New expanded range of wear plate kits for heavy machinery released

An expanded range of wear plate kits is being manufactured by the TW Woods Group for the maintenance of heavy machinery employed by such industries as mining and energy, oil and gas, civil engineering and construction and infrastructure.

The growing range – produced in response to industry needs for maximum uptime, durability and cost-efficiency – now includes kits for some of the industries’ most widely used bulldozers including 854 Cat push dozer kit, D11 dozer liners, Cat 793 liners and Cat D10 and D11 blades.
These are complemented by stock kits for Hitachi R280 truck trays and Hitachi EH 4500 excavators, as well as custom-fabricated options for all major makes of machinery, says T W Woods Managing Director Mr Tom Woods.
The kits – typically employed on heavy bulldozers, trucks, graders and loaders – are precision cut, processed and packaged at the company’s new plate processing facility at Tomago, near Newcastle, which also handles challenging maintenance and fabrication tasks involving tanks, silo, chute, loader and other materials handling equipment.
Kits are distributed nationally after fabrication to the quality standards of TW Woods national and international clients, which include, for a variety of metal products, Delta Energy, Incitec Pivot, Integra Coal, Laing O’Rourke, Xstrata and surface and underground mining companies throughout Australia including iron ore producers in the Pilbara and coal companies in Queensland.

“Because we handle the broad spectrum of metal fabrication tasks in the one facility, we offer optimised quality control and delivery times for wear plate products frequently needed to precise deadlines,” said Tom Woods. “We are always aware of the uptime and maintenance needs of our world-class customers across the heavy industry sector, and we share their standards of workmanship and reliability as applied to heavy machinery,” said Mr Woods, whose company has undertaken multi-million dollar plant investment encompassing 4,500 sq m of purpose-built fully equipped workshop space at Tomago.
New plant used in the cutting and processing of wear plate kits includes a 300 amp cad-cam profile plasma cutting bed capable of cutting 13 m x 3.5 m plates up to 60 mm thick with plasma, and more than 150 mm with oxy. The facility also houses a 1,600 amp stud welding machine and a plate handling and processing facility serviced by a 10 tonne overhead gantry crane.
The company’s press brake facilities include a 1,000 ton x 3.2m brake press that can press form steel plate up to 60 mm thick, making it suitable for major fabrication tasks including include draglines, buckets, mills, earthmoving equipment, ripper blades, pressure tanks and pipelines and diverse heavy plate fabrications. The company’s services include specialised shaping, fabrication and welding technology for metals including carbon steel, stainless steel and aluminium.
Image caption: TW Woods Directors Tom and Glenn Woods with their plasma cutting plant.

http://pipeliner.com.au/news/uptime_demands_expanded_range_of_wear_plate_kits_custom-fabricated_for_heav/081864/

Mudslinging in China's Heavy-Machinery Sector

Digging for dirt on China's machinery sector can be productive, especially when the economy's stuck in the mud.
Several companies that supply excavators, loaders and other construction equipment ran into trouble in 2012 and in the first few months of this year. The main problem was slowing economic growth, though oversupply of equipment was a big factor too. That led to slumping sales, rising inventory levels and a sharp uptick in accounts receivable as hard-up customers took longer to pay.
All that was supposed to end with an uptick in the economy in 2013. Instead, growth still looks uncertain—with little cheer to be found in recent data on factory activity and industrial profits, for example. Sun Hung Kai Financial analyst Vik Chopra noted that sales data for some equipment has turned positive recently. But that's off a low base, and prospects for a rebound are unclear, he said.
With green shoots of recovery hard to come by, the sector makes fertile ground for naysayers.
Take Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology Co., the second-largest company in the sector by market capitalization, at $8.9 billion. Zoomlion suspended trading in its Hong Kong- and mainland China-listed shares Monday after a Chinese news website alleged the company's sales data included false numbers. It declined to comment and said a statement is pending, though none was available at the time of writing.
Investors will be concerned. Zoomlion has already had to defend itself once this year, after an anonymous letter to the media and regulators in January accused it of exaggerating sales. The company declared then that its accounts are accurate.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324310104578508913946561542.html

Activist Locks Himself to Keystone XL Heavy Machinery Launching a 'Red River Showdown' Over KXL South

TUSHKA, OKLAHOMA--(ENEWSPF)--April 22 - On Earth Day 2013, to mark the close of the State Department’s public comment period for TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL Northern Segment (KXL North) pipeline’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), an activist with the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance has locked himself to a piece of Keystone XL heavy machinery in Oklahoma, temporarily halting work site construction. Alec Johnson, a 61-year old climate justice organizer from Ames, Iowa took direct action to defend the Red River in solidarity with the Mayflower, Arkansas community, which is currently reeling from last month’s massive tar sands spill. The disaster, due to a 22-foot long gash in ExxonMobil’s ruptured Pegasus tar sands pipeline, has resulted in chronic health problems for nearby residents and has left Lake Conway dangerous polluted.

“This is our environmental impact statement,” stated artist/activist and Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance spokesperson Richard Ray Whitman. “TransCanada claims its technology will prevent spills, but that same technology was used on the Pegasus line, too. That didn’t work, now, did it? We are taking a stand to protect our access to clean water. KXL South is already being constructed with or without the North, and the destruction of our waterways in its path is not a question of if, but when. No toxic pipeline is worth the gamble and no communities in Texas or Oklahoma deserve the fate of Mayflower, Arkansas.”
While the current fate of KXL North rests upon U.S. Presidential approval, KXL South’s now lies in the broad-spectrum opposition it has garnered in the form of legal cases as well as the grassroots civil disobedience campaigns by groups like Great Plain Tar Sands Resistance and Tar Sands Blockade. Should KXL North be permitted to start construction, these groups along with grassroots indigenous organizations, several Lakota Nation tribal councils, and over 60,000 others have pledged resistance in the form of non-violent direct action to halt pipeline construction.
International treaties like the Treaty to Protect the Sacred and strongly-worded tribal council resolutions like those recently passed by the Oglala and Ihanktonwan Oyate/Yankton Sioux General Councils pledging resistance to KXL North “by all means necessary” indicate a tremendous unity amongst Great Plains indigenous nations. The strong reactions come after years of inadequate consultation on the part of TransCanada with regards to impacts on the Lakota Nation communities by its toxic tar sands pipeline. In recognizing the dire threat to their first medicine, sacred water, the communities are also embracing the spirit of international solidarity with First Nation communities downstream from tar sands mining sites. After years decrying the chemical pollution and resulting destruction of traditional life ways from tar sands exploitation in what some affected indigenous peoples refer to as a “slow industrial genocide,” Cree and Dene Nations are experiencing an upsurge in sympathy and solidarity with their plight.
“I am personally amazed at how resistance to the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline and education as to what tar sands exploitation looks like continues to grow every day,” Johnson wrote in a statement prior to his action. “Because it would be irresponsible, we’re not stopping until the industry stops poisoning our futures with lies, unnecessary risks, and death for their profit. As long as the tar sands industry promises it will kill, we will blockade.”
http://www.enewspf.com/latest-news/latest-national/latest-national-news/42395-activist-locks-himself-to-keystone-xl-heavy-machinery-launching-a-red-river-showdown-over-kxl-south.html

Ritchie Bros. offers online heavy equipment marketplace

Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers has launched an online website for heavy equipment sales that gives buyers and sellers an eBay-like experience for purchases of everything from helicopters to dump trucks.
The Burnaby-based auctioneer held the commercial launch of its online marketplace, EquipmentOne.com, in a webcast on Monday.
Chief strategic development officer Bob Armstrong walked participants through the workings of what he described as an innovative and unique addition to the used heavy equipment market.
Ritchie Bros. has a $4-billion-a year auction business specializing in industrial equipment, but Armstrong said although the company is the world's largest seller of used equipment, it has only a two-per-cent slice of the $200-billion-a-year global market.
"The size of the used-equipment market worldwide is colossal," he said.
Half of that market is handled through private negotiations between buyers and sellers.
"We recognized an opportunity because Ritchie Bros. has the reputation, knowledge and brand to bring to that side of the market."
Ritchie Bros. quietly launched the site Jan. 2, Armstrong said, but has spent the last three months refining it and getting feedback. During that period, the website did $10 million worth of transactions.
It has 606 listings, but includes links to other websites. However, its listing tool is available only to sellers in the United States at this time. Canadian sellers are expected to be able to list equipment later this year, with further international expansion planned for 2014.
Armstrong said Ritchie Bros. borrowed elements from existing buy-and-sell websites to develop its own portal. "We have taken advantage of all the great ideas that consumer websites and non-machinery equipment websites have used to create an awesome experience," he said. "It is quite different from what you are used to seeing in the equipment world."
Instead of kicking the tires of a log loader, a potential buyer has access to details about the equipment, high-resolution photos that can be zoomed in on, and market analysis showing what the going prices are for the displayed equipment. Negotiations are all visible, and Ritchie Bros. stands behind the process, Armstrong said.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Ritchie+Bros+offers+online+heavy+equipment+marketplace/8215059/story.html#ixzz2QALlnu5i