Review and redesign of Pilbara Iron 24MTA conveyor system

Abstract

[Abstract]: The resource sector is booming and with commodity prices at its highest levels in decades, mining companies are under severe pressure to keep their production facilities running at its maximum capacity. In an already resource strained environment the competition for resources to implement new expansion projects is fierce. With cost levels rising significantly, more focus is put on the optimisation of existing facilities to maximise its capacity. This project seeks to investigate the theoretical design basis of an iron ore processing facility as well as the implementation of process flow modeling to optimise plant production capacity. Due to the extreme demand for iron ore, the Pilbara Iron, Yandicoogina mine site has gone through a number of expansion upgrades over the last nine years. The mine site has expanded from its original capacity of 15 MTA in 1998 to 52 MTA in 2007. Little or not enough time is spent on the optimisation of the existing facilities. The collection of downtime caused by equipment related failures is simply not enough to identify plant bottlenecks and problematic areas, let alone justifying new projects. Currently no simulation tools to predict plant bottlenecks and future expansion projects are utilised on site. The main objective of this project was to develop a simulation process flow model that could be used in optimisation studies to analyse the current Yandicoogina, 24 MTA plant’s performance and to maximise its capacity up to and possibly beyond its design capacity. Although the model had its own limitations the results from the model was very realistic and the results from the Pareto Down time analysis complimented the simulation model results. It was found that a bottleneck exist on YCV-22. A total annualised production loss of $1,058,200 based on a $5/tonne profit was realised for the period Sept. 2006 – Sept. 2007. It is recommended to increase the capacity on YCV-22 to 1,900 tph. The project report will be focused on identifying the constraining parameters such as bottlenecks which prevents the 24 MTA plant from achieving its design capacity of 4,400 tph. A brief overview of an iron ore processing facility and process flow modeling methods available will be used to analyse its current performance in order to and optimise the facility to its maximum capacity.