Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr
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an operating life of 2,500 hours. In the oil sands of Canada, meanwhile, LSA hard-iron slurry pumps are used to help cut costs by replacing conveyor belts with hydraulic transfer to move the heavy mixture of bitumen, sand and water along pipelines. In Mongolia, the Erdenet copper mine uses one of the largest slurry pumps ever built to move 15,000 m3/h of mixed mud and stone. A variable-speed motor helps to keep the pump's running costs to the absolute rock bottom, the company says. And in the Kurak region of Russia, KSB has supplied rubber-lined pumps for the smooth production of pellets, iron ore concentrates, sintered iron and blast-furnace ore. Where metal might fail, rubber keeps abrasive solids flowing, it points out. 75 Years of Durable Pump Production A privately owned German company with 75 years of experience in the field of advanced centrifugal pumps for use in the mining and process industries, Düchting Pumpen Maschinenfabrik GmbH & Co. KG was founded in 1938. The company produces optimized high-pressure pumps; metal and hard-metal slurry pumps; and non-metallic, lifetime anti-corrosion-warrantied, low-pressure pumps. Düchting says its goal is to optimize the design of its pumps so as to minimize the total energy and lifecycle costs in the applications that it serves. It points out that all of its pumps are tested before being delivered, with its own test facility capable of handling flowrates of up to 25,000 m3/h and heads of up to 180 bar. Düchting's products designed specifically for the mining industry include multi-stage high-pressure pumps for mine dewatering and single-stage heavy-duty slurry pumps for water and slurry transport. The company produces two series of multi-stage high-pressure pumps: the LHK and HK, and the DH and ROWA-E slurry pumps. The LHK pumps are available in sizes from 32 to 250 mm (1¼-10 in.), and can produce flow-rates of up to 1,440 m3/h at a working pressure of 40 bar. The HK series offer higher pressure capabilities, up to 120 bar, are available in sizes from 32 to 300 mm (1¼-12 in.) and can handle up to 2,160 m3/h. For slurry pumping, the company's DH series, available in 65-400 mm (2½-16 in.) sizes, have a flow range up to 4,000 m3/h, while the ROWA-E series, at 32-900 mm (1¼-36 in.) Düchting tests all of its pumps in-house before delivery. 2013 • VDMA MINING SUPPLEMENT handle up to 12,000 m3/h. Both slurry-pump types operate at 10 bar working pressure. Düchting points out that, from a safety aspect, keeping mines dry is one the most important targets for the mining industry, and that its dewatering products are both highly sophisticated and reliable in this application. Having focused on the use of its pumps at the Sobieski coal mine in Poland in last year's Best of Germany, for this edition Düchting has highlighted a hard rock application in Canada where its pumps provided 20 years of mine-dewatering services. HudBay Minerals' Trout Lake copper-zinc mine near Flin Flon in Manitoba closed last June after 30 years of production, having relied on Düchting pumps since 1992, the company reports. Trout Lake was serviced by a 1,100 m-deep vertical shaft, with a ramp down to 1,460 m. The main pump station was equipped with 10 Düchting HK50 nine-stage pumps, each capable of handling 53 m3/h (233 US gallons/minute), pumping over a 730 m (2,400 ft.) head. VDMA Primero Uses Piston Pumps from Putzmeister From its headquarters in Aichtal, Putzmeister Solid Pumps GmbH supplies pumps for use in transporting and storing sludges and highdensity slurries such as mine tailings and concentrates. Its scope of supply includes planning conveying tasks, providing technical transport advice and supplying pumps, silos, piping and accessories. The company notes that it has seen a noticeable trend developing during the last five years in terms of increased demand for oil-hydraulic high-pressure piston pumps in Latin America. Its 50-plus years of experience in the area of concrete pumps has provided it with a deep understanding of the needs of this type of system: it is always about optimizing the water-solids ratio to give a good pumpable mixture that thickens at the right moment and achieves the necessary solidity, it says. For this edition of Best of Germany, Putzmeister has chosen to highlight one of its recent success stories from Mexico. Last year the Canadian company, Primero Mining Corp., ordered two new piston pumps for its San Dimas gold and silver mine at Tayoltita in Durango state. One of the two pumps was delivered to the mine during 2012, with the other on its way to Mexico at the year-end. According to Putzmeister, Primero is increasing the mine's capacity and efficiency considerably by replacing four older piston membrane pumps with one new machine. The biggest advantages of the new pumps, it says, are their significantly lower operating and maintenance costs. San Dimas is located in an extensive mining area, with resource grades running at 4.8 g/mt gold and 390 g/mt silver. Primero Mining is working on a 20% capacity expansion there, and is planning a throughput of 2,500 mt/d by 2014. The two new Putzmeister HSP 25100 piston pumps are being used to pump finegrained tailings 2.5 km from the concentrator to a tailings pond. The tailings at San Dimas have a dry solids content of roughly 64%, and require special pump technology. Primero changed from piston membrane pumps to an oilhydraulic high-pressure piston pump three years ago and, according to Putzmeister, its experience with this led to the repeat order for the two further units during 2012. Each pump handles up to 100 m3/h at a pressure of 60 bar. The decision to change to oilhydraulic piston pumps has helped Primero reduce its spares and wear-part costs by more than 80%, as well as benefitting from higher system availability, Putzmeister says. VDMA 43