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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PLANT ENGINEERING 30 E&MJ; • JANUARY 2017 www.e-mj.com The scale of some of the modern miner- al processing plants is immense and the time frame from concept to commission- ing has been compressed to as little as four or five years. The engineers that de- sign and build these projects rely on ex- perience and skill sets amplified by mod- eling and project management software that automates repetitve tasks, which shortens the timeline. Increasingly, en- gineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) firms are reporting that they are delivering projects on time and sometimes under budget. Some of that success could be attribut- ed to fewer projects in the development pipeline, allowing more experts to focus on fewer projects. After all, the mining in- dustry has switched gears more recently from project development to optimization of existing operations. Here too, technol- ogy is playing an increasingly important role. Buzz words, such as Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT) are bandied about regularly. While mining executives talk about improving efficiencies and low- ering production costs, are all the mines using all the tools to their full advantage? For sure, the connected world has for- ever changed how engineers solve prob- lems. They literally have access to all the information they need in the palm of their hands. The sensors and devices that pro- vide machine intelligence are becoming smaller and cheaper, allowing them to be placed in more and more locations. Some of the more progressive concepts, such as advanced pattern recognition and machine learning, will only improve diag- nostics for preventive maintenance. The mills and concentrators around the world rely on a finite group of profession- als. While this collective pool of knowledge is not growing, connectivity allows more plants to access the knowledge base or, vice versa, a talented metallurgist could oversee or consult on several operations from a cen- tral location. Until recently, the engineering and metallurgical expertise was expected to be available on site. With remote access and the ability to more effectively monitor everything inside the plant from the perfor- mance of a flotation cell to the temperature on a pump, these professionals will no lon- ger be confined to remote outposts. Bringing a Mega Mineral Processing Project Online One of the largest recently commissioned mineral processing projects was the expan- sion at Freeport McMoRan's Cerro Verde copper mine in Arequipa, Peru. It is not only considered a world-class operation, but Flu- or refers to it as the largest one-time built copper concentrator on the planet. They designed the original 120,000-metric-ton- per-day (mt/d) copper/molybdenum concen- trator in 2007. At the time, it was the first concentrator to use high pressure grinding rolls (HPGRs) for tertiary comminution. When it was time to expand, Free- port turned to Fluor again. The plan was to increase capacity by 240,000 mt/d to 360,000 mt/d. The expansion would allow Cerro Verde to triple production at the mine, explained Brad Matthews, Fluor project di- rector for the Cero Verde expansion. "Fluor's scope on the project was to provide engi- neering services for the concentrator with responsibility for procurement activities," Matthews said. "All equipment and mate- rials were specified by Fluor, including con- tract administration and commissioning." The expansion design was based on the same conventional copper sulfide flo- tation process, but included larger process equipment at a separate location on the mine property. It has a dry side (commi- nution) and a wet side, which consists of six stages of single stage ball milling and six rows of rougher flotation that produce a copper and moly concentrate, which is reground before it is run through clean- er circuits to produce a final copper-moly concentrate that is exported to Japan. Fluor initiated a feasibility study, engi- neering and procurement services from its Vancouver, Canada, office in May 2010. The company's office in Lima, Peru, sup- ported the project's construction manage- ment operations. "More than 50% of the workers on this project were recruited from Arequipa," Matthews said. "We trained and coached these people, and the project was completed with an impressive safety re- cord." In fact, Cerro Verde received a Pres- ident's Award for its safety achievement. Fluor leveraged its project knowledge and Peruvian project execution experi- Technology Influences Plant Design and Operations Modeling systems, connectivity and shared expertise drive costs down Steve Fiscor, Editor-in-Chief The primary crusher and conveyor on Cerro Verde's dry side demonstrates the scale of mega projects.