Develon Heavy Machines Driving Estonia’s Oil Shale Mining
In the last week of November, we had the opportunity to visit a loyal customer of the Develon brand, Estonian KKT Oil OÜ, and its distributor, INTRAC Estonia, at an oil shale mine located in northeastern Estonia, approximately 100km from the Russian border. This mine is home to Develon's heaviest excavators, with two DX1000LC-7 and one DX800LC-7 working together on this site alongside their smaller 50 t sibling, the DX490LC-7.
Also on site is a DL480-7 wheel loader used for customer loading of crushed material. These three excavators alone have accumulated over 50,000 hours of operation in four years, averaging 5,000 hours per year per machine.
- DL480-7 17,000 HRS
- DX800LC-7 20,200 HRS
- DX1000LC-7 2,300 HRS
- DX1000LC-7 15,500 HRS
- DX490LC-7 16,200 HRS
The DX490LC-7 is equipped with a hydraulic breaker to access the valuable material in the hardest parts of the mine.
Both DX1000LC-7 are equipped with a 5.5m³ rock bucket and extract the material directly, without the need for blasting.
As for the DX800LC-7, it is sometimes equipped with a bucket, or a hydraulic vibrating ripper when the ground is too hard.
What is impressive on the site is the reliability of our excavators, which complete 15 to 20 hours of work daily without any major issues. What convinced the client, compared to other manufacturers of heavy tracked excavators, is the extremely low fuel consumption relative to the machines' production.
And yes, get this: the DX800LC-7 consumes an average of 35 liters per hour, while the DX1000LC-7 boasts a consumption of 42 liters per hour.
Customer satisfaction stems from three essential factors: the reliability of the machines, unbeatable production costs thanks to low fuel consumption, and excellent INTRAC service, official dealer of the Develon brand for the 3 Baltic countries, namely Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
