Pipe Center, the UK’s leading industrial and building services supplier, has won a contract to supply specialist pipework, valves and fittings for the Drakelands tungsten mining project, at Hemerdon, near Plymouth, which is being re-opened by Australian company Wolf Minerals. Contractor GR Engineering Services is building the new process plant for Wolf and, once commissioned in 2015, Drakelands will be the first new metal mine to be opened in the UK for 45 years, providing jobs and an economic boost for the regional and national economies.
Following site visits by the client and contractor to see Pipe Center’s facilities, orders were placed for a wide range of customised valves and large carbon steel pipework up to 24 in diameter. Valvestock, Pipe Center’s valve and actuator arm, has joined forces with the company’s specialist steel fabrication facility to deliver the project.
Valvestock, which is project managing the supply contract, liaised with the mine owner and contractor in the UK and Australia to confirm the project’s detailed technical requirements. The Fareham-based company is also providing engineering site support, and local support via external sales and the Pipe Center branch network in Devon. It has already supplied initial orders for butterfly valves and diaphragm valves, in sizes from 25 mm to 500 mm in diameter. Current orders include manual and actuated butterfly valves, manual diaphragm valves, control valves, check valves as well as manual and actuated ball valves.
Engineered specials include positioning butterfly valves, extended spindles and chain-wheel operated diaphragm valves. Valvestock worked closely with GR Engineering Services on the specification of the valves, including recommending the use of soft rubber-lined valves to handle the abrasive ore particles being transported. Due to the challenging nature of the mine environment, the Class One welded pipework built by Pipe Center’s Fabrication facility required 10% non-destructive testing and a special epoxy paint finish. Finished pipework was shot-blasted before being sealed with two coats of goose-wing grey epoxy coating.
Sections were then carefully wrapped to protect the finish during transport to the mine. Rock containing wolframite will go through the grinding circuit before travelling along the pipes in various sections, with the heavier tungsten particles falling out of suspension for collection and export to specialist manufacturers overseas.
