Mine Services Group Sets The Pace

18 August 2006

Anderson Mine Services makes extensive use of XLERPLATE® steel in the fabrication of mine ventilation control devices

A Queensland company is setting the pace as a rapidly growing service provider to an industry at the heart of Australia's minerals boom. The Anderson Group, established in Mackay in 1994 and now with branches in Newcastle and Wollongong (NSW), has prospered by providing comprehensive services to support the coal mining industry.

The Anderson Group consists of Anderson Industries, Anderson Mine Services and Anderson Mining Hire. Anderson Mine Services now ranks as one of Australia's leading underground coal mining services contractors.

The company specialises in the design, fabrication and installation of mine ventilation devices including stoppings, seals, regulators, machine doors, man doors and overcasts.

Anderson Mine Services' fabrication department manufactures ventilation and methane drainage systems, mining consumables and specifically designed products to support the underground coal industry. A mining operations department installs the ventilation devices and carries out secondary support functions.

Anderson Mine Services makes extensive use of XLERPLATE® steel made by BlueScope Steel in the fabrication of ventilation devices. It sources its steel through BlueScope Steel distributor, OneSteel.

"Ventilation devices are a crucial part of every underground mining operation," company director Greg Anderson said. "Their design, fabrication and installation are areas where our expertise has made us dominant in the Queensland market and we are now poised to expand into New South Wales."

"We manufacture machinery doors and man doors for access and regulators which can be adjusted to control the amount of air movement within a mine, but a significant component of our work involves. These structures separate fresh intake air and contaminated return air. They can be very simple or quite complex and generally they are all unique to suit the particular circumstances for which they are designed."

The overcasts, which are designed as modular units, are fabricated in the Anderson Mine Services workshops, then undergo a trial assembly before being taken underground.

"In most instances our own staff take the components down into the mines and assemble them on site," Greg Anderson said. "Some customers organise their own assembly, but our reputation is as a complete service provider, so we carry out most installations. The overcasts have to meet a lot of exacting standards because they are such a vital part of safe underground mining activity. They have to be designed by engineers and rated to withstand a certain amount of pressure blast."

"Each mine has its own special circumstances. There are different seam heights, there's different equipment in use and each company has its own overcast requirements which can include walkways, air deflectors, different numbers of man doors and various pressure ratings. There is ongoing demand for overcasts because mines are constantly being developed and that requires additional ventilation. In one of our fabrication workshops 25 men are kept busy over two ten hour shifts, producing the overcasts and associated ventilation structures."

"We use BlueScope Steel because we never have a problem with quality and their technical support, which we source through OneSteel, is everything that you could want. We have another workshop which carries out major contract fabrication work including the fabrication of dragline and shovel components for P&H MinePro. As part of the Quality Assurance requirements for this work, heat treatment documentation for the steel is required. Heat treatment certificates for XLERPLATE® steel and other technical issues are never a concern."

"When it comes to technical support you need a local supplier and we want Australia to still have a steel industry in 20 years time. We rely on the support of local customers, so its natural that we support our local steel manufacturer, especially when BlueScope Steel and its distributor OneSteel can deliver the goods."