Tag Archives: HPGRs

FLSmidth and Enter Engineering to work on MOF-4 copper-gold-molybdenum concentrator

Base metals, Comminution of minerals, Mineral processing, Mineral project development, Mining services, , , , ,

Building upon a long-standing relationship, FLSmidth and Enter Engineering have signed a strategic cooperation agreement for the delivery of the core mineral processing equipment for the MOF-4 copper-gold-molybdenum concentrator, which is being constructed in Almalyk, in the Tashkent region of Uzbekistan.

Once completed, the plant is expected to become one of the largest copper concentrators in the world.

The cooperation agreement covers individual equipment and project service delivery orders, including basic engineering. The combined value of these orders could potentially amount to approximately DKK1.5 billion ($217.5 million) over the next several years, FLS says.

A key requirement for Enter Engineering has been to collaborate with a strategic partner that can supply the most efficient process technologies and aftermarket services with the lowest environmental impact across the full mineral processing flowsheet, leading them to the choice of FLSmidth, the OEM says.

Under the agreement, FLSmidth’s expected deliveries include high-pressure grinding rolls, screens, copper and molybdenum flotation, vertical re-grind mills, concentrate and tailing thickeners, concentrate filters, gravity concentrators, samplers as well as pumps, cyclones and valves. The execution of the individual orders will be led by FLSmidth’s Global Product & Technology Centre in Salt Lake City, USA, with the support of localised resources and services.

Mikko Keto, CEO at FLSmidth, said: “Uzbekistan is undergoing a rapid economic development, and its mining industry plays a pivotal role in this. We are very excited to support the country’s continued development through our collaboration with Enter Engineering and Almalyk MMC on the development of this new copper concentrator production line. Being chosen as the key strategic partner is a clear testament to the strength of our full flowsheet offerings and to our proven global execution capabilities.”

Weir Minerals completes Enduron HPGR first at mine site

Comminution of minerals, Mineral processing, Mining equipment, Mining services, , , ,

Weir Minerals continues to make inroads in the comminution market, with the company having achieved a major high pressure grinding roll (HPGR) milestone during 2023, Weir Group’s 2023 financial year results confirmed.

In a Weir Group report that highlighted flat year-on-year orders and a 16% increase in adjusted profit, the Minerals division noted a significant increase in its aftermarket solutions.

“This reflects growth in our installed base, and our increased strategic focus on this area,” Weir Group said in the results. “A particular highlight was an order from a large copper mine in South America, where our customer ordered Enduron® rollers for their HPGR.”

The installation will be the first instance of Weir Minerals’ rollers being fitted to a competitor’s HPGR, enabling the company to showcase the performance and reliability benefits of its technology, it said.

It concluded on this area: “More generally, the pipeline for our HPGR remains strong with a number of projects advancing materially throughout the year.”

Weir Minerals says the Enduron HPGR is a market proven model with the mechanical design to support efficient and durable skewing thanks to its unique bearing arrangement and control philosophy. It has a unique roll diameter-width ratio, which maximises throughput at the desired product grind. Self-adjusting cheek plates provide equal sealing distance as flanges at minimum costs, according to the OEM.

Alongside this, Weir Minerals also gained further market share in 2023 in mill circuit pumps, converting over 85% of its competitive field trials.

Weir and Swiss Tower Mills align on energy efficient comminution pathway

Comminution of minerals, Environmental, Mining equipment, Mining services, Sustainable mining, , , , , , , , , ,

The Weir Group has announced a new alliance with Swiss Tower Mills Minerals (STM) in which Weir will market STM’s vertical stirred grinding mills for coarse grinding applications worldwide.

Integrating vertical stirred grinding mills into Weir’s minerals processing flowsheet will provide customers substantial improvements in throughput and energy efficiency, helping them to meet their productivity and sustainability goals, Weir says.

STM’s vertical stirred grinding technology is proven for energy efficient comminution in the mining market with more than 80 units currently operating in the hard-rock mineral processing industry across the globe, according to the company. It is used within the comminution segment of the minerals processing circuit as part of a series of crushing and grinding processes that create the fine particles from which minerals can be extracted through flotation.

Comminution, as has been well documented, is one of the most energy intensive parts of the mine, accounting for 25% of the final energy consumption of an average mine site.

Weir says it is already a leader in comminution technologies, offering solutions such as Enduron® high pressure grinding rolls (HPGRs) to drive down energy consumption by around 40% for customers.

This new alliance with STM takes things to the next level, offering the mining and minerals industry a proven low energy alternative to traditional high energy consuming tumbling mills, it said. Combining and integrating these energy-efficient technologies into a single, optimised flowsheet will deliver significant reductions in energy use, driving down costs and carbon emissions.

In order to prove the most beneficial flowsheet for specific projects, STM has already supplied two vertical test mills to the Weir Minerals HPGR test facility in Venlo (Netherlands). This will put Weir and STM in the unique position to provide clients combined energy efficient grinding test work of HPGR followed by STM’s vertical stirred mill, they said.

Ricardo Garib, Weir Minerals Divisional President, said: “Weir and STM share the same vision of enabling primary resource providers to produce resources in the most sustainable manner. This is a perfect match of best-in-class technology providers. Integrating STM mills with Weir’s comminution products, which includes Enduron HPGRs and Enduron screens, will improve throughput and help bring substantial reductions in carbon emissions.

“This is a real win-win.”

Fritz Moser, STM Chairman, said “Both the HPGR and the STM vertical stirred mills provide significant energy savings compared to conventional grinding technologies. Our new supply agreement with Weir will enable us to fast track the roll out of an innovative flowsheet using STM mills in conjunction with Weir’s Enduron HPGR.”

SKF addresses service life of large sealed bearings for HPGRs with Explorer SRBs

Comminution of minerals, Equipment maintenance, Mining consumables, Mining equipment, , , , , , , ,

SKF says it has extended its range of large bearings for roller presses, with a sealed version that prolongs service life in equipment such as high pressure grinding rolls (HPGRs).

Its Explorer spherical roller bearings (SRBs) in the 241 series are now available up to 1,250 mm bore, with this series and sizes commonly used in HPGRs in cement and mining operations.

“Using sealed bearings is the best way to increase mean time between failures,” Daniel Ortega, Product Line Manager for Sealed SRBs at SKF (pictured), says. “It is a long-term investment that increases machine availability and reliability.”

The new version – which is sealed on both sides – offers up to double the lifetime of an open bearing and has shown in tests that it reduces grease consumption by up to 99%, SKF says.

In a HPGR, four large spherical roller bearings are usually used. During a maintenance interval of three months, normally 540 kg of grease is used for certain sizes. With sealed Explorer spherical roller bearings, only 7 kg of grease is needed during the same interval, according to the company, reducing both cost and environmental impact.

In addition, the sealed SRB can be remanufactured twice, which further extends service life. This raises productivity and machine availability while lowering total cost of ownership.

The new bearing has been redesigned to have a higher load-carrying capacity. Bearings with a bore diameter below 1,000 mm have an HNBR seal that is retained by a snap ring. Larger bearings use a G-ECOPUR seal that is bolted to the bearing’s outer ring.

The sealed bearing can be used on its own, or as part of an SKF three-barrier solution.

Roller press bearings often wear out because ineffective sealing leads to lubricant contamination. The sealed bearings overcome this problem – and this delivers several advantages, SKF says:

  • First, bearing failure relates to more maintenance interventions, which carries a higher risk of accident and injury and expensive shutdowns;
  • The new design also offers a maintenance benefit. Rather than stopping production for preventive maintenance of the bearing, the wear of the roller press roller determines when a service is needed; and
  • The bearings are available with short delivery times – even in the largest sizes.

FLSmidth looks for sustainable gains with thyssenkrupp mining buy

Automation, Bulk handling, Comminution of minerals, Energy minerals, Environmental, Equipment maintenance, Mineral processing, Mining equipment, Mining maintenance, Mining mergers and acquisitions, Mining people, Mining services, Mining software, Power supply for mines, Sustainable mining, Water management, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The subtleties behind FLSmidth’s acquisition of thyssenkrupp’s mining business appear to have got lost within the financial community.

The company’s Denmark-listed shares, since announcing the transaction in late July, lost 16% of their value to August 20.

This downward move is hardly surprising when focusing on pure financials: FLSmidth is looking to acquire a company for an enterprise value of $325 million that is only expected to return to profitability two years after financial close.

Yet, this narrow train of thought discounts the well-timed strategy behind the move.

A combination of the two companies will undoubtedly create a leading global mining technology provider with operations from pit to plant. It will also see FLSmidth re-geared towards a mining sector on the up at a time when the cement business it serves is exhibiting flattish demand.

While this won’t be lost on analysts, most of them will only be able to factor in short-term profitability projections into their financial models, meaning, as far as they’re concerned, FLSmidth will be weighed down by the transaction until 2024.

Yet, for FLSmidth and mining, 2024 is practically ‘just around the corner’.

In FLSmidth’s recently released June quarter results it registered an order backlog of DKK16.7 billion ($2.6 billion), the majority of which was associated with mining orders. Of the backlog amount attributable to the mining sector, 16% would not be realised until 2023 and beyond.

This could mean many of the orders FLSmidth registered in the most recent June quarter will only be realised (read: delivered) in 2024, the year thyssenkrupp’s mining business is expected to be back in the black.

This is just one of the subtleties that may have got lost by shareholders fixated on the short term.

The second is how the transaction sets the company up as a mining sustainability leader at a time when the industry is calling out for one.

At the top end of the mining industry, the ability to decarbonise operations is becoming as – if not more – important as returning cash to shareholders. Every tonne of copper extracted and processed, and every ounce of gold mined and refined is likely to come with an associated carbon content/price in future years. The battery materials supply chain tied to the likes of lithium, cobalt and nickel will come under even more scrutiny.

Blockchain-type traceability platforms will mean investors and any interested party can interrogate where the raw materials came from and how they were produced.

These same miners will also be judged on how they use water, with freshwater use being rationalised in many regions where such resources are scarce.

FLSmidth, should the acquisition complete next year, is arming itself to compete in this brave new sustainable world.

The company started this journey all the way back in November 2019 when it announced its MissionZero program at its Capital Markets Day in Copenhagen.

Central to MissionZero is FLSmidth’s focus on enabling its customers in cement and mining to move towards zero emissions operations in 2030.

The OEM planned to do this by leveraging the development of digital and innovative solutions tied to sustainable productivity, offering its customers in the mining sector the technological solutions to manage zero emissions mining processes by 2030 – with a specific focus on water management.

For the latter, dry-stack tailings was the order of the day, with FLSmidth’s EcoTails® solution expected to reduce water costs, tailings dam risks and minimise environmental footprint. The development of the largest filter press plate ever built, the 5 m x 3 m AFP, was a signal of just how confident FLSmidth was on this emerging market trend becoming fully embedded across the globe.

Digital products such as SAGwise™, SmartCyclone™, BulkExpert™ and Advanced Process Control would, in the meantime, allow miners to become that more efficient with every resource (water, energy, etc) they used, again, improving their sustainability credentials.

Close to two years after making the MissionZero declaration, Thomas Schulz, CEO of FLSmidth, says the company has been seeing the program’s effects come through in its order book.

“Actually, this has been translated in orders for a few years already,” he told IM.

“When we look into sustainability, we define it as making productivity improvements. If you don’t adopt these sustainability solutions, you effectively have to pay more to keep operating at the same levels, or you have to stop operating – there is a productivity element to it, and quite a big one.

“For us, as a lifecycle provider, it is important that we offer to our customers at any point in time and any point of our offering, the right solution to make more money. That can be with dry-stacked tailings, tailings management, IPCC (in-pit crushing and conveying) systems, electrification of the pit, reducing emissions or dust, etc.”

Many of these solutions will enable companies to produce the same amount of product, or more, with the same input costs and energy draw, according to Schulz.

Coping with further restrictions on the industry’s access to freshwater will require more than step-change initiatives, and that is why the company is working on how its equipment can use “different types of water” and technologies that use less freshwater to ensure operations can abide by incoming legislation.

The company has been working on providing these zero-emission and resource-efficient solutions since 2019 to enable its customers to become sustainable operators by 2030.

“For many people, that sounds very long,” Schulz said. “In the mining industry, it’s not.”

Factor in the two-to-three years to build a pilot plant to prove such technology, two-to-three years to get a full-scale plant approved and the associated construction time, and a decade has passed.
Sustainability represents the ‘long game’ for mining OEMs, and technology is the key to achieving that sustainability, Schulz said.

Which brings us back to the thyssenkrupp mining business acquisition.

One of the big pillars

FLSmidth, in adding thyssenkrupp mining to its portfolio, is providing a whole host of decarbonised options for its mining customers to consider in their own sustainability drive.

It is adding mine planning expertise to its portfolio, ensuring that the IPCC and continuous surface mining technologies it puts forward are optimised for the operation at hand. These technologies are further complemented by semi-continuous and mobile crushing options from thyssenkrupp mining, adapted to the pit profile at hand.

Heavy-duty overland conveyors from thyssenkrupp mining complement other bulk handling solutions FLSmidth might be providing at stockyards or ports to reduce truck haulage and shift the transport dynamic to ‘green’ grid power.

“The culture in project service companies is you are the hero if you come to the table with the next big project,” Thomas Schulz says. “In product service companies, you are the hero if you come with the next big profit”

Then, when it comes to comminution, a crushing (including primary jaw crushers) and screening portfolio, plus smaller milling options and expertise in high pressure grinding rolls (HPGRs) through the globally renowned Polysius business, is bolted onto FLSmidth’s own crushing and grinding (including vertical roll milling technology) portfolio. This puts the combined offering up there with any global OEM around, while also providing the potential ‘dry grinding’ technologies the industry has been on the lookout for.

All these solutions come with sustainability benefits that can be felt throughout the mining value chain.

They also provide options and flexibility to an industry that cannot just suddenly retire a fleet of ultra-class haul trucks at a deep open-pit operation in favour of a fixed IPCC solution, or build a new process plant fitted with HPGRs to replace a typical SAG and ball mill grinding circuit.

Schulz said as much to IM.

“One of the big pillars of the whole acquisition lies in sustainability,” he said. “Normally, the process plants where we play big are all electrified, so if the energy resource coming into these plants is a green one, the process is already sustainable.

“When we look into the pit, in-pit crushing and transporting of material is where we can focus a lot.

“I’m not saying you can replace every truck, but some of the surface mines and the ones underground can be made significantly more continuous and sustainable from a transport perspective.

“thyssenkrupp is leading in that. They are quite big in the pit; we are quite big in the processing plant. Both, together, are complementary.

“If we can integrate the offering – and we will do – and make it more sustainable, that is a big step towards the 2030 MissionZero target.”

This increased spread of solutions will also provide FLSmidth with more opportunities to refine the entire flowsheet, providing further sustainability benefits to its customers.

“When we design solutions, or offer replacement equipment or a new process, we can now rely on expanded competences to look at what the best overall system for the entire flowsheet is,” Schulz said. “For instance, if we change the gyratory on a mine site and then look into the pit, we know how to size the equipment in the pit and the concentrator upstream.”

This increasing flowsheet focus must be complemented by an aftermarket approach that ensures the process remains efficient and sustainable throughout a product’s, solution’s or mine’s lifetime.

This was one of the obvious disparities between the two companies when the announcement was made in late July. It is also one of the biggest opportunities that comes with the planned transaction, according to FLSmidth.

Whereas capital business represented 37% of mining revenue in 2020 for FLSmidth, it was 66% of revenue for thyssenkrupp’s mining business. Services represented 63% and 34% of the two businesses’ 2020 revenue total, respectively.

Schulz has seen such a contrast – and opportunity – before, referencing his arrival at FLSmidth in 2013.

“When I came here to FLSmidth, it was actually quite similar,” he said. “I was at Sandvik for 16 years where the aftermarket was actually seen as the most important. They realised the importance of the customer relationship: the capital equipment sales team may meet the customer for a few hours per year, but the service technician has that interaction over weeks and months in terms of aftermarket.”

He also recognises the cultural shift needed to capture many of the profitable aftermarket dollars that the company is forecasting with the planned acquisition.

“The culture in project service companies is you are the hero if you come to the table with the next big project,” he said. “In product service companies, you are the hero if you come with the next big profit.

“You need both – we need profit, and our customers need profit to invest, while you need the projects to spur these aftermarket opportunities.

“We calculated what the aftermarket potential of the thyssenkrupp mining business is and understood it was not covered as they were all looking for the next big project, which we understand.

“But this is not what we will accept in the future. We have to have a strong aftermarket and strong customer link.”

Which all comes back to MissionZero.

“If you focus on MissionZero, then you invest there where you can impact MissionZero. Wherever you have aftermarket, you impact MissionZero. Where you don’t have aftermarket, you don’t impact MissionZero.”

At the same time, Schulz is not losing sight of the company’s end goal with all the business it coordinates in the mining sector.

“Whatever we do with the customer, they have to be more efficient, more productive and make more money.”

It just so happens that in doing this, the mining sector will become that much more sustainable.

Technofast adds new layer of security for bolting-on equipment

Equipment maintenance, Mining consumables, Mining equipment, Mining maintenance, Mining services, , , , , , , , ,

An evenly tensioned series of bolted joints is critical to the safe, low maintenance and cost-efficient assembly and disassembly of many types of equipment used throughout the mining industry, Technofast says.

Secure tensioning of a series of bolts on equipment such as comminution machinery, gearboxes, motors, vibrating screens and turbines is critical, because bolted joints are designed so the individual fasteners apply a collective compressive load greater than the working forces, which try to separate the components. Any under-tensioned bolt sheds excessive load onto nearby fasteners, which may be overstressed and fail, thereby causing loss of mechanical integrity and severe damage.

Second and conversely, if bolts are overtightened, then the elastic limit of their steel material may be exceeded and lead to premature failure. Additionally, the area under the bolt head or the nut could be crushed with resulting damage to the joint components.

The ideal means of tightening a bolted joint is to energise all the fasteners simultaneously using a bolt tensioner or hydraulic nut. As these can be connected in a ‘daisy chain’, force is applied evenly and equally to each via the increasing hydraulic pressure applied from a single point source.

“Whatever the reason for unevenly tensioned bolts, the outcome is never good. The fault ultimately affects machinery reliability, maintenance downtime – and potential risk to people working around them,” John Bucknell, CEO of Technofast precision engineered solutions, said.

Different versions of Technofast’s hydraulically-actuated EziTite® hydraulic nuts and CamNut® tensioning systems provide solutions to such issues where they are used to speedily apply and release bolted joints. Technofast’s bolting products are used to accelerate and make safer assembly and disassembly of machinery in applications in mining, particularly those production-critical applications under high pressure or heat, or those subject to intense vibration, Bucknell says.

Applications include machinery used globally across extractive industries including those for coal, copper, gold, iron ore, nickel, aluminium, bauxite, potash, silver, lead, uranium, ilmenite, zinc, zircon, lithium as well as quarries for sand, gravel, road base and construction materials.

“Rather than tightening the bolts by torque methods – that is rotation of the nut by hammering or use of torque wrenches, or alternatively, by using bolt heating methods – Technofast CamNut and EziTite HT hydraulic nuts use hydraulic force to stretch multiple bolts axially,” Buckell said. “They achieve exact tensions across a series of bolts by exerting the exact amount needed for the particular application on all of them simultaneously. They are then locked with their individual screwed Lock Rings to achieve reliable, even and precise tensioning the first time. Up to 100% of all the fasteners used in a particular daisy chain can be precisely fastened or released simultaneously.”

This type of speed and safety offered by standard and custom-made EziTite hydraulic nuts and CamNuts is valuable on mine sites, as shown by an application involving Newmont’s Boddington gold mine in Australia, which is one of the world’s largest gold mines.

Newmont’s particular high-stress application involved gearbox couplers on Polysius-Polycom PM8-24/17M high-pressure grinding roll machinery. Originally, installation was performed with two hydraulic bolt tensioners that required multiple passes of the bolts (40 in total).

Removal was then carried out with the use of a hydraulic torque wrench, which, in this application, was an extremely time-consuming process in a difficult and confined location.

“There was also the issue of inconsistent bolt loads in this application, plus the occupational health and safety issues with the use of hydraulic torque wrenches in this tough and time-consuming operation, which involved 10-12 hours and a team of six personnel,” Bucknell said.

The solution to the time, efficiency and safety issues involved a series of special M48 x 3.0 ultra-high tensile EziTite hydraulic nuts linked together over the 40 nuts involved.

Benefits borne out by this application included easy installation, as well as removal for maintenance (installation and removal are by the same method). In addition to fewer handling and fewer occupational health and safety issues, precise bolt loads were achieved across all the fasteners involved and installation and removal times improved dramatically, according to Technofast.

Bucknell said: “Compared with the 10 hours and six personnel involved previously, the new technology resulted in installations involving just three hours and three personnel. This radically improved time efficiency and costs, while substantially increasing safety, because the tensioning and release process was carried out remotely, simultaneously and immediately under precisely controlled conditions.

“The Technofast team working with the client in this application designed a special nut to achieve required size and particular strength requirements. Project management staff commented on the ease of fitting and the fact that the tensioning has reduced the overall time by two thirds and personnel from six to three. They said the implementation of the new setup allowed them to achieve the timelines required for shutdowns on these machines.

“These are typical benefits of Technofast hydraulic bolt tensioning over many installations and many countries, including those organised by our US office in conjunction with our global headquarters in Brisbane, from where we service Australia, Asia, Africa and Europe.”

Complementing Technofast’s EziTite hydraulic nuts, the CamNut system is designed for applications where longer bolts for standard bolt tensioners are not available or desirable, and for situations with elevated operational temperatures, such as pumps and steam valves.

Filling the mineral processing flowsheet gaps

Base metals, Bulk handling, Comminution of minerals, Communications in mining, Environmental, Equipment maintenance, IoT, Metallurgy, Mineral processing, Mining consumables, Mining equipment, Mining maintenance, Mining mergers and acquisitions, Mining people, Mining services, Mining software, Power supply for mines, Sustainable mining, Water management, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Crushing, grinding, flotation, solvent extraction, electro winning, tailings management…Metso Outotec covers it all.

The new mineral processing entity might be less than a week old, but many in the industry would have, no doubt, had some burning questions to ask since the planned merger was announced on July 4, 2019.

IM had a chance to put some of these questions to Stephan Kirsch, President Minerals business area, Metso Outotec, gaining an initial impression of what the combination of the two companies means for the Minerals business he heads up.

IM: What big mining industry challenge will the combined group be better placed to tackle? What equipment/solutions/expertise within the group are the most important in achieving these goals?

SK: One issue – although not technology-focused – is community engagement.

Some mining operations in the world face challenges in terms of engaging with local communities and returning benefits to them. There is a social responsibility for mining companies, as they are the operators, but also for mining industry supporters involved in such projects.

That said, the vast majority of the mining industry runs initiatives that ensure communities understand mining companies are not just there to extract the iron, copper or gold and make money from it. They give back to local stakeholders and help improve community standards.

Stephan Kirsch, President Minerals business area, Metso Outotec

From a technology perspective, an industry issue we are well equipped to tackle is tailings management. With our combined offering, we look very seriously into solutions that can involve dewatering, dry stacking, and the reprocessing of tailings.

You asked about the products involved in solving these challenges…that includes filtration technologies, bulk materials handling products for conveying and stacking, and then various ore sorting technologies for the reprocessing.

Another trend to highlight is the use of energy or, more specifically, the need to reduce power consumption. There is some work to do here.

When you go and buy a car, you tend to focus on the fuel consumption. The mining industry, however, aims for high installed power because there is a sentiment that more power in the mill means more product out of the mill, more fines and, as a result, better downstream recoveries. In a way that is true for technologies like horizontal mills, ball mills and SAG mills, but when you turn to different, newer technologies it is not always the case.

One of these technologies is HPGRs which were introduced in the minerals industry in the mid-80s. Today, HPGRs are used in high tonnage, competent, abrasive ore applications due to their lower specific power draw and other downstream benefits compared to conventional technologies.

One can add to this, conserving other natural resources such as water. Water scarcity is obviously a problem and we should look at the recycling of process water wherever possible (that is where the filtration technology comes into play again) at the same time as examining more energy-efficient flowsheets.

There is quite a bit we can do to solve some of these challenges from a mineral processing perspective, but, the problem is, the industry remains conservative and anything new takes time to be implemented sustainably.

IM: I know Metso has previously talked about creating a bulk ore sorting solution for industry. Considering this, do you as Metso Outotec expect to continue leveraging the agreement Outotec has in place with TOMRA to carry out more sensor-based ore sorting projects? Alongside this, will you continue with your own bulk sorting projects?

SK: Early removal of tailings/overburden from the processing plant feed has been the operator’s dream for probably a century! This concept of preconcentration has been a consideration for many years, but in the last 30 or so years, technologies with different sensors have been developed to help with this separation process.

It is the ability to use sensor technology to single out particles on a conveyor belt at an appropriate speed and quantity that is the industry challenge. After all, when it comes to mining, we are talking about bulk materials that must be processed, not single elements like you have in the recycling and food sectors where much of this sensor technology originated from.

You need to look at the operating economics of such plants. When I say economics, I am factoring in throughput and recovery rates: you want a high tonnage and you don’t want to waste your ore, which is already low grade compared with what was being mined, say, 30 years ago.

The answer to your question is that Metso has been looking into preconcentration technologies for some time – we have R&D projects and partners looking at it. The same is the case with Outotec. Going forward, we will analyse this and make a call on whatever is the best combination to continue with such work.

Personally, I am a big believer in segregating waste as early in the process as possible to save energy downstream. But there are technical challenges to this.

IM: Both companies have been expanding their modular offering in recent years (Metso with its flexible FIT™ stations and the smart Foresight™ stations/Outotec with its modular paste backfill plants and HIGmill): is a lot of your mining and metals R&D currently focused on reducing the footprint of your solutions?

SK: Our R&D budget – as you probably heard on the webcast last week – is quite significant when put together. As Metso Outotec committed to keep both of our budgets unchanged, the spend comes to about €100 million ($112 million). A market survey we carried out revealed that, in terms of R&D spend, we are at the top of the industry.

Then, we must spend this money wisely wherever we see it being applied most economically for the benefit of our customers and for Metso Outotec. The modular crushing stations you mention are an area of interest we started developing years ago. We see good potential for this modular offering and will continue to develop it.

As for the percentage of the budget we will dedicate to it, this will – like all R&D projects – be analysed alongside others for crushing, grinding and all separation technologies with a strong focus on product innovations, digitalisation and sustainability.

IM: As you hinted at earlier, do you see tailings management being one of the combined group’s core strengths?

SK: It is one big focus area for us, but only one.

Crushing and grinding, which I mentioned earlier, is another strong area. We are a market leader in some of the crushing technologies we offer, and high up the industry when it comes to grinding technologies. We plan to really expand on this side.

I mentioned HPGRs where we have brilliant, world-class technology, but are missing the installed base. With 20-25 years of HPGR experience, I know we have the technology to make a difference, we just need to effectively bring it to market.

The whole re-grind space is really a future area for us to pursue due to industry-wide issues of falling grades, the need to reduce power consumption and fine grinding requirements.

Back to the original question, I expect Metso Outotec to be a strong player for dewatering and tailings management solutions.

IM: Outotec has a much more developed downstream business in areas like hydrometallurgy and smelting, etc in mining than Metso – will this remain a core part of the combined group?

SK: The front-end strength of Metso for mineral processing plants and the wet processing business focus of Outotec shows how well both companies complement one another. From a technical perspective, this is one of the reasons why the merger of Metso and Outotec makes much sense.

IM: In what segments of the mining and metals market do you see the most complementary solutions within Metso and Outotec?

SK: When we brought these two companies together it is amazing how many renowned international mineral processing experts came with it. We can provide much more comprehensive services to the industry because we can look at the entire flowsheet – from run of mine ore, to metal.

Why is this so important for our customers? You can bundle equipment together to make tenders and dealing with OEMs more economical for mining companies. But, more than that, we can bring a much larger pool of experts to a project to interact and talk with each other to provide the right innovations. This is the ‘one plus one equals three’ effect.

We can also look at balancing the equipment so, for example, the primary crusher is appropriately configured to produce the right ore for the secondary crushing process and the screens are amply sized to effectively carry out their job. That then leads to finding the optimal operating point for the HPGRs and milling equipment and then the downstream processing segment. This type of equipment balancing is highly interesting for the market, creating win-win situations for customers and us as an OEM.

IM: Do you see your relationship with mining customers changing because of this holistic approach?

SK: Yes and no. There are companies that will appreciate this wider offering and there are others that will continue to come to us as part of a more traditional way of tendering for mineral processing equipment.

I see a trend where larger companies are coming back to reliable OEMs because the availability, sustainability and reliability of equipment is much more important than saving a dollar in capex in the first place. That is a trend we have seen strengthen even more recently with COVID; we all know when a plant is not running, it costs operators hundreds of thousands of dollars per day in lost revenue.

Yet, there are always customers that say capex is king. They will do everything they can to tender it most competitively from a capital expense perspective, regardless of the long-term total cost of ownership benefits choosing another solution will have.

IM: How will your digital offering be strengthened through the combination?

SK: At Metso, we started, especially in South America, with a strong operation and presence in terms of remote control and remote operating and maintenance support for processing plants.

The service solutions that have been developed and established in some countries, specifically for Metso and for Metso equipment, in the new company will, of course, be transferred into the installed base of Outotec (for example, a facility previous owned by Outotec in Espoo, Finland, is now a Metso Outotec Performance Center facility).

We often heard from customers: ‘We have great equipment from the Outotec side, but we have never experienced the great Metso services.’

What is so encouraging to see is that there is demand from the industry for such a combination of equipment and services.

IM: Where do you see an overlap of solutions (for instance, possibly crushing and grinding equipment (SAG/AG/ball mills), vertical crushing tech (Vertimill/HIG mill)) or flotation (Outotec has a greater market share but Metso supplies some interesting options like column flotation, plus is the leader in flotation camera monitoring with VisioFroth)? Historically, have you been competing against each other for contracts in these market segments?

SK: As you know, for 12 months or so, there was intense scrutiny from the regulatory authorities to find out if the companies could merge or not because of an overlap, and the answer that came back is yes.

From a regulatory authority perspective, there is no overlap, and, from a technical perspective, I view it in a similar way.

One prime example to give would be the Vertimill (below, left) and the HIGmill (below, right). If you look at both in detail and you talk to customers – which has happened when we have our project meetings and negotiations – you often find that the applications being examined are so specific that both mills, although close when it comes to operating process, have their own sweet spots.

                      

Most of the cases where we, as Metso and Outotec, won or lost a tender, the argument was not around price or sentiment; it was always technical where, for example, the feed was too coarse for the HIGmill, or the end product needed to be so fine that the Vertimill was ruled out.

We, therefore, want to continue offering both technologies; we will not shelve one because we believe there is room for both solutions.

IM: Could this combination then enable you to offer a more customised solution for customers?

SK: That is where the benefit (from the combined Metso Outotec) for the industry really kicks in; our customers are not just getting standard solutions; some tailoring is involved. They will be able to get more specific and solution-oriented, performance-balanced pieces of equipment.

IM: Would you like to add anything else?

SK: I need to say that I am quite excited about the opportunities for the new company, Metso Outotec. There are benefits for both us and the wider industry.

Personally, I am humbled to be elected to run such a large organisation of industry experts and high-quality equipment. It is exciting times ahead.

Zest WEG keeps DRC mining project on track in face of COVID-19 restrictions

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The Zest WEG Group, a subsidiary of leading Brazilian motor and controls manufacturer WEG, is intent on keeping its customers’ projects on track despite COVID-19-related travel restrictions and has devised a way to complete the final step in the manufacturing process remotely.

In an innovative first to keep a customer’s mining project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on schedule, Zest WEG successfully conducted a remote witness test of medium voltage (MV) variable speed drives (VSDs) in WEG’s Brazil factory.

David Spohr, Business Development Executive for high-voltage equipment at South Africa-based Zest WEG, said these extraordinary times called for extraordinary measures.

“With the restrictions on international travel, we had to think creatively about how to complete this final step in the manufacturing process – the witnessed factory acceptance test (FAT) – before the equipment could be shipped to the DRC site,” he said.

Under normal circumstances, these tests would require the customer to travel to Brazil and spend a week at the factory witnessing and signing off a range of detailed test and equipment requirements.

This order comprised two 7 MW, 3,300 V WEG MVW01 VSDs for the ball and SAG mill drive application and two 1.2 MW, 3,300 V WEG MVW01 VSDs for the high pressure grinding roll (HPGR) mill application. Both applications required non-standard features, according to the company, namely “frozen charge protection” software on the ball and SAG mill application and a “master and follower” configuration on the HPGR mill application, it said.

Spohr said: “It was essential that we did not delay the customer’s project, so we arranged to conduct the witness test using web-based communication software. This allowed the participation of Zest WEG experts, the engineering contractor and the end user, all from the safety of their homes in Johannesburg – communicating with five testing technicians in the WEG factory in Brazil.”

Using a high-definition camera and web-based communication software, the factory technicians were able to walk the contractor and end user through each element of the FAT, with clear and real-time visual images of the test results and equipment on the factory floor, according to the company.

The tests continued for three days, beginning at 13:00 and ending at 19:00 to account for time zone differences. Testing covered three key areas – PLC communication software integration, full functional testing and full load testing, according to the company.

“As with any other witnessed FAT, the customer was provided with a comprehensive results report by WEG,” Spohr said. “This enabled the customer to check, in exactly the same way, that the remote FAT results were within the required tolerances.”

Spohr noted that this pioneering step is likely to influence the way these tests are done in future.
“It has shown that the testing can be done to the same standards, but with significant savings in time and cost,” he said.

Weir secures largest-ever individual mining order from Fortescue

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The Weir Group says it has been awarded a £100 million ($123 million) order to provide industry-leading energy saving solutions to the Iron Bridge magnetite project, a joint venture between Fortescue Metals Group and Formosa Steel IB.

The order, which includes a range of Weir crushing and pump equipment including Enduron® high pressure grinding rolls (HPGRs) and GEHO® pumps, will reduce energy consumption and wet tailings waste by more than 30% compared with traditional mining technologies, according to the equipment manufacturer.

The Iron Bridge project, 145 km south of Port Hedland in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, is a $2.6 billion investment in premium magnetite iron ore reserves with annual production, when the mine is fully operational, of 22 Mt/y of 67% Fe concentrate. Delivery of the first ore is expected in 2022.

When the mine build was approved back in April, Fortescue CEO, Elizabeth Gaines, said the innovative design for the project, which included the use of a dry crushing and grinding circuit, “will deliver an industry-leading energy efficient operation with globally competitive capital intensity and operating costs”.

A pilot project to verify the Iron Bridge project design involved processing 1 Mt of ore through a full scale HPGR and air classifier, according to Fortescue.

Weir Group Chief Executive Officer, Jon Stanton, said: “We are delighted to have secured this landmark contract, which is Weir’s largest-ever individual mining order.

“Fortescue challenged us to help create one of the most energy and cost-efficient magnetite ore processing facilities in the world. Our engineers have worked relentlessly to design a solution that is truly innovative – delivering significant energy, water and cost savings. This is a great example of working in close partnership with an ambitious customer who shares our passion for using innovative engineering to make mining more productive and sustainable.”

Ricardo Garib, President of the Weir Minerals division, added: “Our team are really enjoying working with Fortescue. Our engineers relish a challenge and it has been great to work on a project that demonstrates the substantial cost and environmental savings that our range of solutions can offer.

“As more mines look to increase productivity, we look forward to even more opportunities to leverage our combination of passionate people, innovative solutions and comprehensive global service capability.”

Weir’s Enduron HPGRs are increasingly replacing conventional mills in comminution (crushing, screening and grinding) circuits because of their substantially lower energy consumption and potential for significant total cost of ownership reduction, Weir says.

“Not only do they require as much as 40% less energy than traditional alternatives, but their wearable components last much longer and the maintenance time required to replace worn out parts is significantly lower.”

The company outlined the reasons why companies are turning to Enduron HPGRs in a blog post earlier this week.