Mipac is helping EPCM Milestone to build a Yokogawa DCS interface as part of the $360 million expansion of the Glencore-owned McArthur River Mine (MRM) in the Northern Territory.
The MRM Phase 3 Development Project is designed to increase production capacity from 2.5 million tonnes to more than five million tonnes per year. Reserves will increase by about 70 million tonnes to 115 million tonnes, making MRM the largest zinc resource in the world.
To increase throughput, the project involves the addition of:
- a new power station
- a primary crushing plant
- a secondary/tertiary crushing plant
- a 11.5 Megawatt ball mill
- an upgrade to the IsaMill™ regrind circuit (the site has eight IsaMills™)
- nine new rougher flotation cells, and
- a new concentrate dewatering filter
While there are still several months of commissioning to go, Mipac engineers have collaborated with their Milestone and MRM colleagues to make considerable progress.
“The power station is operational, the flotation cells are online and the regrind commissioning was ready for a process tie-in shutdown ahead of schedule,” Mipac Systems Engineer Alex Burns says.
“The mill substation DCS and MCCs have been powered and the ball mill commissioning and tying in of the DCS to the rest of the plant network is underway.
“The motor lube system commissioning is ongoing and work has started on the dewatering filter press system and the loop commissioning of the ball mill DCS.”
Commissioning is expected to be completed by end June 2014.
