventures, agents and distributors as a way to enter the market.

Trends in Mining Lubricants

Gamble said that the mining industry is gradually upgrading its lubricant consumption to higher tier products. In the past, we used the lowest tier acceptable because of cost. Now, where a business case substantiates the benefit for an individual mine, we can justify buying something that might be more expensive initially in order to protect our equipment and give us added value.

He added, We are gradually starting to purchase and use higher tier lubricants. In support of this view, Swan noted that there is a move to very high viscosity index hydraulic fluids, but said that the move is slow because of the high volume of fluid that is lost when a hose bursts or a leak develops.

Nunoo said there are still vast deposits of unexploited ore, and the cost of growth is a real challenge to mining companies. He added that wider use of synthetics and long drain interval lubricants is the future of the industry. Gamble agreed, We are going to see more API Group II, some Group III and certainly synthetics. Synthetics, especially, will help improve energy conservation.

Gamble concluded by stating that the trend is upward with regard to quality. Volumes may decrease a little, and we might spend a bit more because we have to keep equipment running. Higher production is our main objective now, and to get that, we need the equipment to be running. He added, We also look at keeping lubricants clean and making sure our equipment has the proper filtration so we can extent the oil drain interval.

Finally, the manner in which mines handle waste oil is critical in view of environmental regulations. Gamble said that there are various methods for handling waste oils at mines. At certain big mines, all of our waste oil goes into what we call the process mix, where it is used in place of diesel fuel to mix explosives, he said. Other mines have contracts with companies that collect used oil and deliver it to rerefiners.