There has been some caterwauling lately about the relative paucity of press releases by Alloy Steel International (OTC BB: AYSI.OB) on the stock’s Yahoo and Investor Hub message boards. Some of this caterwauling seems to have been emanating from disgruntled former shareholders who dumped the stock after the company’s 10-k , which featured lower-than-expected Q4 earings, and before its Jan 12th press release announcing a 37% sequential growth in revenues from Q4. Today the company issued another press release, just a couple of weeks after the last one. After the jump is the text of that press release, followed by a few notes on the conversation I just had with the head of Alloy Steel’s North American operations, Bud Sprouse.
First, the press release:
Arcoplate Field Trials Impress US Market
PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA–(Marketwire – January 26, 2010) – Alloy Steel International (OTCBB: AYSI) — New data from North American field trials convinced the US market of Arcoplate’s unequalled longevity and cost benefits.
Results from the trials, presented at the Rocky Mountain Master Mechanics Conference in South Dakota on 12 December, showed that Alloy Steel’s Arcoplate had a significantly higher wear rate and lasted up to six times longer than other products on the market.
Mr. Bud Sprouse, Vice President of Alloy Steel’s North American office, and co-presenter Mr. R W Lieke, demonstrated that one ton of Arcoplate outlasted six tons of regular quenched and tempered hard steel, at least twice that of regular old style weld overlay plate.
US field trial results were used to illustrate significant cost savings to mine owners and to highlight how Arcoplate performed in high wear and material hang-up (carry back) situations in comparison to its competitors.
Trials in the iron range documented the differences between large electric-powered shovel buckets lined with Arcoplate and shovel buckets lined with heavy hard iron steel castings and quenched and tempered steel (Q&T) plate.
In hard rock mining conditions, Arcoplate lined shovel bucket lasted in excess of 8,000,000 tons. The heavy steel lined shovel buckets lasted for only 1,000,000 tons before needing replacement liners or requiring welding repairs to the iron steel castings.
Typically the photo to the right generally demonstrates what was once considered a normal wear protection package that in some cases is still being used to overcome wear. However, the above wear package has severe limitation by increasing substantially bucket weight and configuration severely decreasing cycle time by suffering from having to overcome massive friction losses, and downstream mechanical failures because of excessive stresses placed on the machine outside the machine’s design parameters.
The photo to the right shows an Arcoplate hi efficiency bucket that not only significantly cuts down on the weight of the earlier wear package by greatly improving cycle times, load capacity, and wear life generally is improved dramatically while mechanical stresses are well within original manufacture’s design specifications.
Mining dump truck bodies using Arcoplate to line the tail area lasted in excess of 30,000 hours. Dump trucks with a standard lining on the tail area required major repairs after 3,000 hours.
A D11 bulldozer with a normal weld hard facing overlay needed the blade reworked after only 22,000 hours. In the same mining location, an Arcoplate lined bulldozer blade has lasted for 45,000 hours and is still in operation. Estimates show the blade is likely to last for 90,000 hours.
These impressive results gathered in North America across a broad spectrum of mining operations only confirm what Alloy’s (OTCBB: AYSI) clients In Australia and in other international markets are reporting back with their own experiences on how Arcoplate continues to challenge previous wear package designs and material selection.
Bud Sprouse, Alloy Steel’s top man in North America, was kind enough to spend a few minutes on the phone with me just now. A few notes from our conversation:
- Bud mentioned that he joined Alloy Steel has head of its North American sales in September of ‘08, reporting to Gene Kostecki, but he had worked as a consultant for one of the company’s distributors for a few years prior to that. He has thirty years of experience in the mining industry.
- Bud said that the other individual mentioned in the press release, R W Lieke, reports to him and covers the coal industry in the Western US.
- Bud said he’s currently looking to hire someone to cover coal mines in Kentucky, and that the company would like to eventually hire someone to cover Canada (particularly Western Canada). Bud covers Canada now himself — and Mexico, though he doesn’t get there as often.
- I asked Bud if questions about capacity had been a concern for potential buyers in the past, and if these concerns were being assuaged by the company’s construction of new mills. He said yes on both counts.
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