Fertilizer International 497 Jul-Aug 2020
31 July 2020
Weir Minerals: the engineering experts
MINING ENGINEERING
Weir Minerals: the engineering experts
Weir Minerals has the global engineering expertise to tackle the world’s harshest and most extreme mine and quarry environments. These range from Canada’s frozen north to tropical Indonesia and the remote deserts of Chile, Mongolia and Australia. This expertise extends to Florida’s phosphate mining district, where a dedicated multi-disciplinary team is delivering an integrated approach to some tough mining challenges.
Engineering expertise has always been the driving force behind the success of Weir Minerals, ever since brothers James and George Weir invented the Weir boiler feed pump in 1871, founding what would later become the Weir Group.
For almost 150 years, Weir has built its business on the principle that if something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right – and to do something right in mining, you need the right team.
An integrated approach
Today, Weir Minerals assembles and deploys bespoke multi-disciplinary teams to reliably resolve even the most intractable customer problems. Known as Integrated Solutions teams, these combine diverse experience from comminution to tailings, from chemistry to hydraulics.
“We need integrated solutions now more than ever. With this approach, we continually listen to our customer’s pain points and identify ways in which we can improve their process,” says John McNulty, Vice President of Global Engineering and Technology at Weir Minerals. “Integrated Solutions also aligns closely with the Weir Group’s sustainability strategy. We often talk to our customers about the challenges they face in terms of energy consumption, water usage and waste, and brainstorm ways in which we can help reduce their environmental impact. In the current climate, this approach is absolutely critical.”
When confronted with a problem that requires more than a single piece of equipment, Weir Minerals draws on its Integrated Solutions teams. These are made up of process engineers, design engineers, product experts, materials scientists, supply chain and logistics experts, as well as local sales teams who know the customer’s site back to front.
These multi-disciplinary teams make sure that a problem is considered from all perspectives. This ensures that potential issues and opportunities to optimise the circuit are identified, with upstream and downstream benefits.
Expertise for every mine and quarry
With almost 10,000 employees operating in more than 50 countries, Weir Minerals can build teams with working experience of every kind of mine and quarry – in environments ranging from Canada’s frozen Oil Sands region and Indonesia’s rain-prone coal mines to remote deserts in Chile, Mongolia and Australia.
In Florida’s phosphate mining region in the United States, Weir’s Integrated Solutions team has revealed how understanding and selecting the right type of equipment and equipment materials is important as well.
“While material selection always plays an important role in selecting the right equipment, it’s a particularly important task in the phosphate industry,” says Paul Mattson, a Process Optimization Engineer for Weir Minerals.
“Not only does the phosphate industry face high erosion concerns, as all of the mining industry does, it also faces high corrosion concerns. The best materials for corrosion and the best materials for erosion do not typically overlap, making the importance of material selection that much more critical.”
Nothing is impossible, even crocodiles!
In addition to selecting the right equipment and materials – to provide maximum efficiency and wear life in any given situation – the wide-ranging expertise within Integrated Solutions teams allows them to troubleshoot and provide tailor-made answers to particular problems, according to the local situation and circumstances. Examples include flying in equipment when roads freeze in winter, finding ways to prevent crocodiles climbing onto floating equipment, or turning waste products like tailings into a resource.
“For us, we believe nothing is ‘impossible’ and we continually look for better ways of doing things,” says Seda Kahraman, a Regional Process Engineering Manager for Weir Minerals.”
“Our team is made up of specialists each possessing different process systems’ expertise including, but not limited to: troubleshooting, designing tools, and process simulation programs. We combine this wealth of knowledge to deliver innovative solutions that address our customers’ varied needs.”
Unique interdisciplinary expertise
The key to Weir Minerals’ Integrated Solutions approach is the collaboration between an entire team of experts. This ensures that the root causes of a customer’s challenge are identified and that all the contributing factors are fully scoped. This is where Weir Minerals’ unique interdisciplinary expertise has proved to be invaluable.
Teams typically perform process audits during site visits to identify bottlenecks. They then advise on the most appropriate solution for the customer using flowsheets, mass balances, 3D layouts, and feasibility studies. The aim is not just to resolve the problem the customer came to Weir Minerals with, but to go beyond this and optimise their process as well. By saving energy, reducing water and waste, or increasing capacity, this ultimately saves the customer money.
About Weir Minerals
Weir Minerals employs more than 8,900 people worldwide, delivering end-to-end solutions for all mining, dewatering, transportation, milling, processing and waste management activities. Annual revenues were more than £1.2 billion in 2014. Weir Minerals has an advanced product range incorporating brands such as Warman® centrifugal slurry pumps, GEHO® PD slurry pumps, Linatex® rubber products, Vulco® wear resistant mill linings, Cavex® hydrocyclones, Trio® crushers and screens, Enduron® comminution equipment, Isogate® slurry valves, Multiflo® mine dewatering solutions, and Lewis® Pumps.
Expert Integrated Solutions teams from Weir Minerals deliver reliable and efficient mining solutions to customers, based on the company’s industry-leading equipment.
