CAPS Australia have been renting out air compressors to industrial markets for over 40 years, but their ‘Miner’s Pack’ Rental with Purchase Option (RPO) has been met with increased popularity in many mining sites of Western Australia and Queensland respectively in the last year.

Rhys McIntyre, National Rental Coordinator for CAPS Australia says the RPO is particularly attractive because it eases the upfront start-up and ongoing costs associated with new or expanding mining projects.

“As the price of some commodities rise, mine sites are ramping up their operations. Renting can ease the upfront costs of purchasing brand new equipment, whilst still getting brand new equipment. long term rental avoids the initial high upfront capital expenditure associated with purchasing and allows operational expense to be used for the first 12 or 24 months, and a lower capital expenditure at the end of the term,” says Rhys.

While CAPS have a range of rental options available, Rhys says that the larger portables and 160kW Miner’s Packs have proven particularly successful around the Kalgoorlie, Pilbara and Mackay sites.
“We are increasing our presence in our Kalgoorlie and Mackay locations significantly to accommodate to the increased demand. We’ve placed many new units in the 400cfm-1500cfm portable diesel range and the 160kW Miner’s Packs in the Kalgoorlie and Mackay branches,” explains Rhys.

CAPS has seen a market requirement in these regions and now design and engineer their air compressors to be ‘mine spec’ as standard to satisfy all safety requirements and to suit the hot, harsh and dusty conditions inherent to mine sites.

CAPS’ Miner’s Pack comprises of a 160kW air compressor with a 1000v motor conversion on a skid with a rock guard roof, an air receiver tank, and a fire suppressant.
These builds also come with high dust filtration, outdoor mods, sealed electrical enclosures, a power isolator switch, reinforced earth bar and marine windows to withstand the harsh conditions of outback Australia,” says Rhys. “Adding these modifications to electric compressors ensures longevity of the machine operation as the air going into the machine will be clean. This package is also available in 415v or 3.3kv motors, to suit different customers’ power situations and machine location.”

CAPS rental options

CAPS rental has different options available that range from short-term rental (one week to three months), long-term rental (three months and above) a. According to Rhys, CAPS offers flexibility with all options.

“With short term, we are flexible to rent from just one week, with very short lead times across the whole country. With long term rentals, we offer significantly discounted rates,” he says. “The RPO option is particularly flexible and adaptable to different types of business’ requirements, with the unique benefit of building equity in the equipment during the rental period and owning the equipment outright at the end of the rental period for the designated buyout figure. If a company wants to own the equipment earlier, they have the additional option of purchasing the equipment at either 12-month, 24-month or 36–month anniversaries.”

Tailored solutions

Where CAPS can provide a competitive advantage is through their heavy focus on engineered solutions. CAPS can tailor any of the machines in their rental fleet to meet customers’ exact requirements.

“A key benefit is that all of our long-term rental packages come with regular preventative maintenance. At CAPS, we have the advantage of having nine branches nationwide and established service routes, which include many regional and mining areas, which is a benefit to rental customers as we include the regular service into the monthly rental price – it’s not an add-on,” Rhys clarifies. “This is particularly advantageous for customers renting equipment as it guarantees the working order of the equipment. If the machine breaks down, we’ll fix or replace it. We minimise travel expenses that would normally be incurred by the customer by including their equipment servicing into our normal service routes.”

Importantly, all the CAPS rental equipment come with the option to have telemetry added for remote monitoring and fault finding “The telemetry can provide a remote monitoring option, but what’s really pertinent in these times, is it means that when service technicians come to the site to service the machines, they can locate them immediately and remotely,” explains Rhys. “This minimises any site contact that people will have with each other – a clear advantage in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

For more information on CAPS Rental’s offering or to receive the monthly “available to rent” list, please contact 1800 800 878 or follow CAPS on LinkedIn.