Dump trucks could not prove it. Two generators did.
A mining contractor in South Sumatra wanted to know whether Lamurindo's biodiesel additive actually improved fuel efficiency. Dump trucks and excavators move across changing terrain, weather, and road conditions all day, so no two runs are comparable. Two site generators, running a stable load, gave a fair test instead.
Mobile equipment cannot isolate what an additive is actually doing.
Dump trucks and excavators are the equipment the contractor cares most about, but they are the worst candidates for a short fuel efficiency trial. Load varies with haul distance and grade, terrain and road firmness change hour to hour, weather shifts the engine's operating point, and driver behavior adds another variable on top of all of it.
Any fuel efficiency number pulled from that kind of duty cycle is really a blend of the additive effect and everything else happening on site that day. To get a number the contractor could trust, the test needed equipment with a load profile that stayed still while only the fuel changed.
Two site generators fit that requirement. Both carry a stable, continuous load, so a change in kWh produced per liter of fuel consumed could be attributed to the fuel itself, not to a harder shift or a wetter road.
One month, stable load, two generators, a clear before and after.
Fuel is the largest consumable in a mining contractor's operation.
A small percentage is a large absolute number
Fuel is typically the single largest consumable cost line for a mining contractor, so a 2 to 4 percent efficiency gain compounds into a material saving once it is applied across a generator fleet.
Savings change what the contractor can bid
A lower true fuel cost either improves margin on the current contract or frees room to bid more competitively on the next one.
Freed budget can fund other improvements
Fuel savings that are not needed to protect margin become budget the contractor can redirect toward other operational improvement initiatives.
Cleaner combustion protects the fuel system
Over the long term, the same treatment is expected to reduce wear on fuel pumps, injectors, and filters, cutting part replacement frequency on top of the fuel saving itself.
Treat the fuel, then measure it on equipment that cannot lie to you.
Lamurindo dosed the site's diesel fuel with its biodiesel additive and benchmarked the two generators against their own baseline, before and after treatment, under the same stable load. This before/after, same-unit design removed the guesswork that mobile-equipment testing would have introduced.
Both generators improved. The day unit gained 2.05% more kWh per liter of fuel, and the night unit gained 4.30%, giving the contractor two independent, load-controlled data points confirming the same direction of improvement.
A generator trial, but the value case runs across the whole site.
The kWh/L gain is the number that is easy to measure. The effect the contractor is actually chasing is broader: a lower true cost of fuel, a fuel system that wears more slowly, and a maintenance program with more room to plan instead of react.
Want a fuel efficiency number you can actually defend?
Lamurindo helps mining and heavy-equipment operators design a controlled fuel additive trial, on the right equipment, so the result reflects the fuel and not the terrain.