R1500: first fully designed and manufactured LHD loader
Built on a passion for mining and manufacturing, it’s no surprise Elphinstone has been leading the way in equipment innovation and design for half a century.
Following an economic downturn in the mid-1980s, mining companies wanted to reduce their tunnel sizes, which required smaller machines with equal capacity.
In 1986, Elphinstone accepted the challenge and, in just 7 months, they produced and sold their first fully designed and manufactured load haul dump loader (LHD), the R1500.
The following year, Elphinstone sold its first R1500 overseas to Henderson Mine in the US - now owned by Freeport McMoRan.
Dale recalls negotiating with the purchasing team at Henderson Mine: “The guy said to me quietly, you realise that your machine price is double your competition, and I said back to him quietly, I had no idea what the price of our competition was, because we sell the value of our product and what it will do for you”.
Elphinstone replaced 36 of the competition’s loaders at Henderson with just 10 Elphinstone R1500 LHD loaders.
Henderson Mine, Colorado
The Henderson mine is near the Urad mine, which produced molybdenum from 1914 to the 1960s, before exhausting its orebody. Owner Climax Molybdenum Co. recognised the potential for deeper orebodies in the area, and discovered the Henderson deposit in 1964. The mine was named after mining engineer Robert Henderson.
Production began in 1976; on Jan. 4, 2010, workers mined the billionth pound of molybdenum. In 2006, remaining ore reserves were estimated to be 500 million pounds of recoverable molybdenum.
The Henderson mine was considered by the National Science Foundation as one of the two final candidates for the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory, but lost to the Homestake Mine in South Dakota.
