A paper presented at the 45th Annual Canadian Mineral Processors Operators Conference in Ottowa, Canada has been awarded the 2013 CEEC Medal. The paper titled Energy and Cost Comparisons of HPGR based circuits with the SABC circuit installation at the Huckleberry Mine was co-authored by C. Wang, S. Nadolski, O. Mejia, J. Drozdiak and B. Klein and presents a comprehensive energy and cost comparing an existing SAG mill based circuit at Huckleberry Mine with two proposed circuit featuring comminution energy efficiency technologies. These included high pressure grinding rolls (HPGR) and high speed stirred mills. The paper indicated the energy reduction achieved by the alternate flowsheet designs significantly improved the economics of the Huckleberry comminution circuit.
The CEEC Medal is a global award intended to recognise and celebrate the contribution of outstanding published papers, articles or case studies profiling beneficial strategies for ecoefficient comminution. CEEC launched the Medal in November 2011 and the worthy 2012 recipients were Rybinski, E., Ghersi, J., Davila, F., Linares J., Valery, W., Jankovic, A., Valle, R., Dikmen S., for their paper Optimisation and Continuous improvement of the Antamina Comminution Circuit (2011) – Proceedings of 5th International Conference on Autogenous and Semi-Autogenous Grinding Technology (SAG2011).
In 2013 over 10 papers from around the globe were nominated: an excellent result as publication or presentation of a paper within the past 12 months is a condition of nomination for this award. The Medal review committee is led by CEEC Director, Zeljka Pokrajcic, Principal Process Engineer with WorleyParsons. The committee evaluates all nominated papers on the basis of the papers’ potential to improve energy efficiency; ability for the concepts to be readily adapted to operating plants or incorporated in the design of new circuits; integrity and robustness of results, and finally whether or not the paper communicates its ideas clearly and effectively. The Medal committee recommends the annual recipient to CEEC’s Board of Directors for their approval.
This year Zeljka Pokrajcic stated “The papers nominated continue to be high standard from a diverse range of authors and organisations including research institutions, operating sites as well as service and equipment providers. The papers nominated were presented at various forums and conferences around the globe in the last 12 months – a testament to the importance the industry has placed on improving the energy efficiency of comminution processes. The chosen paper presented a clear and thorough comparison including technical and financial analysis of alternatives to the common SABC circuit. It presented a rigorous and well throughout study with convincing outcomes. I enjoyed reading the paper and can appreciate the effort by the authors to ensure the robustness of the study. Well done.”