Estè Muller (left) with Chris Botha, Bell Sales Representative.

Mission Point Mining is the name of the sand mine established by a quirk of fate. The late Hennie Pretorius, a dynamic entrepreneur, had founded a company that manufactured tile adhesives, grouting, and primers, aptly called Stick-a-Tile. He also ran a subsidiary company called Cleveland Silica, which provided dried sand for the manufacture of tile adhesives, construction chemicals, and foundry industries.

“In 2012, our late dad felt the need for better quality sand, not only for our own use in the drying of sand, but to also supply the local construction industry with building sand as well as sifted and unsifted plaster sand,” says Esté Muller.  Esté and her brother, Johann Pretorius, now manage the three businesses under the umbrella name of the SAT Group. Mission Point Mining also has a workers’ trust with Simon Mohapi representing the company’s employees, who all benefit directly.

“Our sand mine, named Mission Point Mining, is situated near the banks of the Taaibosch Spruit, a tributary of the nearby Vaal River, and we mine the sand under strict environmental controls. We stockpile the topsoil, which is returned when we rehabilitate the blocks where mining is complete,” Esté explains. “As we don’t have our own distribution fleet, outside companies fetch the sand, which is distributed in a radius of up to 150km.”

Mission Point Mining does, however, have a fleet of yellow machines and screens used to produce various types of sand. Excavators in the 30- and 40-ton classes mine the sand once the topsoil has been removed and stockpiled and load it into ADTs for the 2km haul to the stockpiles from where it is screened.

“You’d appreciate that our profit would lie in producing sand at the lowest cost per ton and with the current price of diesel coupled with some aging haulage equipment costing us money to maintain, we were staring down the literal barrel of rising costs affecting our bottom line,” Esté says. “During the second half of 2023, we realised we would need to replace an ADT, and we spoke to Bell Equipment’s Chris Botha who had been diligently calling on us for the past seven years.”

“Chris knew that our present haulage fleet consisted of 30- and 40-ton ADTs and with his product knowledge, suggested we look at a Bell B30E ADT fitted with 200mm greedy boards to ensure a decent heaped load in the bin,” Estè adds. “I should admit that we were hesitant at first as this was a big capital equipment commitment but the factor that won us over was what Chris told us about the Bell B30E ADT’s proven fuel consumption and this has not disappointed.”

Mission Point Mining took delivery of a new Bell B30E ADT in November 2023 and at the time of writing, this new haul vehicle had completed almost 700 hours of service.

“This Bell B30E ADT’s all-round performance has been nothing short of amazing as its frugal fuel consumption is such that we’re saving at least 10 litres an hour, which with present usage translates into a saving worth around R63 000 per month,” Estè says smiling. “Then too, with the 200mm greedy boards in place, we’re getting 27% more in production with the big, heaped loads in the bin and these factors combined, lower our production costs per ton.

“Our business is driven largely by the volumes of material that we sell and fortunately Chris and Bell Equipment understand and appreciate these factors. We’re already talking to Chris about fitting future similar-sized ADTs with bin heating to negate the carry-back of wet material stuck in the bin.

“On this performance and amazing fuel burn, the Bell B30E ADT certainly sells itself and we’d be pleased to swap out of entire fleet of ADTs to the Bell brand in time.”

 Mission Point Mining further benefits from Bell Equipment’s Classic Fleetmatic^® telematics package, which gives vital information on tons moved, machine performance, and operator behaviour.