A mine-wide approach to filtration – spanning mobile equipment, bulk fluids and industrial air systems – is emerging as a practical lever to improve reliability, reduce downtime and lower total cost of ownership across African mining operations.

This was the central theme of a recent Donaldson Filtration Solutions webinar titled ‘One mine, one filtration partner’, which brought together technical and distribution specialists to outline how a coordinated filtration ecosystem can improve performance across the full mining value chain.

Opening the session, Donaldson Mobile Solutions Aftermarket Africa sales director Cameron Diesel highlighted the operational realities of many African mine sites, including remoteness, harsh environmental conditions and persistent dust contamination.

“Many of these sites are remote, with harsh environments, high dust loads and extreme temperature swings,” he said. “Dust contaminates everything – not only the air, but also fuels, lubricants and hydraulics. The result is reduced equipment time, increased maintenance and higher total cost of ownership.”

Diesel argued that treating filtration as isolated product categories creates risk gaps. Instead, he promoted a mine-wide “filtration ecosystem” covering engines, hydraulics, fuel systems, processing plants and dust-collection infrastructure. According to him, a coordinated strategy can increase uptime, extend asset life and support safety and environmental, social and governance performance.

Donaldson Mobile Industrial Solutions leader for Northeast, West and Central Africa Santiago Rodriguez expanded on the concept using a “bird’s-eye view” of mine operations, covering both surface and underground environments.

Drawing on experience from operations ranging from Moroccan phosphate mines to West African gold and Tanzanian diamond mines, Rodriguez stressed that while conditions differ, contamination risk is universal.

“All mines are challenging in different flavours, but all are dusty and tough on high-tech equipment,” he said. “We need to protect engines and hydraulic systems, but also look beyond the machine itself.”

Rodriguez emphasised that contamination often enters upstream of onboard filters, particularly through fuel and lubricant storage and transfer stages. Each transfer point represents an opportunity for particulate and water ingress, undermining downstream filtration performance.

He presented a gold mine case study where a multi-stage fuel and lubricant cleanliness programme was implemented. The approach included filtration at delivery, tank conditioning and final polishing before fluids entered equipment.

Before intervention, the operation experienced repeated injector failures and significant unplanned downtime. After implementing the upgraded bulk fluid filtration strategy, injector-related failures dropped, fluid cleanliness improved and service intervals were extended. The reported outcome was a yearly saving of about $2-million, driven largely by reduced downtime and maintenance events.

Rodriguez noted that improved upstream cleanliness can also extend onboard filter service intervals. “We may sell fewer onboard filters, but the operation runs more smoothly. That is the real value proposition,” he said.

Extending the ecosystem concept into processing plants, Donaldson Industrial Air Filtration Africa sales manager Atish Singh outlined how dust, fume and mist collection systems support plant reliability and worker safety.

Singh explained that industrial air filtration solutions typically span run-of-mine stockpiles, crushers, conveyors, mills, silos, smelters, motor control centres and laboratory facilities. Engagements typically start with site assessments and data gathering, followed by engineered extraction and filtration designs.

He cited a fire assay laboratory project at an East African gold mine, where high-temperature fumes and fine, potentially toxic particulates from furnaces posed health and compliance risks. Donaldson specialists evaluated extraction points, airflow requirements and temperature conditions before deploying a cartridge-based dust and fume collection system rated for elevated temperatures, together with matched fans and ducting.

The system was designed to handle more than 15 000 m³/h of airflow across multiple extraction points, improving in-lab air quality and reducing occupational exposure risk. Singh said such projects demonstrate how industrial air filtration complements mobile and fluid filtration in a unified site strategy.

Local execution and supply-chain integration were addressed by Ian du Toit, national sales manager at authorised distributor Highveld Filters, which has operated in the filtration sector since 1978 and supports mining, construction, agriculture and petrochemical customers across Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal.

Du Toit said customer procurement models have shifted toward supplier consolidation, performance-based selection and longer-term partnerships. Mines increasingly prefer fewer vendors that can supply broader solution sets and demonstrate technical capability and sustainability credentials.

He described how distributor-led programmes include customised service kits, vendor-managed inventory on mine sites, contamination control programmes and filtration retrofits. Enhancements may include additional pre-cleaners, upgraded hydraulic filtration and modified intake systems to cope with dust loads that can be several times higher than in European conditions.

In one underground coal mining case, equipment reliability problems were traced to poor hydraulic fluid cleanliness linked to filtration performance and supply gaps. Highveld Filters conducted baseline oil sampling and analysis, introduced higher-efficiency Donaldson and Hy-Pro filtration on a trial basis, and then repeated testing.

Cleanliness levels improved by a factor of eight, with particle counts dropping sharply. According to Du Toit, the outcome included improved equipment reliability, longer production runs between failures and parts cost savings of up to 45% compared with previous supply arrangements. The mine subsequently adopted bundled service kits and a single-source supply model.

Closing the session, Diesel reiterated that filtration affects every part of a mining operation and that fragmented approaches limit value.

“If we have filtration issues in one area, it impacts the rest of the mine,” he said. “A single filtration strategy across the site, supported by aligned technical teams and authorised local distributors, is how we translate filtration from a consumable into a performance lever.”

Across the case studies presented, the consistent message was that integrated filtration planning — from bulk fluids to plant air systems — can deliver measurable gains in uptime, reliability and lifecycle cost.