These are old operating cost figures but:

Trucks will cost seventeen cents plus the milage payment per mile to the driver which can be 25 cents per mile or more per mile plus fuel surcharges

Rail will cost ten cents per ton and or more mile plus the fuel surcharge not including additonal costs such as labor, insurance, depreciation.

Rail systems usually cost 2 to 3 milion dollars per mile for inintial installation unless a narow gauge mine locomotiveand car system is used.

Conveyors will cost 6 cents per ton mile or more due to

installation costs and other variables such as labor and insurance, depreciation, maintenance.

A pnuematic capsule pipeline will cost two cents per ton mile to operate.

a capsule pipeline system can be anchored to railroad ties and be mounted on th esurface of the ground and th epiep joints can be made with victaulic grooved couplers and clamps eliminating welding and it will only require on employee per million tons tranfered from A to B the return leg of a single or twin tube system can be significantly improved by the installation of snychronus motors to make electricity with the air moving in reverse passing through the blower and feeding electricity back into the grid.

with your tonnage and distance a capsule pipeline will benefit you.

Costs are relative to actual conditions.

To see a capsule pipeline currently in use:

Google (Karasawa mine)

This limestone mine owned by Mitsubishi which is located on a mountain has a capsule pipeline that replaced a railway from the quarry to the cement plant. and buried the pipe in the railroad right of way from the quarry to the cement plant.

Google (www.pnuetrans.net) a canadian supplier of capsule pipelines.

Google (www.capsu.org) for a history and links to various PCP-pnuematic capsule pipeline related- sites.

regarding lorrie and rail useage the trains/lorries return empty from point B and and you still have to pay for that as they may or may not be haulling anything back to the point A.

Asking for and actual ball park figure is really hard accomplish unless you provide more infomation such as the desired tranfer rate, the topography, distance and surface geology, availability of electricity let alone the right of way or lack there of to allow complete accuracy for same. ■

Dear Mr. Stan,

Whether to use rail, road or conveyor is a matter of large investment. It is better to make at least approximate cost analysis for involved equipment and infrastructure. The cost analysis should cover land, mechanical, electrical, structural, civil work and operational cost. Such analysis should include associated terminal facility in each case.

The result / cost can vary case to case basis depending upon mtph, operating hours in a year, terrain, number of rivers to be crossed, whether conveyor running on ground or on elevated structure. There are other factors also such as acceptability of particular type in context of site / environment and safety / security.

The belt conveyor demands somewhat more security all along route. Rail / road transport is less prone to petty stealing and sabotage.

Rail / road transport demands elaborate facility at terminals (such as stockpiles, reclaiming, wagon (truck) loading, again at destination wagon (truck) unloading stockpiling, reclaiming, etc.). This becomes expensive when capacity is sufficiently large. As against this, the terminal facility for belt conveying is quite easy.

In general one will find that belt conveyor is economical for 10 to 15 kms distance if system has sufficiently large capacity and it is required to work most of the time. The distance figure is indicative only. For example there is 100 km long conveying system in Sahara. It must have been adopted because it must have been found to be economical.

The road transport can become economical even in such distance if capacity is very low, average / good road already available, very less operating hours in a day etc.

Rail transport system will come in analysis if distance is large, or in a captive situation.

The investor (owner) generally opts for reasonable analysis, unless he is convinced about the economy of a particular system, due to similarity of his application with existing system operating in identical business field (like one cement plant will look to such system in other cement plant etc.). But someone doing it for the first time has to analyse.

The cost aspect also can vary from country to country, depending upon local input, import, custom duty, manpower cost etc.

Regards,

Ishwar G Mulani.

Author of Book : Engineering Science and Application Design for Belt Conveyors.

Author of Book : Belt Feeder Design and Hopper Bin Silo

Advisor / Consultant for Bulk Material Handling System & Issues.

Email : parimul@pn2.vsnl.net.in

Tel.: 0091 (0)20 25882916 ■