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Technical articles / Ball mill lubricant consumption
One plant reported 40% less lubricant.
Whitmore published the account in August 2020. It is one site's experience, told in one technician's words.
The drives described here serve SAG and ball mills.
01The duty
Consumption is set on site.
Two mills running the same product can use very different amounts of it.
Open gears run total loss. Lubricant goes on, does its work, and is discarded. Nothing is recirculated.
Dose, interval, nozzle condition and spray pattern decide what a mill uses. The product in the drum is only part of it. A blocked tip, or a bar aimed at the wrong flank, costs lubricant every cycle.
Hold that while reading the report below. A product change and an application review often happen on the same visit. Separating the two afterwards is difficult.
A consumption result is a result for that mill, on that system, at that setting.
The nozzle article sets out how the film is placed, and what goes wrong when it is not.
02What was reported
In the reporter's words.
Whitmore published the account on their own blog on 18 August 2020.
Bill Miller, a Sr. Reliability Engineer Technician at the plant, wanted a dependable lubricant for its ball mills. According to the published post, the product was supplied through KM Specialty Pumps & Systems, a Whitmore distributor.
Both passages below are quoted verbatim from that post.
On the reduction
“by using the Whitmore grease they managed to cut their usage by 40% on the ball mills”
40% less lubricant used
reported on ball mills, one plant
On what the site observed
“They noticed a great increase on the coverage on the mills and feel like they'll get longer lasting use out of our gears, better wear and longer use out of material”
That is the whole of the reported result. CMD did not measure it, was not present, and does not repeat it as a claim of its own.
03What was not reported
The gaps, published.
A number is only as good as the conditions attached to it. These were not attached.
| Detail | In the source |
|---|---|
| Plant name and location | Not named |
| Number and size of mills | Not given |
| Consumption before the change | Not given |
| Consumption after the change | Not given |
| Period the 40% was measured over | Not given |
| Product used previously | Not named |
| Application method and settings | Not given |
| Gear temperatures | Not given |
| Cost or dollar saving | Not given |
None of it appears on this page either. Nothing above has been inferred, estimated or filled in from elsewhere.
Read it as one operator's experience, not as a specification. Results are site-specific. They depend on gear condition, application method and duty.
04The product
What the report names.
One product is named in the report. This is its record on the site.
The plant changed to Whitmore® Envirolube XE Extreme. High-viscosity fluid. Brown and transparent in service, so the tooth surface stays visible.
One wording note
The quotation calls it grease. The product is a fluid, as the description above states. The quotation is carried unaltered, because silently correcting someone's words is worse than leaving a loose one in.
Figures are from the Whitmore document set of 2 June 2026, pending datasheet checks. Confirm against current Whitmore TDS at quote.
05Basis & further reading
The report quoted above is Whitmore's own, published 18 August 2020 as Power Plant saves 40% on Open Gear Lubricant Consumption with Whitmore® Envirolube® XE Extreme. It is a customer testimonial, not a controlled trial, and no measurement method is stated.
Selection and application rates must be confirmed against the gear OEM's instructions and the lubricant supplier's product data. Nothing here is a substitute for equipment-specific recommendations.