Report on the Successful Minerals Industry Seminar 2008 seminar report... · Web viewThe second presentation ‘Development and Recent Applications of Wemco HMS and Flotation Cells’

Report on the Successful 2008 Minerals Industry Seminar

Once again this event, jointly sponsored and organised by The MES Southern Group, IoM³ South Midlands Branch and by the Coal Preparation Branch of the Coal Research Forum (CRF), proved a popular and very successful day. It was held as usual at the Staff Club, University of Nottingham which provides excellent facilities for such meetings. The seminar was once again a full day format with 6 excellent papers and a complimentary buffet at lunchtime. It started at 9.30 and finished by 16.30 to miss any traffic congestion around Nottingham. Unlike previous events there was no specific theme to the Seminar and the presentations were specially chosen from a wide range of minerals related subjects, including international contributions, specifically to encourage members’ participation. It appears to have worked as delegate numbers exceeded the previous year. Or perhaps word is getting around that it is now a major minerals industry event and well worth attending. The free buffet lunch maybe contributes as well!!

The President Mike Gurr with our guest speakers L to R Michael Davies, Rod Stace, Dr Bozzato, Keith Wilkes, Nigel Yaxley and Mark Mounde

Anyway, the MES President, Mr Mike Gurr opened the proceedings by welcoming everyone to Nottingham and invited Brian Everitt to Chair the morning session. Brian has been heavily involved in the commissioning of a new coal preparation plant at Tabas, Iran and organised the first paper by Dr Paolo Bozzato.

The first presentation was prepared and planned as a joint presentation by Dr Bozzato together with Hassan Noori Process Engineer from the client Impasco and Mehrdad Ghaffari CPP Engineering Co-ordinator from the main contractor IRITEC. Unfortunately delays with obtaining travel visas meant the Iranian engineers couldn’t make the seminar leaving Dr Bozzato to present all three elements of the presentation.

Dr Bozzato with his presentation on the Tabas mine and CPP

The presentation which was split into three parts gave an overview of the first fully mechanised new mine in Iran which had been developed to exploit significant reserves of high quality coking coal to provide a strategic feed stock for the Iranian steel industry.Dr Bozzato provided a history of the project from its inception in the early 1990’s through to the hand over of the completed mine in 2008.The remote desert location of the mine and the steep seam mining layout were described, as was the fully mechanised longwall face and development systems which have been employed to produce a planned 0.75mtpa of coking coal from around 1.5mtpa of ROM coal.The coal, with its difficult washability characteristics and its very friable nature and low yield called for an innovative approach to the design of the flowsheet to maximise yield, meet the product specifications and minimise the loss of water from the system.Dr Bozzato outlined with the help of a series of slides, how the flowsheet had evolved following various laboratory scale tests and simulations, into the final flowsheet from which the plant had been constructed.This flowsheet included sizing and de-sliming at 6.0mm and 0.5mm, a primary Tri-Flo 700 for the 50mm x 6.0mm and two Tri-Flo 500’s for the 6.0mm – 0.5mm raw coal, the middlings from the 700 are crushed through a cage mill and re-cleaned in the 500’s. The <0.5mm raw coal is fed to a column flotation plant, with the concentrate being de-watered along with the <6.0mm clean coal from the Tri-flo 500’s in screen bowl centrifuges. Effluent from the centrifuges is recovered via a dedicated column, with the superfine concentrate being de-watered in a plate press. Tailings are fed to a conventional thickener with the tailings being de-watered by plate presses.Using a series of slides Dr Bozzato reviewed the performance which had been achieved from the plant with significantly inferior ROM quality than was anticipated.Typical problem with a new plant were highlighted and these were complicated further by the fact that all of the personnel employed on the plant were young and totally inexperienced in the technology and its application.The plant is performing satisfactorily with process efficiencies generally as expected from the main cleaning systems. The main tasks now, being to develop the training and experience of the operating personnel.

The second presentation ‘Development and Recent Applications of Wemco HMS and Flotation Cells’ was by Keith Wilkes, Senior Sales Manager with FL Smidth, (previously Dorr Oliver Eimco (DOE)). Keith explained the successful application of

Wemco Drums using magnetite and ferrosilicon mediums in the minerals and re-cycling industries, highlighting the improvements in design and linings which have resulted in the HMS becoming the recognised ‘work-horse’ of many mineral processing plants. The decisions by Wemco to develop their ‘1+1’ and ‘Smart cell’ froth flotation technologies in preference to column flotation were justified by the wide success of both machines. Currently a 300m³ unit is on test in the USA (representing a 100 x increase in capacity in the last 40 years). Efficiency claims for coal applications were backed up with results from applications in UK, Australia and Siberia.

Keith Wilkes of FL Smidth

Following an excellent buffet during which participants were able to renew old acquaintances and meet new faces, the first afternoon session, chaired by David Eastwood, South Midlands IoM³ President, started with a presentation by Nigel Yaxley who provided an up-to-date scenario for trends in the international markets in steam and coking coals. Nigel is MD for the Association of UK Coal Importers (CoalImp) and is a master at lobbying politicians to plan future energy requirements maximising the use of domestic and imported coals. His well illustrated presentation covered world supply / demand, reserves / resources, international price variations, seabourne trading trends and UK coal production and utilisation. Coal is by far the fastest growing fuel whether the environmentalists like it or not and is dominated by China. The major coal exporters are now Australia (mainly coking coal) and Indonesia with Russia a major supplier to Europe. The wide fluctuations in international trade prices for steam coals were highlighted ($65/T in Jan 2007, peaking at $225/T in July before falling to ~$100/T in November). His message was that coal is here to stay and the UK will continue to be reliant on its use in the foreseeable future.

Nigel Yaxley MD of the Association of Coal Importers

The fourth paper by Mark Mounde of Scott Wilson Consultants provided an enlightening insight into the world of international consultancy in the coal and minerals industries. Mark explained some of the difficulties facing international consultant companies when trying to gather verifiable information on mining company assets and plans, in order to produce competent person reports etc for clients. Much of a consultants work is involved with resource assessment and business prospects for potential investors. In some cases the geological information is not available in the required detail and mining plans not fully developed. Consideration of environmental, health and safety, mining, processing and finance issues must all be investigated to determine the true value of a company, ensuring there are no hidden legacies involved (eg high reclamation costs etc). Mark explained with a few examples how frustrating such projects can become but also stressed the need for independent assessments by qualified professionals in the mining business development.

Mark Mounde of Scott Wilson Consultants

A short break for tea preceded the last Session chaired by David Baillie, Secretary of MES Southern Group. Delegates were delighted to hear of the re-surgence of mining in South Wales, from Michael Davies, General Manager of Aberpergwyn Mine which is currently under full development by EnergyBuild Ltd. Aberpergwm deep mine currently produces around 3600T/week of premium quality anthracite, rising to

5000T/week in January 2009. There are 7.6mT licensed reserves with potentially 110mT ‘in-situ’ resources from the 9’ and 18’ seams. It is planned to produce 750,000T/year by 2011 from shortwall face and by board & pillar mining techniques. The development of the impressive new drift was illustrated in a series of slides, together with the future mining plans. The washing facilities at Tower Colliery are currently being utilised whereas an on-site coal preparation plant at Aberpergwm is scheduled for re-vamping and expanding in the near future. The current and long-term markets for high quality anthracite are considered very secure and in 2007, 225,000T of EnergyBuild production was burnt in Aberthaw Power Station.

Michael Davies of EnergyBuild Ltd

The final presentation of the day was given by Rod Stace, Associate Professor at The Nottingham Centre for Geomechanics (NCG), University of Nottingham. Although the university ceased to provide degrees in mining engineering in 2002 research into mining related subjects continued under the auspices of the NCG since 2003. Rods’ presentation started by explaining the overall international scope of Nottingham University, with links in China and Malaysia. The staffing and student numbers, together with the income from teaching and research were quantified and explained. Research income accounted for ~20% of a total income of £382 million in 2006/07. The extent of the analytical, experimental and field research facilities for soil testing and rock mechanics were described in detail showing the £0.5m centrifuge specially build to provide facilities for examining confining stresses in soils at x100G. The 3 dimensional numerical modelling capabilities used for assessing stress concentrations in rock excavations were explained, before he concluded by identifying the financial difficulties experienced in attracting research funding.

Rod Stace of the University of Nottingham

To round off the Seminar proceedings, Andrew Howells, as Chairman of the Coal Preparation Division of the CRF, cleverly summarized the contributions given by all the presenters and thanked them for the time and effort they had devoted to the preparation and presentation of their papers. He also thanked and congratulated the organisers of the event and wished everyone a safe journey home.

Andrew Howells thanks the speakers and the delegates for contributing to another successful seminar.

Copies of many of the presentations can be viewed on both the CRF and MES websites, or copies can be e-mailed directly if requested, from [email protected]