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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P R O C E S S I N G S O LU T I O N S Hycroft Expansion Project Includes ABB Mill Drives ABB won an order to provide drive systems for ore grinding mills at Allied Nevada Gold's Hycroft gold mine expansion project. The project is part of an overall $1.2billion expansion that will almost triple the mine's recovery and production rate for gold and silver by 2015. The Hycroft open-pit mine is located 50 miles west of Winnemucca, in northwest Nevada, and, with the implementation of the expansion, is expected to be Hycroft mill simplified flowsheet. www.e-mj.com one of the largest gold producers in the U.S. and among the largest silver producers worldwide. Once the expanded mill operations begin in 2015, production is expected to average 582,260 oz of gold and 29.1 million oz of silver for the next 10 years. ABB's scope of supply for the project includes drive systems for the grinding mills as well as engineering and project management. The delivery will provide increased availability of the complete grinding process, raising efficiency, grid reliability and overall productivity. ABB will deliver five dual pinion (2 x 9-MW) lowspeed mill drive systems for two 36ft SAG and three 26-ft ball mills, and one dual pinion (2 x 5.5-MW) lowspeed drive system for a regrind mill. The drive systems comprise transformers, frequency converters, synchro- nous motors advanced mill control, operations and maintenance features for dual pinion RMDs. ABB said its innovative dual-pinion mill drive system helps to minimize mechanical wear on ring gear mills, reducing downtime and repairs while increasing the availability of grinding process equipment. Outotec Chooses Weir Pumps and Cyclones for Project Weir Minerals has secured a £3.7-million ($6-million) order to supply pumps, valves, cyclone clusters and slurry hoses for one of Russia's largest copper concentrate production plants. Weir was selected by Finland-based process equipment supplier Outotec, which is delivering a new copper concentrator facility in Chelyabinsk for ZAO Miheevsky, a subsidiary of the Russian Copper Co. Scheduled to begin production in early 2014, the operation will process 18 million tons of copper ore per year from an open-pit ore mine. Weir Minerals is supplying 60 pumps, 95 valves and six cyclone clusters. The company noted that it opened its first service base in Finland in March 2012. DECEMBER 2012 • E&MJ; 89