When you're having a mining equipment appraisal performed for the first time, it's not unusual to wonder what kind of equipment will be covered during the process. The short answer is: all of it. There are certain high-level pieces of equipment that should always be covered when you're having your mining company's equipment valued, to ensure that you have proper documentation of that value in case of a cave-in, mudslide or similar event that causes that equipment to be lost. Here's a quick look at major categories of equipment.
What Kind of Equipment is Checked Out in a Mining Equipment Appraisal?
- Excavators: In the old days, mining was accomplished by pick and shovel, but the advent of machine power has made excavators the equipment of choice to get the job done quickly and efficiently.
- Draglines: Used by miners to drag dirt away from the surface to reveal minerals beneath the surface, draglines do an exceptional job of quickly removing tons of dirt in a single pass, presenting a mineable surface for excavation.
- Roof Bolters: To improve safety and reduce the risk of cave-ins during mining operations, roof bolters are used to force bolts into a rock face using hydraulic power.
- Longwall Miners: With hydraulic systems that support the mine ceiling during operations, longwall miners remove rectangular sections of minerals, allowing pockets of a mineral to be removed without disturbing as much of the surrounding rock.
- Continuous Miners: To remove mineral deposits a bit at a time from a large deposit, continuous miners feature large, rotating teeth to get the job done.
- Rock Dusters: Used to prevent fires, rock dusters spray nonflammable rock dust onto mining faces in coal mining, to prevent the coal from catching fire during mining operations.
- Shuttle Cars and Scoops: To transport minerals from the mining location to collection points within the mine, shuttle cars provide essential transportation to scoops, which finish removing the minerals from the mine entirely.
- Haul Trucks: Capable of hauling hundreds of tons of dirt, rock, minerals or other material in a single payload, haul trucks are huge dump trucks, specially designed to carry extreme loads.
- Highwall Miners: When exposed surfaces from open-pit mining reveal horizontal seams of minerals, highwall miners are used to extract this material to optimize mining efficiency.
- Bulldozers: Used to push large amounts of material around, bulldozers can be part of loading, clearing and scraping operations to help reveal mineral seams to mining operations.
- Graders: In open-pit mining, graders help keep the roads into and out of the pit operational to allow heavy equipment to pass and continue operating.
- Conveyors: When rock is crushed or mineral material needs to be moved around the mining site, conveyors help get the job done quickly and efficiently.
Though this should give you a solid idea of what type of machinery is evaluated during a mining equipment appraisal, it is by no means an exhaustive list. Other items that can be evaluated include transporting vehicles, rock crushers, ventilation systems, laboratory testing machinery and other assets that help keep your mining company operating in the black on a daily basis. However, it's important that you have the appraisal performed by an accredited equipment appraiser, so you can ensure that you're getting unbiased calculations from an independent third party who has no personal stake in the outcome of the appraisal.