The AusIMM Mill Operators Conference in Brisbane, Australia, on August 31 provided the opportunity for a formal presentation to the 2018 CEEC Medal winners. This is a prestigious annual global award that celebrates outstanding published research and field work on strategies for energy efficient comminution.

This year’s award for Operations went to the authors of ‘Fine grinding circuit process improvement at the Karara Mine concentrator’, a collaboration between Karara Mining Ltd and Nippon Eirich to implement grinding circuit process improvements at Karara mine in Western Australia.

The winning team of Sam Palaniandy, Matthew Spagnolo, Rinto Napitupulu Halomoan, Huiwen Zhou and Hidemasa Ishikawa, presented their work at the 2017 MetPlant Conference in Australia.

By identifying and implementing circuit changes around the Tower Mill and hydrocyclone, the team not only solved the site’s challenges but achieved significant energy and productivity gains, with up to a 50% reduction in specific energy use in the fine grinding circuit.

CEEC Chair Joe Pease and CEEC Director Greg Lane were joined on stage by Vice President of Nippon Eirich, Masamoto Naito, to present medals to three of the team’s members: Sam Palaniandy, Matthew Spagnolo and Hidemasa Ishikawa. They also made special mention of Rinto Napitupulu Halomoan and Huiwen Zhou who could not attend the presentation.