thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions (Australia) says it is on track to deliver the world’s largest rail-mounted stackers and reclaimer on schedule for BHP’s South Flank iron ore project, in the Pilbara of Western Australia.
The company was, in November 2018, awarded the contract to design, supply, construct and commission two stackers that will deposit iron ore into stockyards for loading, and a reclaimer for loading the ore into trains for transport to Port Hedland.
These large machines will each have a capacity of 20,000 t/h, making them the largest rail mounted stackers and reclaimer in the world.
thyssenkrupp developed the two fully autonomous stackers and reclaimer with the latest statutory requirements for functional safety as defined in AS4024 and AS61508. For machine collision avoidance, a combination of GPS, SIL-rated encoders and limits are used. The fully autonomous machines are digitally connected and monitored from a remote centralised control room, according to thyssenkrupp.
Offsite pre-assembly of these locally designed and manufactured machines is well underway in Perth, according to the company, with many of the large pre-assembled modules already complete. These modules are to be transported from their current location at the AMC complex in Henderson, to the BHP South Flank site with construction likely to commence in late January 2020. The first machine will be commissioned and ready for first ore in line with BHP’s 2021 target.
Zoran Matijevic, Project Director – South Flank Project at thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions (Australia), said: “It has been a great privilege to lead thyssenkrupp’s team through design, procurement, fabrication and preassembly phases so far, and achieve 50% overall project progress milestone ahead of the plan. I look forward to logistics, construction and commissioning phases and final handover of this equipment.”
thyssenkrupp’s Industrial Solutions global Business Unit (BU) Mining has recently streamlined its operations and are now fully focusing on mining equipment, with the engineering centre of excellence for materials handling located in Perth.