Cobre Mine Panama is a large open-pit copper mine located 120 kilometres west of Panama City and 20 kilometres from the Caribbean Sea coastline. The concession consists of four zones totalling 13,600 hectares and includes open pits, a processing plane, two power stations and a port. The mine, owned by an Australian company, First Quantum Minerals (FQM), is ranked in the top 20 largest copper mines and the biggest copper mine opened globally in the past decade. Operations commenced in 2019.
FQM and the Australian-based NMT Global Project Logistics (NMT) sourced equipment globally in preparation for the mine opening. FQM contracted multiple suppliers/manufacturers of mining equipment from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia and South Africa and contracted Grindrod in 2017 to provide a range of onshore services - The Cobre Panama project.
The Grindrod team provided an integrated freight logistics solution, including full project management support and timeline management for 24 months to ensure delivery of the equipment to the mine in Panama within the estimated cost and time budgets. Equipment included ball and sag mills, mill shells, abnormal disassembled cranes and many manufactured components for the new mine.
The abnormally large/out of gauge equipment was road hauled from the source (DRC and Zambia) to the Port of Durban in South Africa for export. The project utilised eleven vessels over the two years. Due to the complexity of scale and domicile, a dedicated team of project cargo specialists constantly tracked and managed the consignments to remain within timelines, budgets and restrictions during transit, constantly updating key stakeholders to progress against expectations. Circumstances such as border delays had to be pro-actively managed to avoid demurrage costs and related standing time charges. The integrated nature of the solution required hands-on management of various sub-contractors for heavy lifts and road haulage, freight and route surveys in order to mitigate liability risks from origin to destination. Grindrod’s extensive port, cross-border and intra-Africa knowledge was imperative to the project’s eventual success.
Contact us for any integrated, cross-border out of gauge/abnormal freight solutions from southern Africa to the rest of the world.
Grindrod is a global logistics provider specialising in heavy-lift, project-related and oversized cargo.
