Multotec has established a strong global presence in major mining markets, in addition to its South African presence. The Kempton Park-headquartered company (near Johannesburg) entered the Chilean market in 1998 and began making screening media in the country the following year in 1999 – IM Editorial Director, Paul Moore caught up with Felipe Caroca, Screening Media Operations Manager of Multotec Chile, earlier this year at the Exponor 2024 mining show in Antofagasta.
IM Editorial Director Paul Moore with Felipe Caroca, Screening Media Operations Manager of Multotec Chile, at Exponor 2024
Caroca said that Multotec today is looking to further consolidate its position in Chile’s mining industry while looking at growth in other major mining markets in the region. For example, Multotec still services the Peru market from its Chilean base, but in 2023, the company established Multotec Peru with the ultimate aim of setting up a dedicated facility there. The company also has a key operation in Brazil, with a focus on iron ore, managed from its facility in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais.
The main Multotec location in Chile is just north of Santiago in Lampa, which includes both an office with a full commercial team as well as a highly capable factory. The sales team is primarily based in the central and northern part of Chile, with offices in the Copiapó, Antofagasta, and La Serena, allowing them to remain close to their mining customers.
As expected, the copper mining market dominates, with additional gold and iron ore business primarily with sales both direct to mine owners as well as through the major EPCM companies. But what are Multotec’s strongest technologies in Chile in terms of installed base and sales? Caroca explained: “In Chile today, our two main business lines are screening media and capital equipment, which includes mining samplers and hydrocyclones. For samplers, we are a global centre of excellence for the company and this equipment is vital for metallurgical accounting.”
Multotec mining samplers include cross belt, wet and dry cross-cut and combination sampling systems, guaranteeing extremely accurate ore samples. In Chile, wet samplers are predominantly used in the mill circuit or to sample flotation feed or tails as well as in fines circuits. Local manufacturing in Chile has been key to growing the market share of the organisation. . Their key advantage includes unbiased sampling due to the equipment taking a full stream cut, with many designs having a radially tapered cutter slot, with constant cutter speed.
Multotec’s experienced team in Multotec Chile prioritises site visits to understand customer challenges and provide solutions
A good dry sampler example is Multotec’s Rotating Cone Sampler which provides a dry, continuous discharge sample at division ratios up to 1000:1 (or tailored for applications), enabling online analysers or mineral processors to achieve accurate real time process monitoring. It features custom-designed radially tapered cutters travelling at speeds of down to 0.2 m/s on the critical diameter, across both stages of the sample extraction, enabling continuous representative sampling from vertical falling streams under gravity. Primary and secondary cutters are designed to rotate at unrelated ratios to each other to prevent cyclic and short-term periodic sampling errors. Perfect symmetry also sees adherence to correct sampling practices. The unit also allows for immediate rejects to return to the mainstream flow without additional rejects considerations.
Caroca said that the rubber and polyurethane screening media business in Chile includes both vibrating flat screening panels as well as trommel screens installed at the end of grinding mills. All the trommel frames, the trommel screening panels and the flat panels are manufactured locally in Chile. While the market in Chile is very competitive for cyclones, Multotec has also had success in Peru where the demand is high, including for customised solutions that Multotec can offer.
On the screening media side, Caroca said that consistency was a key factor in Multotec’s success –the raw materials used in Chile are the same as those used at Multotec facilities in South Africa and Australia– meaning that the same quality is maintained globally with the products.
And not to forget the people behind Multotec’s success in Chile. Caroca adds: “In addition to our strong sampler and screening media position in Chile today, we have a strong and knowledgeable team here. Most of the salespeople are engineers and understand the client needs well as many of them used to work for these mining operations themselves. A high priority is also conducting regular visits to customers to understand their challenges and pain points.”
Beyond copper, gold and iron ore, there are also major opportunities in the lithium sector for its solutions and technologies, and Multotec is actively participating in new tenders at several large new lithium mining operations are in development in Chile.
